by David Mason
The cave mouth faced west and as I hunkered down in front of the cave I wondered what Lasseter thought during the 25 days he sat waiting, thinking about what to do next. He died at Irving River 55 kilometres away, after his camels bolted, trying to make his way to the small settlement at Uluru.
Memorial outside Lasseter’s cave.
Later in the afternoon, as we moved along, I wondered at the heat of the centuries that bleached out much of the colour of the land forms, the hills and ranges and ground. So much colour of the land was now provided by flowers, yellows, blues and reds. Later, I found myself singing old Foreign Legion songs to the camels and the country. I was caught up thinking about the past and how dark things could infect the present and the future.
Little Dalhousie must have fallen asleep among a splendid patch of feed after we had paused for a camel snack. I walked off with Kabul, Chloe and Kashgar following, expecting him to catch up. We had gone a few hundred metres when I realised I would have to go back for him. I tied the camels to a tree and began to walk back. But before I could reach him a truck drove by, waking him from his snooze. The truck passed me and as the dust settled I could see a little brown camel in the middle of the track bellowing as if his life was at stake, his little body seeming to double in size with each intake of breath. I cried his name and at an ungainly baby camel gallop he came to me, gave a sniff and quickly moved to Chloe where he gave another bellow. Just before he fixed his lips to her nipple he gave me a look of ‘How could you leave me behind!?’
We camped to the north of the ‘Primal Rampart’, the bleached bones of the giant Dreamtime Serpent that created this land, only l5 kilometres from Docker River. As I prepared food that evening even the smallest sound was echoed back to me through the trees. It was so quiet yet so imbued with the presence of past. I prepared things with care, not wanting to make unnecessary noise. I spoke to the camels in hushed tones and even they were unusually subdued. The place felt like a church.
Next morning, just before the Docker River town sign, another bull camel blew his dulaa, burbled his aggressive intent and began to canter to our small group. I didn’t know if it was poor shooting but the bullets were hitting and camels going down. The problem was that they kept getting up again. I gave chase for more than two kilometres before I could catch him and finish him off.
We made it into Docker River a short time later. There I met Tina, married to Ray the outstation maintenance manager, who directed me to the town’s only store, managed by Pam Cobbald and Chris Murphy. Pam told me there was a football match between the Army and the community in the afternoon, followed by a barbeque. I thought it was worthwhile to stop. So, after I’d spoken with Lieutenant Hyde (a slim mid-twenties redhead) and got the okay, we camped not far from the Army, behind the town dump, and I walked into town.
The Army had been here for weeks providing basic water and sewerage infrastructure to the community under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Army Community Assistance Program, which was driven by the Federal government. The game was played with good-natured enthusiasm. Each fall into the dust was met with cries of approval from the sidelines, cheering the players on to greater deeds. After the game I watched the local players and the town girls lazily throwing a basketball through a hop.
Over a soft drink the army guys asked me about the trip, smiled and offered me a hot shower, T-bone steaks and ice-cream. They did not have to offer twice. But we did not settle in, we could not afford to. Instead we started early next day, and in the evening camped across the track from Rebecca Hill. Next morning I woke refreshed by my sleep, revived and elated by the country. Later, after passing a signpost announcing that the range to the north was the Schwerin Mural Crescent, named by Ernest Giles in 1875, we came to a slight rise. With the track as the axis, in an arc to the left was the Schwerin Mural Crescent, to the right sweeping away to the south-east was the Petermann Range. According to the map, one of the mountains was named Gibraltar, and it looked just like that rock at the entrance to the Mediterranean.
The sight squeezed the air from my lungs and my heart swelled with pleasure and wonder at the beauty of this country. I loved it so much that I sat in the dust and breathed deeply of the land around me. For a moment I felt wonder, as if I was a child again. Kabul nuzzled my ear. I had spilt my sweat and blood on this country and it had soaked it up. I was in it, on it and a part of it. My heart beat the colour of the land.
We camped about three kilometres from Giles Creek, another central Australian creek that flowed across country to empty into the sand or a salt lake. To the west there would not be such a significant creek for hundreds of kilometres. Giles Creek was dry; in the late afternoon its rocky bed was a deep blood red and the thick white-trunked gums like bleached ribs sprang from the land.
While the country was hard, the camels were getting fatter. I wrapped my arms around Kashgar, feeling in her long fine coat for bumps and burrs that might rub under the saddle. Fitting her saddle in the morning had become tricky. She had become so wide I had had to loosen her girth strap by two notches.
During the day we moved to higher country and on the way met one of the European schoolteachers from Warnan Aboriginal community. Bill told me of the four-wheel drivers looking for the remains of Alfred Gibson, Ernest Giles’ expedition member who lost his life in 1874 returning from an attempt to cross the desert to the west. After one of the horses had died, Giles reluctantly decided to return to the camp. He sent Gibson ahead with the remaining horse, while Giles carried a water cask on his shoulder. Giles saw that Gibson’s horse had moved from the outward track and headed south. Neither Gibson nor the horse was ever seen again. Bill told me that people were looking through the Bedford Range, north-west of Warnan, searching for Gibson’s remains.
Schwerin Mural Crescent, named by Ernest Giles in 1875 after the Princess of Schwerin.
A sign by the road.
At least one author I read had questioned Giles’ motives for sending Gibson, an admitted poor bushman, for help. There appeared to be many questions surrounding the decision. For example, an exhausted horse walks no faster than a man on foot, so why separate? Furthermore, why give Gibson the compass when he did not know how to use it? I stopped for a moment and considered the map, laying it on the hard red ground. I thought it possible that Gibson had got to the Bedford Range and, realising his mistake, made for the Rawlinson Range. If this was the case he would be lost in the dunes, his body covered by sand.
The following day was the first day of spring. I called Amber from the public phone outside the Warakurna Roadhouse. It was a joy to hear the smile in her voice. As I listened to the smiling sunshine I wondered how I could be so lucky to have her and what it was in me that kept me going. I wondered if I could keep the best of everything, Amber and the life I loved to lead. With a light in her voice she told me, ‘It’s only l800 kilometres to Steep Point!’ Not far at all I assured her.
I watered each camel three times and all were full of water. I presented water to each and as they appeared satisfied I just moved on to the next and started again. All up Kabul consumed more than 30 litres, double what he initially sucked up. Chloe almost 30 litres and Kashgar maybe 25. I was very confident they would last the seven days to Warburton, but I decided to carry 10 litres each for them after four days and not rely on their metabolisms or the rock holes marked on the map as ‘position approximate’.
That night we camped about 10 kilometres out of Warakurna on the track to Warburton. It was good to be moving again and I noticed that as usual camels that had been rested, or had their routine changed, took a little while to get back into the swing of things. I watched a yellow-red painted dozer cutting a red scar through the grey scrub. The driver told me there was a plan to realign the track, preparatory to it being sealed in 2020. It was to be a road from Alice Springs to Perth. He also mentioned that he had seen 50 to 60 camels in one herd about 50 kilometres out of Warburton. I thought that with the onset on spring the rut may
have ended. I was far too optimistic.
We got away next morning to a good early start and I gave the camels plenty of time to browse at the side of the track. At mid-morning David and Julie from Geraldton pulled up. They had left Warburton just after midnight when local children woke them trying to steal petrol from their car and the can on the roof of the vehicle. Apparently Warburton had a problem with grog and petrol sniffing. It would not be long before I got to see it for myself.
Later in the day I met Pat from Jameson, an Aboriginal community due south of the track. His view, after 10 years working in the community, was that problems arise when communities got too big. He gave the examples of Warakurna, Wingellina and Warburton. According to Pat, ‘Where the old fellas can’t control the people, there are problems. You need ’em both, old blokes and old women. If you have them, you have a strong community. If you don‘t, you get grog, petrol and rubbish children.’
As to ‘men’s business’ in the western Musgrave Ranges, Pat reckoned that it was going on longer in winter to try to get the young men back onto the country. It seemed that the young blokes could be away for weeks at a time playing football in a series of round robins in each little community, away from the oversight of the older men, and too close to the local girls.
For me and my camels there were more immediate problems. I saw the golden shadow in the afternoon, through the scrub to my left, no more than 10 metres away. We were coming down through breakaway country, land so old that the shattered ridges were being eroded into scree. The young bull looked surprised to see me and let out a bellow as he caught the scent of Chloe and Kashgar. Dalhousie squealed and there was a moment of terror as Kabul turned to face him. I reached for the rifle and its oiled snap as I drove the round into the chamber.
The first round drilled into his chest and he fell to his knees. The second went into his head as he looked to me without comprehension. His neck went limp and his head hit the sand with a gentle thud.
It may have been due to the increasing heat and the need to drink more water, and generally being run down, but at the end of each day I was collapsing into the swag and to sleep. Dangerously, I was becoming disinclined to leave the swag to check the camels or even search out some gear. It was as if part of me was economising on every effort. I knew though I could never relax and forced myself to check the ropes in the evening and at midnight.
I was also finding that tears would come to my eyes when thinking about a song, people in my past, or saying goodbye to the camels. This last was starting to worry me even more. While we may have been two or so months from the end, what would happen to the camels? I could not afford to freight them back to the east, but I did not want them to become dog food in the abattoir I heard was being opened in Carnarvon.
This was something I needed to resolve. I hoped that another planned meeting with Mark Swindells, whom I had met on the track out of Curtin Springs, would yield something yet. I knew there was very little I could do walking along the track.
Some young Aboriginal men from Warnan community slowed and stopped. They told me there was a rock hole just up ahead to the west of the track. Just as the young men and I began to settle in to talking we could hear another vehicle coming toward us. They looked up, brushed the thick black hair from their eyes and saw that there were a number of women standing in the back of a truck, their floral dresses and beanies bright butterflies against the red sand and the blue of the sky. One by one, the men took my hand and squeezed it lightly, a hint of pressure for a moment. Too proud to stay with me when the women were sure to stop, they said their gentle farewells and drove away.
The women did stop and laughed that the young men needed to learn more ‘business’ before they could stay and talk with the women. ‘Otherwise,’ said one, ‘they won’t know what to say,’ and the ladies laughed again.
The young men were right; an inner tube hung in a tree and the rock hole only a few metres off the track. The rock looked like ironstone and the hole just two paces across. As the camels drank I put my arm in but couldn’t touch the bottom. Then, for some reason known only to himself, little Dalhousie jumped in. He was in up to his chest, about three feet high, and had trouble getting out. He began to squeal, bellow and generally make everyone nervous. I wrapped my arms around his neck and under his front legs. As gently as possible I lifted him out of the hole. He pursed his lips at the indignity of it all but once he was free soon recovered to kick up his legs in glee.
Given the tracks all about it the rock hole was an obvious haven for birds, bees and other animals. And it was not marked on the map.
I hit the swag at 7.30, not long after dark, and slept better than I had for a while. It was possibly due to the weather being very cold over the last couple of days with a gusting south-east wind. And so, inside a greasy sleeping bag I was very warm.
The following morning I was moved to stir by a scratching on the outside of my swag. I folded back the flap and there was little Dalhousie, his bright brown eyes glistening with the fun of finding me. He pursed his little lips and seemed to indicate I should get out of the swag to get the fire going again. We were less than l35 kilometres from Warburton, which meant we had come almost exactly l00 kilometres from Warakurna.
I could smile but could not relax, never let down my guard or my vigilance. Not out in the desert. That night, Chloe snorted and told me he had come, another magnificent bull camel. I had thought they camped at night, but either I was wrong or the scent of Kashgar and Chloe carried on the breeze to where he lay, drove him to his feet.
I only caught a glimpse of him as I looked up to check on Chloe. There he was, moving across the track. It might have been because the fire was low and I was musing on the nature of life that he ventured so close. I was straight to the rifle, unzipping it from its case, then to the track and along it, stretching stiff muscles, looking for him. He moved from behind some scrub about 50 metres away and I fired over his head. He took off and I had hoped to have seen the last of him for the evening. I sat by the fire and listened for him and to my camels.
He circled back. My camels had not moved. Then I heard it, the squeak, a rubbing plastic, a sound to send a shiver along the spine, like fingernails along a blackboard. It was the sound bull camels made when they were coming for a female, the sound of horizontal friction of the lower jaw against the upper. He was coming again. He moved close to Kashgar on our side of the road. Only 30 metres away now.
I lifted the rifle, chambered a round and was after him again. Fortunately he was well lit; though there was some high-level cloud there was a full moon. He moved broadside to me, head down, blowing his dulaa. I took a breath and could smell him as I held him in my lungs. I shouldered the rifle and held his breath inside me for a moment more. I fired and brought him down. He bellowed. I could hear him struggling in the spinifex and knew I would have to finish him off. For a third time the adrenalin kicked in, my heart pounding as I circled around to where he lay. He was hit in the chest and was writhing in agony. As a last show of pride and anger he tried to blow his dulaa again. I fired the round into his head that finished him.
A matter of minutes after the second round the camels were chewing their cud. My pulse had returned to normal. But there was a dark hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. Would there be more nocturnal visits? What did this mean for the Gunbarrel Highway where there were said to be even more camels?
My brain did not seem to be working as it used to. It felt like parts of it were becoming fragmented and dissolved. The thinking parts of me were becoming less sharp, out of focus and foggy. My thoughts were becoming disconnected from my past and it was becoming difficult for me to reach back into a memory that was precise and clear. At the same time I seemed to have trouble putting thoughts into words, I could feel the land hooked into my soul and wrapped around me. While I was still obsessed by distances another part of me was separating from the pettiness and the pain of the trip and becoming rooted into the land, its life, its history and its f
uture.
As I walked into the late afternoon I thought about the most elemental thing about being in the desert. The most elemental thing was that there was nowhere to run; nowhere to hide. If you did not like yourself, the shadow of dislike forced you to look at yourself. If you were hiding something from yourself you were in trouble. If you did like yourself you could let go, open yourself to the environment around you and become part of it. Then, I knew, it was possible not to be intimidated by the enormity of the land and its power to endure beyond the puny self.
That evening we camped in paradise. Flowers and camel food in abundance. To roll my swag out on a carpet of flowers was such a pleasure it seemed a shameful thing to spoil such luxuriant splendour. On a practical note I also had a good field of fire. We camped about 85 kilometres from Warburton. I began to list the things I needed to buy for the march from there to Wiluna. They included pasta, tomato paste, a good lighter and some sugar.
At just after 4 a.m. I was woken by tremendous flashes of lightning and rumbling of thunder from the west. The lightning came as a sheet or a thick jagged bolt to the ground; discotheque snapshots lighting for an instant the trees, camels and me.
Headed toward Warburton.
I was out of the swag and put on my boots. I moved the tins and anything metallic away from me or the camels. I moved the saddles and covered them in tarpaulins. Then back to the swag and in it just before the rain hit. The noise was so loud and brutal I could not get back to sleep. The lightning, thunder and rain continued until just after 8.30 and I lay in the swag shielded from the storm and its fists of heavy rain by a thin layer of canvas.
Not long after that the day grew lighter although the clouds remained just as dark. I turned to the west and saw it was coming again. The clouds were formed in a way I had never seen before. Thick, lumpy, pastel grey strokes against a grey sky. The storm was coming in quickly from the west, with plenty of rain and bolts of lightning to the ground. I watched the zags as they ripped apart the bruised purple plum sky and counted the time between the flashes and the thunder. The storm was getting closer.