by David Mason
I also decided not to move that day in order to allow mother and calf to become stronger. Instead, I set about making the camp more comfortable and recalculated the distances we would have to achieve to arrive at Steep Point in mid-November, before it got too hot.
Chloe giving birth to Dalhousie, just five kilometres short of Dalhousie Springs.
Distances along tracks marked on maps, calculated while waiting the day.
Dalhousie to Yulara
697
Yulara to Warburton
546
Warburton to Steep Point
1574
Total:
2817 kilometres
With just 120 days until mid-November, that meant more than 25 kilometres a day. Every day. We could not afford to slow down. We could not fail. Not now, not after all that we had done and endured. I was not yet willing to contemplate what this might mean for the future of little Dalhousie.
The sling worked and the next day we camped in the cattle yards at Dalhousie Springs, hot, fresh water springs, one of the many mound springs of the Great Artesian Basin. It was a stopping place for explorers and the early cameleers of Australia who brought supplies into the country and took away wool.
We had set off in the morning, not long after Dean Ah-Chee, the Witjira Park Ranger, dropped by to meet us, and we made it into Dalhousie Springs in mid-afternoon, covering the seven kilometres in about two hours.
Chloe was reassured at having little Dalhousie close and with his head up he could see the world. As for me, it was wonderful to soak my tired body in the warm springs while the camels ate the pigweed in the yards. I thought about another rest day, but we had to keep moving. The camels needed good feed and routine on the march and I knew I did too.
So, after a day of rest I packed up and we made it to 3 O’clock Creek late in the day. Little Dalhousie made the 14 kilometres unaided. I tried to put him into the sling on Chloe’s saddle but in two days he had already become too big and certainly much heavier. So, at 1 p.m. we set off and I wondered if Dalhousie could follow. He did, and despite lagging back on a couple of stretches he did wonderfully well. When he did hang back, Chloe called to him with a rippling throaty bellow and simply refused to move forward until he had joined us.
Chloe has just given birth to Dalhousie, just five kilometres short of Dalhousie Springs.
Kabul had been keeping a special eye on young Dalhousie. On the morning of the birth he was a most interested spectator. The day after the birth I introduced Kabul to Dalhousie and there was a great deal of sniffing of the new member of the team. If Kabul had not been the sire of Dalhousie, he would most likely have killed him. I knew that Kabul was the father and that they should get along, at least until Dalhousie became a teenager. Kabul put young Dalhousie in his place on a number of occasions. One time gripping his little head between his jaws, and later giving a nip, much to the bleating humiliation of the little fellow.
It rained all afternoon at 3 O’clock Creek. Most things were wet. I was tired, wrinkled, wet and early into the swag.
It was wet again next morning and to make the morning brew I went into the creek to get dry kindling where the stuff was trapped under trees during floods. Because I was obsessed about moving, during that cold rainy day I felt I had to shoot little Dalhousie. He was slowing our progress and I was very concerned that unless we moved at a reasonable rate we would not finish the trip. In the evening, by the fire, I cradled the rifle and opened the breech to the glint of brass. I looked over to Chloe and Dalhousie, who both watched intently.
With the rifle in my hand I walked across to Chloe, sitting down next to Dalhousie, to pat and reassure him. He nuzzled his head against my chest and I knew then it was too late. I had named and bonded with him. To shoot him now would be a treachery too serious to contemplate. But I was going to make sure he kept up, even if I had to carry him myself.
We moved from desert sand country to gibber plain that stretched to the horizon in the north-west and in the course of the day made more than 20 kilometres to beyond Opossum Creek where we found a lonely one-room stone ruin. There were plenty of dingo tracks around the camp and during the night I saw their eyes reflecting the firelight. Little Dalhousie made the camp particularly attractive for dingos, animals that can readily take a camel calf. With Chloe by his side, however, I doubted if a dingo would have an opportunity to harm him. And it would only take a few weeks before he would be too big for a dingo to consider attacking.
We moved across red and shattered rocks the size of cricket balls where finding a safe place for my feet was difficult. I let the camels make their own time, weaving their way around the rocks and we camped 15 kilometres short of Mount Dare Station, formerly a cattle station but now a camp site and hotel servicing desert travellers.
It rained and stormed intermittently during the night and the clouds did not clear until dawn. At 2 a.m., through the wind and rain, Kabul woke me with a series of bellowing cries that in their deep base somehow reminded me of a whale’s call through the ocean. So I poked my head outside the swag and lit up the scene with my headlamp. For a heart-stopping moment I thought it was another feral bull come to challenge Kabul. He was nickering, with the occasional bellow toward Kashgar and Chloe. I had seen this behaviour before, particularly when there was little or no moon or high wind or rain. Kabul liked to see where the others were. I retired to the swag and its warm embrace.
I should have paid more attention and should not have been so lazy. I woke in the morning and put my head out of the swag to check the camels. Kashgar and Kabul – but no Chloe and Dalhousie! I felt the muscle of my heart beat hard and hollow against the bones of my ribs and felt the rapid swollen pulse of blood to my head.
Out of swag, boots, trousers, water and rifle and I was off. I checked the rope. Good mountain climbing rope. It had snapped. Maybe Dalhousie had been walking away and Chloe had pulled and pulled. In any event Chloe was still trailing some rope so I was able to track her. I followed for around two kilometres and finally found them only 500 metres away from the camp.
Chloe was quietly grazing and little Dalhousie cavorting in the breeze. They had walked with the wind and then turned against it to the scent of Kabul, Kashgar and the camp. Neither Chloe nor Dalhousie seemed surprised to see me, and it was no trouble to walk them back. Little did they know how I felt when I looked out of the swag or when I was looking for them – wondering if they had been lost to the desert.
We made it into Mount Dare Station in the afternoon and I led the camels to a small but splendid paddock where the abundance of green stuff obscured their legs and nearly hid little Dalhousie. They proceeded to make themselves even fatter.
Leaving Mount Dare early, we did more than 25 kilometres. Chloe was not her usual self, tossing her head and looking nervously to her left and right. I thought she may have seen some cattle or even donkeys in the distance. Once we camped I untied her from one tree and went to move her to another. With a buck and a canter she pulled away from me. I circled around and finally brought her and Dalhousie back to a tree near Kabul. She hooshed herself down and I gently caressed her face. I reassured her I would not shoot Dalhousie. In what was only a half-lie, I said he made a great addition to the team. My tone seemed to have had the necessary effect. She sighed and only speculated a half-hearted gaping snap at my face.
After dinner and another check of the camels I lay on my back in the swag feeling the heat of food in my belly and counted satellites. Three in 10 minutes. As I looked through the canopy of a nearby tree the night sky was crisscrossed with dark branches so that it looked like the stars were sewn into it.
I breathed the air, could smell Kashgar’s fragrance of warm wool and sweet vegetable digestion and could hear the others chewing. When I called out to them and said their names I could see the shadows of their movement to me, and perhaps a glint of wet eye. I could hear the empty space of silence as they stopped their chewing for a moment, waiting for me to say something more. What a wond
erful place to be, in the quiet and the dark with friends.
Heading west next day was cold with the wind whipping unseen sand against my face, tugging at my oilskin coat and pulling at my hopes. I felt it more as I was becoming skinnier and skinnier. There was no fat on my belly and muscles felt tight under the skin of my thighs. When I clenched my jaw I could feel a ripple of sinew and little else.
I contemplated a short cut. It seemed crazy to go to New Crown Station and to Finke when we could cut west and north-west to intersect the track to Kulgera. From just a brief consideration of the map I knew the detour would save us three to four days walking, so we took it.
For most of the day we walked over bleak, brown blood gibber country. To the east was a tree line marking the Finke River and to the west, sun-blasted flattopped mesas so typical of central Australia. We camped 20 kilometres north of the New Crown Station boundary, not far from Charlotte Waters, now an abandoned telegraph station, where Ernest Giles, one of the great European explorers, had returned in 1872 from his first major expedition into central Australia. With two other men Giles left Chambers Pillar around the middle of August and traversed much unexplored to the north-west and west. Further travel was blocked by Lake Amadeus and with weakening horses the small party returned to the Finke River and then Charlotte Waters and Adelaide, where Giles arrived in early 1873.
I woke next day to sheeting rain and a sharp-bladed wind from the south. Fortunately I had continued my practice of covering up the gear with tarps before going to bed. It was also fortunate that I had decided to keep the gas stove, for without it there would have been no hot breakfast brew.
I lay for hours in the swag under the hootchie with the cold wet drops slapping the plastic. The ground around was all clay and to load up was to court disaster. The camels would slip and slide on such a surface and I was not prepared to risk a hurt camel. So I waited and from under the plastic sheet I could see that the camels seemed happy enough; they were either browsing on a bush or recumbent, chewing the cud. So as long as I kept moving them to new feed trees I thought they would be fine.
And still it rained. I saw just one car that day. It fishtailed past me early in the afternoon and the driver stopped long enough to tell me that all tracks in the area were closed. He had no idea of the weather forecast. Why he would be out here ruining the roads I did not ask, he just fishtailed the vehicle away and I was careful to stand clear of the mud spray.
The following day it was still raining. I was up to muesli and coffee from the gas burner and shifted the camels again. Around 1330 the weather looked like changing a little; even so I gathered more wood to ensure the fire kept going.
But then more rain. And more. We were camped on a clay floodplain turning into a bog. While I was dry and warm inside the bivvy bag, outside everything else was wet. In the late afternoon the wind died down and I could hear the rain on the plastic and see water droplets fall from the trees to the puddled water all around. If the rain continued much longer I was pretty sure the swag would be under water. It was not a cheerful prospect so, with a stick, a boot and my hands, I excavated a small trench around the swag, and at the lowest point a drain to take the water away.
Dawn the next morning arrived with the promise of light in the west. It was cold and wet again, but the rain stopped just before the sun dissolved the shadows. The breeze from the south was cold and I could feel it cut through my flesh, though I wore all my clothes and the oilskin coat.
With the hootchie up, and the trench dug around my sleeping place, I was warm all night. Even so, I got up twice in the rain to calm Kabul who was bellowing for some reason. He was not turned to his girls, but rather to the north. I caressed his nose and his flank till I took the trembling away. He settled down to chew his cud and buried his head in my armpit.
From my sleeping place I could watch little Dalhousie creating mischief by cantering to Kashgar, then Kabul and back to Chloe. He would let out a bellow whenever Kashgar or Kabul had a nip at him. After all, was he not the most important camel in the world? Eventually I had to get out of the swag. Having to put on wet trousers, wet socks and boots was not at all pleasant, but once I had the fire going and the brew on the world turned for the better. It seemed to happen every time.
Because water had collected in the tarpaulin hollows over the saddles, I decided to have a proper wash. I stripped off my clothes and boiled the billy again and again. I used my mug to scoop the water from the basin and felt the warmth wash over my body. Even though the wind was cold it was well worth it. I felt clean and fresh and ready to go again.
Given that the western sky appeared to be lighter, the wind drying the ground and a radio weather report that said ‘rain contracting to the east’, I thought we could make a start to Nine Mile Bore later in the afternoon. Having had a good long look at the map, it seemed to me that once we turned to the north-west, much of the ground was sandy and therefore easier for us. The ground was a sponge, so after waiting four hours I thought the surface would be safe for camels and man and we headed for the sand.
A wet camp near Charlotte Waters.
And it was safe. In the evening we camped about five kilometres along the track from the Nine Mile Bore. We left the clay bog at around two and headed north. The track turned sandy after about three kilometres proving the map correct, and it was very much easier and safer going once out of the clay.
Little Dalhousie was growing up far too fast and was far too energetic. He spent most of his time trying to be like Kabul, tough and in the lead. With his little head thrown up and legs working hard to keep himself just in front of Kabul, he thought himself the leader of this camel herd, if only for a moment or two. Kabul would quickly bring him down to size with a nip to a leg. Dalhousie would squeal, bleat and scamper up and down the line initiating mini camel stampedes.
The camels seemed to have done well in the course of our wet stop and the girth straps were tighter than normal. On the other hand, my belt needed tightening. A few days would see us at the Kulgera Roadhouse and I began to salivate at the prospect of mixed grills; of eggs, sausages, bacon and steak.
Our camp that night was marvellous, fragrant with the scent of flowers and camels eating sweet green stuff. Just before going to sleep I had a memory of my grandmother’s house in Brisbane. With my two brothers I slept in the covered verandah, her house full of fragrances; of the mango tree in the backyard and the lavender of the potpourri. Camels and I were on sand, there was plenty of wood for a fire and I slept a deep dreamless sleep.
Walking along the track to Coglin Bore I kept an eye out for the short cut to the north-west. I could not find it. As it was we kept on a disused track until we reached the Ghan railway line.
During the expedition I was very aware I was touching history, or even creating a small part of it myself. For a moment, standing on some whiteant rotten sleepers, I was aware of who had been here before me. The Ghan railway was named after the ‘Ghans’, the men from south Asia, including what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, who came to Australia to work the camels that opened up the interior of Australia, before the arrival of the internal combustion engine and the railway line. These men and their camel teams supplied the overland telegraph, railways and pastoral stations with all their needs. They moved across the desert interior of Australia, from Western Australia to Queensland, and South Australia to the Northern Territory. They did so at the camels’ pace, bringing goods and mail to towns and stations and returning with wool or minerals. Their routes included what became known as the Birdsville Track, as well as the Oodnadatta and Strzelecki Tracks.
By early in the twentieth century though, the camel had lost out to the train and the truck. This was clear by 1925 when the South Australian government passed the Camel Destruction Act. This piece of legislation empowered police to shoot any camel found trespassing or without a registration disk. In 1935 the Marree police reportedly shot 153 camels in one day. The men themselves, those who had come to Australia to work with the anim
als, either went back to where they were born or disappeared into the Australian population, their names to appear on the war memorials of World War I, lost fighting for a country of which they had become a part. My camel team, Kabul, Chloe and Kashgar, were the descendants of those camels that technology had made redundant. I was selfishly grateful that they had escaped the Camel Destruction Act and police rifles.
The Ghan railway operated until 1980 when it was replaced by a new line, less vulnerable to the flash floods of the interior. The new line ran along a route from Adelaide to Alice Springs to the west of the old line. From the disused railway I turned north. I could not find the track to the west of Duffield siding so I simply took a compass bearing and set off. Just as we reached the track I had a small frisson of pleasure and excitement down the back of my neck. Of course it was impossible to get lost with the Beddome Range to the west, but the satisfaction of getting where you want to go using your brain and a map is something special.
In fact, I was so happy with where we were and the feed everywhere around us, I let the camels loose to graze on yellow flowering green succulent stuff. I dropped to my knees and rubbed noses with Dalhousie. In his surprise he swallowed a bleat and recovered quickly to suckle at my nose.
At the end of the day the camels were all burping and farting and chewing the cud after feasting on even more green stuff. I forgot to put some muesli bars into my pocket and so went without anything to eat until dinner. Nor did I drink apart from the breakfast brew. It was hardly surprising that at the end of the day I felt a ‘too long fighting the surf 's rip’ tiredness. It was only after a big spaghetti dinner and three large mugs of water that I felt a little more energised, but still my muscles were weak, without the spring and elasticity they once had. My thighs were now so skinny I could wrap my two hands around one so that the thumbs and middle fingers touched. It had only been four months with I thought around four more months to go. I knew that my body had to adapt to this going or I would never achieve what in my ignorance and arrogance I had set out to do.