Fate or Folly?

It is not possible to visit Innamincka without coming across the story of Burke and Wills, and their ill-fated expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf. Innamincka is the name of the town that is closest to where King, the only surviving member of the four-man team that made the Gulf, was discovered. Without him, the entire story may never have been known.

The question of the title is borrowed from an article on the walls of an outback exhibition at the dig tree. In it, the author offers about six circumstances, of which any one being different would have saved the party. Some of these could have been made different by the expeditioners, and some were out of their control. Their choice of horses over camels, doing the journey in summer, departing from Melbourne instead of a railhead and sacking your 2IC partway through may be considered folly. Missing the relief party by a day on the first meeting, then again two weeks later could have been bad luck.

The fact is that Burke was ill-equipped to head an elaborate expedition, both in experience, manner and ability. Dazzled by the promise of fame and the 2000 pound prize on offer, his grand scheme captured the minds of a Melbourne public, riding the crest of the gold-rush wave and brimming with confidence. The Australian outback though thinks little of such bravado. It is a mark of the nature of the Australian character that we remember him as an explorer dying in the attempt in dramatic, but ultimately pitiful circumstances, rather than for the pain and suffering he inflicted on those surrounding him. It is also a fact that with much less fanfare and not so long afterward, many parties made similar journeys to settle, stock with cattle and sheep, explore, and lay telegraph lines.

The outline of the story is that Burke set out from Melbourne with a large team of horses, camels and men with two tonnes of supplies – enough for two years. Frustrated by slow progress he left supplies and men at various camps along the way in an attempt to be faster and leaner. The most famous of these was camp 65 on Cooper’s Creek, from which Burke, Wills, Gray and King left to make a dash for the Gulf, instructing those left behind to wait for at least two months, but as long as possible. That was in December 1960. The four made it to the Gulf, and Gray, died on the return journey from starvation after Wills had beat him for taking extra rations. They spent a day digging a grave for him and resting from the exertion. The legend goes that the relief party left in the morning,and the expeditioners returned at 7:30 that same night, finding a blaze on the tree instructing them to dig for supplies. There is some doubt about that because the dates in the explorers journal may contain some dating errors, perhaps due to fatigue. In any event, it was close. The supplies sustained the three, but assuming no help would return, they left a note in the remaining supplies, reburied them, and made for Mt Hopeless, some 260km away to the south. A relief party returned to the area some two weeks later, but finding no evidence of the returned travellers, they again went away. Meanwhile, finding the desert to the south dry and impenetrable, they again turned North back to the Cooper, where Burke and Wills died a day or so apart some five weeks later.  King, having better relations with the local aborigines, survived to be rescued a month or so later when a search party was sent out. He was found just south of the current Innamincka township, some 60km from Camp 65 and its famous “Dig Tree”.

Our exploration of the area was somewhat cut short by many roads being closed due to the recent flooding. The site of King’s rescue was originally marked by a blaze on a tree. The blaze has been returned to the site, even though the original tree died and was cut down. A memorial to Burke’s grave is about 6km East of the town, his remains having been restored to Melbourne for reburial. Wills original gravesite some 20km south of the town was inaccessible.

Innamincka is in SA, but the Dig Tree is in Queensland, on Nappa Merrie station, now part of the empire of the Stanbroke Pastoral Company. The site has been preserved as a joint venture by the company and Australian Geographic. The ranger on duty was an old drover who worked for 40 years in the area. He just wanted to chat and would no doubt have shown us many more photos, if only we’d had the time. The blaze on the tree is now all but grown over, the tree being still healthy 150 years later. An adjacent tree was carved with likenesses of the two men in the 1890s by a local, the one of Burke is still visible.

Leaving the last planned stop of our journey behind, we made our way through the channel country still looking lush and green following the flooding and into the oil and gas country. Tonight finds us in a roadside rest area (complete with picnic table and toilet – what luxury!) at the junction of the road east with the turnoff to Eromanga. It is on this road we will travel tomorrow. The swarms of mozzies which took over at dusk from the swarms of flies though have chased us to an early bed.

The Desert in Bloom

After all that worry about what the roads would be like if they are open, I completely missed the point about what that would mean for the desert. Flowers! Today we were treated to massed displays, mostly only about 4 or 5 different varieties, but the coverings were immense.

We needn’t have worried about the clouds bringing rain last night. The clouds eventually all disappeared leaving a clear night. The clouds were however cleared away by a strong southerly change, probably 40km/h and the rest. This made for a rather noisy night in a tent. We didn’t even hear a truck pull into our rest area. By morning the winds were blowing stronger than ever, so after a futile effort to make some breakfast and chasing stuff blown away we were on our way.

Initially there was little to indicate recent rains, other than a general greenish tinge. Then came a creek crossing and a waterhole looking full and happy. After that we came into vast spreads of flowers. Each area was in general dominated by one particular flower, but occasionally you would get some mixing. We had a pea-type flower in purple, orange, yellow and occasionally white. We had another type in reds which seemed to prefer slopes. We also had bunches of daisy-types, and another which was christened the fried egg plant, for obvious reasons.

This morning we started on roads we had not previously travelled. A couple of hours in we came upon the intersection with the Mt Hopeless road which is the road we travelled last time we were in the area. At that time it was a dry, desolate and barren place, totally in keeping with the name. Today the contrast was profound. Yellow flowers lined the roadside and there was heaps of green further off.

 

Next stop was a bore. Many bores on the great artesian basin have now been capped, stopping the wastage which happened for many decades after they were initially dug. A few are still free-flowing and these create localised wetlands. This was one such bore. Emerging at a slightly too warm temperature, you could regulate how hot you made it by moving up or down the channel which led to the main dam. Even though the day was still a chilly 17 degrees with a breeze blowing, after baking for a few minutes we were refreshed and ready to face the day again.

I had a demon to face today. When we were last here in 1999 we travelled in the commodore, which did a fine job, but got us severely bogged on a sand hill, not surprisingly. I set out today to find that road into the waterhole near Strzelecki Crossing. It wasn’t too hard to find once we had our bearings and the road was in much the same condition as we found it years ago. Nice, hard-packed clay on the way up and half way across the top, completely disappearing into sand on the way down. We elected not to tempt fate by driving down, satisfying ourselves with a turnaround on top, and a walk to the campground a few hundred metres away. While the road was much the same, the dune which had some sparse vegetation then was a blaze of colour today.

The Strzelecki Track passes through pastoral country in the south, which is mostly rolling plains gently undulating. As you go further north the sand dunes start coming in, mostly whitish in the south moving to reddish further north. Around Moomba, 100km from Innamincka, the landscape starts being criscrossed with oil exploration roads with very unfriendly signs, before arriving at Moomba itself. Describing itself as a hydrocarbon processing facility, it has no permanent onsite workforce. Most staff fly in from Adelaide for their two week shift. The public can only peer in from a distant lookout.

Innamincka has changed little since our last visit. The most marked change was that there were almost no cars in the carpark at the hotel, whereas last time there would have been 200 people there (but that was July, the peak of the tourist season). I have also had my fuel price attitude softened somewhat. After paying nearly $2 a litre on the Gibb River Road, the $1.70 something didn’t scare me at all. I might even get some.

Tonight thankfully the breeze has dropped to a more sensible level. I had almost resigned myself to a pub dinner if the wind kept up. A quick look at the menu though soon cured that. We would not have made it out of there under $200. Isabel has finally managed to make sense of the star charts we have carried all around. It has not been easy to find the right combination of moon, weather and grumpiness to do that, which has been a bit of a disappointment of the trip.

Tomorrow, on the trail of Burke and Wills.

Flinders Ranges Flypast

I spent a good deal too long last night on the internet checking out road conditions around Innamincka. While the Strzelecki Track is open to all vehicles, the road east into Queensland has been showing as open to 4WD vehicles with care. A bit more investigation revealed care required on soft edges and slippery sections. That kind of indicated I needed to find out a little more. There are weather stations in Moomba,west of Innamincka, and another one in Queensland in the gasfields at Ballera. They showed that there had been rain early in September, but nothing meaningful since the 10th in Moomba, and very little at Ballera except on the 10th and 19th when they had 5mm. The forecast for Innamincka said fine and 27. I figured if it was wet it would have dried out, and will be drying out rapidly. We are going, as planned, through Innamincka.

A quick tour of Port Augusta and we were on our way north. The first task is to climb from sea level up through Pitchi Ritchi Pass. This is famous for its historic steam railway. There was of course the ambit claim for a ride, but we did get to see it on its six hour run from Port Augusta into the Flinders Ranges and back. The land was very green, but we were chasing ahead of some rain down south, so it all had a bit of a Scottish Highland feel to it.

Our first stop was in Quorn. Many of the buildings in SA have a very solid feel to them. They are made of stone in general and range from ruins to immaculately preserved. I’m not sure whether the solid buildings reflect a confidence in the fledgeling colony, or whether it was the only suitable building materials available to settlers.

Next was a little way down the road is Hawker, one of the many towns claiming to be a gateway to the Flinders. I had half hoped we might get past this as I was almost certain it would cost us money. It was in Hawker that we bought Isabel’s Sturt Desert Pea quilt many years ago when we were in the area for her first birthday. A sign indicating a craft fair was terminal – we were going in.

Quilting and photography had certainly maintained its quality. There were some really quite stunning quilts on offer, but fortunately at prices that made them safe, and we really don’t need any. They did however tempt us with a range of other more minor goodies, so again Hawker has done well out of us.

Travelling North from Hawker you pass first the Elder Range, and then Wilpena Pound. Alas, no time at all to investigate so the kids just had to make do with our descriptions of the treasures to be found within. Having spent her first birthday down here we also needed to then go through each of her subsequent birthdays and try to remember what we did for each of them. Quite a challenge, and alas for the others not in any way possible for them. The disappointments of a subsequent child!

Recent rains, the ones causing our concern for the roads, had not only created some washouts and burials in the floodways, but had also brought out the wildflowers and the greenery. I suspect the purple is Patterson’s Curse, or Salvation Jane, depending on your point of view, but there was a range of other flowers, in pinks, purples, oranges, reds and yellows which we did not see last time. It creates quite a carpet in places.

Leigh Creek is a coal mine, or what passes for coal in these parts. It is used exclusively for power generation down south. Our side trip into the viewing lookout over the open cut revealed that the rains had taken their toll there as well. I suspect the pit is not meant to be full of water. There was also surprisingly little activity, so either the lookout was over a disused section, or they are all waiting for the water to go. The chief attraction was an old dragline left parked there for tourists to crawl all over. Having removed 22 million cubic metres of overburden, it had been put out to pasture.

On to Lyndhurst and the decision as to whether to camp or go on. Being before 4pm there was still plenty of daylight left. The downside was that it is 220km before the first major campsite on the track. It being about 460km to Innamincka I decided we should use the time travelling, so in we went. 80km down the road we found a rest area, so in we went to setup and watch the sunset. Only one truck has been past since, so I expect a quiet night.

I just hope those clouds stay away. Mozzies are our unexpected company for the night.

p.s. Prize for the first person to guess what this quilt was called.

In Search of the Nullarbor

The question came up today, where is the Nullarbor? I was kind of expecting there to be a sign – Welcome to the Nullarbor Plain. I would think we would have to be on it by now, but alas, no sign.

So I’d have to guess that it started at Madura Pass. This was the big surprise for me.  We had been going up and down over very lowly undulating ground. In addition, the vegetation had been changing, between grassy plains, wildflowers and low scrubby stuff. When you lose the trees, you think, “perhaps this is the Nullarbor”. Quite apart from the fact that it sounds aboriginal, it is in fact Latin, meaning “no trees”, so every time the trees disappear, you think it could be this.

My logic for thinking Madura Pass? After driving over all of the undulating stuff, only 100m or so above sea level, the sign saying “Madura Pass Lookout” was a bit of a surprise, after all, nothing had been high enough to look out from. But there it was. The road disappeared down an escarpment, and the view from the top was of a vast, flat treeless plain extending to the sea with the escarpment running across the back. At the bottom was a roadhouse, another golf hole, “Brumby’s Run”, and an explanation. The whole area used to be coastal and under the sea, depending on when in history you look at. The escarpment was limestone, formed when the high land was under the ocean. Then came a period when it was all under the ocean in a shallow and flat bay. During this time the ocean was chipping away at the limestone escarpment and filling the bay with sand. Then later the seas fell again, leaving the sandy bay now a poorly fertile plain, and hence no trees.

As Louis has alluded to, we spent the day in search of caves to explore. Staying at Cocklebiddy, we needed to explore the Cocklebiddy cave. It was closed due to a collapse in 2006. The sink hole entrance was immense, but the fence at the bottom near the entrance proper was unambiguous. This was a scene to be played out 3 times in that area, and again tonight.

We made for Eucla tonight, hearing that a cave in the area was open. From Madura the road was on the flat plain until Eucla, where it turned inland and climbed the escarpment. Here we turned off and went bush looking for the only cave on our map. As usual there were no signs, until we got close, and again, closed due to rock falls. Disappointing, but no matter. It has given us our first company-free campsite of the trip. There is probably not another soul within 10km of us. We are camped amongst some trees on the edge of a grassy field about the size of a dozen football grounds, immense starry sky above, and ample dry firewood within easy reach. While people clearly camp here, as remains abound, the “cave closed” sign still had a 6-digit phone number, so I don’t think many people come out here now. So nice and so quiet, with the moon now just rising.

Other trivia for the day. The Madura golf hole was called “Brumby’s Run” because as a pastoral lease it was famous for raising stock horses for export into the British armed forces. This cave is called “Weebubbie”. We can only assume there is another one called “Bigmumma” around somewhere.

Tomorrow we hit the border, being nearly there now. We have been in WA for more than 10 weeks, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Nullarbor Caves

Today was a very disappointing day in the way of caves. We had missed two caves on the way in yesterday, which we went back and looked for this morning. We found Cocklebiddy Cave, the first one, but there were lots of big unfriendly signs up saying COCKLEBIDDY CAVE CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, which was due to heavy rains in January 2006, or that’s what the sign was dated as.

We drove back to the highway and then to the next cave that we missed yesterday. On the way in, we were lucky enough to see a Bustard, which Elliot spotted walking across the road for a while. We followed it for a bit, then drove the rest of the way to the cave. This one was even more unfriendly than the last, with a fence all around the sinkhole and 4 Cave Risk Area signs. We walked around it for a bit, then got back in the car.

We drove for a few kms past the Roadhouse, where we turned off to go to another cave. This one had no Fence, a few cave risk area signs but it had 5m overhangs and a 10m bottom to the start of a “300m walk to the underground lake,” as our very unreliable Nullarbor guide book said.

Tonight we are camped at Weebubbie Cave, which is in essence a 50m diameter sinkhole that is a 10m drop. There was supposedly a ladder, but it is now closed due to heavy rains and rock falls. It is meant to be the famous one with two underground lakes that cavers snorkel in, but the road in doesn’t look like it has carried much traffic for a while. The road really deteriorates after the old repeater.

Hopefully we will have better luck in SA tomorrow, but it is unlikely we are going to do any more caves this holiday.

Louis  

Big Strides

Today was the day to play catchup. Having failed to reach Ceduna last night, the target for our much revised plan to get us home in time, we really needed to reach Port Augusta today. We managed it, covering the 650km and still arriving by 5pm.

The campsite last night turned out to be pretty much right on the beach, and in a magnificent spot behind the dunes. A quick investigation this morning didn’t tell us where we were, but it was signed as an official campground, albeit one with no facilities. We also had company last night. A pair in a campervan was putting large quantities of something combustible onto their fire to light up the sky. Later on another group of campers entertained us with fireworks. I suspect they are just as illegal here, but they were far enough away to not cause us a problem.

The morning revealed a sand dune – a reasonably big one, so with that as an incentive, the packup this morning was a rapid one. I had to spend some time cooking vegetables to get them through quarantine, so by the time we went looking for the kids they had vanished. This gave us a good excuse to go exploring. The point was a large limestone one jutting out between two bays. A lone stack in the bay evidence of the same processes that created the 12 (odd) apostles. The same clear water, white sand, blue skies and light winds made the whole scene pretty as a picture, and one which we have become quite accustomed to.

One the way out we checked out Fowlers Bay, whose primary claim to fame seems to be the annual New Years Day community sports carnival held since the 1890s. Fowlers Bay was on the way but we had to try hard to avoid Streaky Bay which was one of those famous nice spots, but we were on a timetable so it had to miss out.

Our progress today was somewhat aided by hundreds of kilometres of cropping and sheep country on gently undulating ground. There was little to slow us down as we successfully avoided the big galah and the “town with the secret” designed to get tourists to stop. (Izzy says that “there was No secret”).

Last thing before Port Augusta was Iron Knob. An impressive, in a flat, South Australian sort of way, minor range in front of the Flinders Ranges rising in the distance. No doubt it is called Iron Knob because it supports an iron mine, which in its turn no doubt supports the Whyalla Steel industry. It also boasts mine tours where we could have found these things out for sure, but we have done iron ore mines so again we passed.

Travel today had us back in radio country, and the phones beeping with messages as we came back in range all served to emphasise that we are approaching the end of our travels. Looking at the map to see how far we need to go to get home only serves to emphasise the thoughts of all of the things that await us there. Elliot sitting on a nice full piece of jam toast I’m sure had nothing to do with it.