by David Mason
We camped about five kilometres west of Mount Beddome. We crossed the ridge that provided a vantage point to most of the country we had moved through, with the range on the right-hand side. In the late afternoon it was a view of muted reds and yellows, with the dome of a clear blue sky over all.
It was through the country I walked that day that John McDouall Stuart, Charles Sturt’s surveyor on his 1845 expedition to Eyre Creek and the Simpson Desert, moved in his expeditions to cross Australia. In all, from 1858 to 1862, Stuart led six expeditions into the interior of South Australia and north. His last expedition, in 1862, took him through the centre and across the continent then back to Adelaide where he claimed the £2000 reward offered by the South Australian government.
While Stuart survived to return to Adelaide, he did so at extraordinary cost to his health. In the course of his last expedition he was stricken with scurvy. His ankles swelled, his legs turned black and his eyesight dimmed so that survey readings had to be taken by one of his men. His gums were swollen, his teeth became loose and food tasted of his own blood. For a time he was unable to speak and for the last few weeks of the expedition he was carried on a litter between two horses, a sickly pathetic shadow of himself vomiting internal juices and blood.
Even more thought-provoking was what satisfaction of the obsessive quest had done to his mind. On raising the Union Jack on a beach of northern Australia, now called Point Stuart, one of Stuart’s men wrote of him that he ‘went about as if he had no ambition in his life’. Perhaps this was because Stuart recognised the pain that would be associated with the return to Adelaide rather than the completion of a dream that had been fuelling and driving him for so long. Whatever it was, and perhaps it was a combination of obsession satisfied and the privations he had endured for so long, it finally killed him. He died in Scotland on 4 June 1866 at the age of 50. Only seven people attended the funeral of arguably Australia’s greatest explorer.
Map and compass on sleepers of the Old Ghan railway.
That morning we started slowly. Kabul would not keep stride by me so I checked along the line to see Chloe pulling on her head rope! She kept holding up proceedings to let greedy little Dalhousie get to her udder. Thankfully things improved in the course of the day. I hoped that the next day we would be on the track to Kulgera.
That night there was hardly a mosquito, or a cloud in the sky, but there was lightning in a wide sweep around the western horizon. The only sound was just after 9 p.m. when I was sure I heard a bat overhead. I could hear its windy, wet-newspaper flapping in the breeze as it got close.
The lightning in the west was a precursor to the rain, which unusually came in from the south-west. With a mighty wind it struck just after midnight and I had not put tarps over the saddles! So I was up in my T-shirt, feet into boots, and on skinny bare legs I ran to Chloe’s canvas sacks and covered all the saddles just as the rain came sheeting down. Camels remained hooshed down and did not appear to be the least bit troubled by the drenching. As for me, I got to the swag wet and spent a deal of time trying to sponge dry myself before getting into my sleeping bag. Still, thanks to the bivvy bag, I was not too cold.
Stopped at a crossing on the now abandoned Ghan Railway.
The day dawned cloudy and cold but in the south-west a band of blue later in the day expanded to fill the sky and I wore all my clothes and over all the oilskin. The wind, cold and penetrating, blew all day. Even at night it blew, under a frigid starry sky.
The following day it was even colder. I put my head out of the swag to have it buffeted by a cold southerly wind. It was very unpleasant, like opening a back door to a winter storm, and I was tempted to snuggle back into the feather-down warmth. It was only the prospect of a couple of hot brews and a self-conscious guilt at my softness that got me moving.
But once out of the swag I had trouble standing. It was the old Achilles tendon problem. With the cold weather it had started to flare up again. I had put on a new pair of boots the previous morning as the old pair had hardened almost rigid, having been wet and dry so often the leather had lost its suppleness. I took a couple of aspirin in the evening and did what I always did then, placed folded camel blankets at the foot of the swag and elevated my feet.
For a few hours in the morning I could only hobble along as the camels paced confidently along the track, their noses in the air. In fact when I thought about it my movement was more a stumble into the cold wind. I wondered for a moment that things would not get better, and had to remind myself – one day at a time. There was still a long, long way to go.
Little Dalhousie had become more and more ‘bully’. He seemed to be growing before my eyes and trying out a variety of foods other than his mother’s milk. At the very least he appeared to suck on them, and I knew his firm baby teeth were hard and sharp. I knew because I put my honey-covered finger in his mouth. I thought he might lick it or maybe suck on it thinking it a sweet nipple, but the little fellow bit hard. Along with biting he was growing too, and beginning to make a throaty burbling noise, very bully sounding, at which Kabul grumbled his irritation.
We had come more than halfway across the continent, having passed the day before the turn-off to Lambert’s midway point, the geographical centre of Australia. Reading the map I wondered how I would make another four months. I felt weak. Many of the muscles I once had were gone, my back ached, my Achilles injury made me limp. I even had trouble, particularly at the end of the day, lifting the saddles off Kabul and Chloe. When I grimaced I felt the skin so tight across the bones of my face I wondered why it did not split.
After I wrote up my diary that night I went to bed exhausted. The cold and the worry of the wind saw the end of me and I sought refuge in the warm swag. Next morning I woke to find the country coated in frost. Even the camels had frost collected in the thick deep wool of their humps. In the course of the day we moved over country with rocky outcrops containing frozen white quartz. The exposed weathered rock looked like the backbones of the Dreamtime creatures that Aboriginal people said made the land. I imagined we were walking through an ancient sea bed where time was revealing these ancient creatures with a whisper of wind or a teardrop from the sky.
We also encountered our first cattle grid in the Northern Territory, a sure stop for camels as their pads, like cattle feet, would have fallen between the metals bars. Unfortunately for us, there was no gate to the left or the right, so taking a gamble we followed the fence to the right which paralleled the track. We walked and failed to find a gate to get us back onto the track. A moment later, something went very wrong.
We dropped into one creek bed and for some reason the camels baulked. Then they bolted. It was a stampede that ended after a few metres but I was alert to the fact they were very nervous about something. Out of the creek and again we followed the fence line that kept us from the track. There was still no gate, but we persisted and dropped into another creek bed. As we landed in the sand I turned to Kabul. In the shadows of the river red gums I could see the whites of his eyes, blank moons struck with the dawn of fear. Nostrils were flaring and ears flapping. I looked around for the reason, but all I could make out was the wind in the trees, the cries of galahs and the scent of eucalyptus.
Kabul started to prance then he reared up and kicked my leg. Fortunately he must have collected me on the uprise of his kick, for while I was knocked down I was not badly hurt. I rolled away from the now terrified three and a half camels to the safety of a tree. Nothing would hold them back.
Kabul took off at a canter and the other two were inexorably drawn along. Little Dalhousie screamed, ran into a fence, and bounced off. But no-one stopped. Trees and bushes were no barrier to the three. I could hear branches breaking and the snap of timber as one or two of the camels found themselves on the wrong side.
I was on my feet and hobbled after them. They headed back the way we had come. For more than a kilometre I followed, hearing the snap of timber and watching the tops of trees explode as the camels galloped throu
gh. Weak and helpless, in my deepest of selves I knew all was over. One camel would find itself on the wrong side of a tree too large to give way and be killed, others hurt, gear ruined. I even thought of having to bring the rifle to Kabul’s head, having to put him down. At this I sobbed and ran and stumbled to where they had finally stopped.
When I arrived they stood trembling, looking at me through wet eyes, chests heaving after their gallop. At least they remembered to look contrite. I couldn’t bring myself to use harsh words on Kabul, so I was friendly and calming. I caressed his neck and his head and gently blew into his nose. I spoke words of soft love to Chloe, Kashgar and Dalhousie, grouped close together in fear.
Soon I could feel the relaxation of muscles in Kabul’s neck and chest. After a few minutes, when camel and human breathing returned to normal, I called him on. And he followed, back to the grid where I started to fill it in with sticks and gravel and rock. Just as I was about to apply the sand, handful by handful, a couple pulled up in their Toyota. They had a shovel, so the job was made easy. I got the camels across and then pulled up the sticks and dug out the sand so that the grid was effective. Walking down the track we passed within 20 metres of the place where Kabul had taken fright. He passed by without even a flicker of recognition. I had no idea what provoked the fear, though I looked, smelled and listened as closely as I could. It was the first time Kabul had behaved that way, without apparent provocation, and it terrified me that it could happen at any time, perhaps when I least expected it and I was most vulnerable.
We arrived at Kulgera late in the afternoon and I walked around checking the adjacent racecourse fence line, only a few hundred metres from the highway, and let the camels feed in the central ring. Once the camels were settled, I made my way up to the Kulgera Roadhouse. The roof of the place was shining corrugated iron and as I approached the smell of diesel, sewage, alcohol and impatient lies seemed to hang over the place. Not a place where many people lingered, it sat astride the Stuart Highway 300 kilometres south of Alice Springs. The Stuart Highway was named after John McDouall Stuart whose tracks I had already crossed, and the highway followed some of the route he blazed across the continent from Adelaide in the south to east of Darwin in the north.
My first stop was the restaurant. I ordered roast lamb and as I wrote up the day thick rich gravy dripped onto my diary. It was cold outside and greasy warm inside the roadhouse. I helped myself to another serving of lamb and later went next door to the bar.
Headed to Kulgera.
The implications of appetite visited me next night. The kitchen hand, a young rat-faced fellow with heroin acne and greasy, long braided ponytail, abused me for having two servings the previous night and warned me against breaking the rules. Instead of going back a second time I found the largest plate I could find. I filled it with greasy stuff, made a small pile of sweet lamb slices, sat down and ate. The rat kept an eye on me while I steadily worked my way through the calories.
Now that I was back in communication with the world I had a couple of jobs to do. First was a visit to the police station. Here I met with Phil Clapin, Kulgera’s police sergeant. Like all the police I met on the trip he was free with sensible advice and very helpful. He gave me parcels from Amber that included maps, moleskin pants and soft-pointed rounds for the rifle.
Phil was broad and tall, with black hair and black bushy moustache. We had a chat. Or rather, like many of the police I met, Phil went out of his way to sound me out. He told me he had watched me in the pub at the roadhouse the night before. When he heard about me he thought I would be all purple clothes, pierced bits and dreadlocks, ‘like a lot of the camel people we get through here.’ He said he thought I was okay. At the very least I could talk to people and not piss them off. He said he was happy to help.
‘It’s like I always say, you don’t have to be feral to love the country,’ he told me. This country is large enough for all of us. Just because we’re different doesn’t mean I’m a bastard. I’ve helped a lot of them.’
Phil also noted that it did not make much sense that the camel lady took more than nine months to walk and ride from west of Alice Springs to the west coast of Australia. ‘She didn’t even cross half of the country,’ he said. ‘You’ve just walked more than halfway across the country already, including the bloody Simpson Desert with its dunes, and you’ve taken what, four months?’ I nodded. ‘What on earth was she doing all that time?’ he asked.
Without wanting to enter into that discussion, I took myself back to the dining room of the roadhouse and morning tea. I sorted out the maps and found out that Warakurna, Warburton and Yulara had good stores. I also booked a seat on a Greyhound bus to Alice Springs to do some shopping.
I had a haircut, shower, made a list of shopping needs and organised washing for the next day in Alice Springs. I visited the camels just on dark, and very feral they were too. Chloe carried on over Dalhousie, Kashgar carried on as if on heat with lots of tail flipping and, on my arrival, Kabul trotted up, head rearing, burbling and trying to blow out his dulaa. What a difference a rest made! Perhaps he had forgotten he was a gelding. Maybe he did not recognise me with my hair cut. After a few words he soon calmed down.
From Kulgera I rode on a Greyhound bus to Alice Springs early next morning. I did the necessary shopping and washing, though there was not time enough to dry all my gear. I got into town at 1.45 p.m. and left at 3 with a checkin at the Greyhound desk at 2.30. ‘Otherwise, luv,’ said the passion pink floral dress, ‘youse might lose yer seat.’ It meant that all I got to see of the Alice was a laundromat and the inside of a supermarket. Not very exciting but I was happy to get the things I needed. In Alice I could have been anywhere in the world. Supermarkets, car parks, pubs, kerbing and air-conditioning. If you really wanted to you could easily isolate yourself from the land around you. Even there, in one of the most remote places on earth you could feel relaxed, comfortable and safe. I had to get back to the camels.
On the bus back to my humped friends I could feel the vibrations of engine through my seat and the warmth of the heating wrapped around me willing me to sleep. While German and English backpackers flirted and shared notes on the cheapest accommodation deals in Adelaide, I wondered why I persisted with my trip. The intangibility of satisfaction. You could taste it but you could not hold it or see it. Was it worth the tension, pain, cold and tiredness? God, why did I persist with the Legion when I knew what it was and what it did? Maybe it was so I could be happy with myself. If there is no passion, no adventure, what is life? I spent the next day cleaning gear, writing letters and making phone calls. Phil Clapin was a great help. I parcelled up my diary, letters, film and maps in a cylinder to send home. Phil wouldn’t take more than $20. He also let me use the station phone to call cattle stations on my route to the west.
Late in the day I made my way to the roadhouse thinking that it was probably the last mixed grill, shower or beer for a while. The roadhouse was a lot more than a collection of petrol bowsers. It offered camping facilities, a restaurant, a bar and a chance for conversation and fictions that made men feel better about themselves.
In the bar were the self-styled frontiersmen, their backs to the sparks from the roaring fire, and a fascist policy statement on the wall. ‘One man one vote – people have to earn the right for a place in this country. If you don‘t like it get out!’
The people who worked at the roadhouse spent 10 days on the job and five days off, normally going back to the Alice for a ‘blow’ or a rest. Leaving his scrutiny of the restaurant, Ratman served at the bar selling beer and rum. He believed he was a frontiersman, working as he did at the interface between Aboriginal people and their access to the bar in the centre of Australia. With an upward tilt of his head, to me he said, ‘Bloody boongs.’ Then to an Aboriginal man close to me, ‘Yer pissed, so fuck off.’ I watched, a passive accomplice in the humiliation of another person.
There were stories in the bar about four-wheel drives and bogs. Beers rested on bellies that m
uffined over shorts. I did not tell anyone about what I had done. The noise was too loud and busy so that the laughs and declarations of truth were discordant and hurt my ears. I ate my mixed grill and headed back to the camels because the bar was not my place.
I passed seven or eight Aboriginal people camped around an abandoned vehicle just beyond the petrol station. The fire was low but their eyes were bright. They told me they were from Finke, where alcohol was unavailable, come in to have a drink. I asked if they had plenty of tucker. An older woman said, ‘Tucker, yeah, we’re all right for eating. Back to Finke tomorrow. Thanks.’
The following morning was a city grey sky with light rain. The sky cleared from the west, the cloud pushed east to reveal blue. I lay in my swag and looked to the blue that grew and grew. It was time to start again.
Despite initial frustration over a lack of up-to-date mapping of fences I took a short cut into Mount Cavenagh Station and we found ourselves on the road to Mulga Park Station, less than 20 kilometres from Victory Downs. It was a very good day’s run.
I set up camp and put the camels out on long lines to feed. Then I pulled out my small radio to listen to the ABC news. The day before I had spoken with Tom Harwood out at Longreach, in western Queensland, and he must have liked the story. He got it on to Brisbane and then ABC Radio National PM. I was checking Chloe’s line when I heard something about camels on the radio. It was about us and I thought most of Australia would have heard! Maybe some would help fund the Alone Across Australia expedition. I could only hope so.