by Tim Flannery
It was a quiet and sober camp that night. Things were beginning to look serious. The day’s march had definitely given cause for some misgiving. We were not yet halfway across the desert, and the camels were beginning to fail. One was developing mange and seemed almost done. There was still over 100 miles to go to reach the Mulligan, but there could be no question of turning back, for returning was now no easier than go o’er, but on the contrary would be much more difficult if one’s expectations about the country ahead proved correct. Jack Bejah was depressed. He spoke of leaving one or two camels behind to follow us if they could, but this would have been against all the principles of exploration. Once you begin to abandon your gear it is a sign of approaching collapse. You should not have any gear you can do without. I told him to redistribute the loads but to keep the string together. It was no good spreading ourselves over the desert. We must come into that Queensland feed any day now…
It was a clear night again at last, and I was able to take star warm and comfortable. The camels couldn’t stand many more days like today, but we could take easier stages. The chronometer was wound and put away in the bottom of Jack’s big box—must get a better fastening for that, the piece of stick came out today. Nice the way the wireless was working—we must all send more messages home—been neglecting that. We’d be in that feed any day now…
Next morning there was some readjustment of loads, but soon the damp packages were heaved up and the wet cordage knotted, the camels jerked themselves on to their feet, and the long string began to wind slowly over the first sand ridge. How were we going to fare today? Across the valley and on to the top of the next sand ridge—and there before us lay a small claypan covered with water. Down into the valley, to find the clayey soil was carpeted with munyeroo! No waiting for something better this time. There were a few low mulga bushes at the end of the claypan, a suitable place to camp. Round to these, and down went the camels, and off came the loads laboriously put on a quarter of an hour before. We would let the camels graze here all day. If we had only come on another half mile last night it would have saved us a lot of work and some anxiety! This water and the green munyeroo must mean the edge of the rain country. Anyway, we would give the camels all the feed they wanted and a spell before tackling the sand ridges again. They were soon chewing at great mats of munyeroo pulled up from the ground and dangling from their mouths.
It was a beautiful sunny day. We opened up the baggage and spread everything out to dry, then took a walk round the camp. Two sand ridges away to the north-east there was a group of five claypans with gidgee trees, the first gidgee we had seen since leaving the Hale. This certainly looked like the edge of the rain belt. There was more clay here in the soil between the sand ridges, and a thinner cover over the underlying rock. Nodules of ironstone lay around, and pieces of chalcedony. Crocker discovered a small rock outcrop of chalcedonised sandstone. More interesting still was the discovery of signs of the former presence of aboriginals, the only such indications seen in the whole desert crossing. These were chips of chalcedony, typical of aboriginal workshop sites where knives, scrapers and spearheads have been made, and also parts of grinding stones, one a piece of schist that must have come from the MacDonnells. This disproved my theory and Winnecke’s that aboriginals never entered any part of the desert.
ROBYN DAVIDSON
Panic and Shake, 1977
Robyn Davidson undertook one of the most remarkable journeys ever made in contemporary Australia—from Alice Springs to Shark Bay, alone and on camel back. Her account is bone-chillingly honest. The terror of isolation, of not knowing where water can be found, is something every explorer must have felt but would never admit to. Davidson’s confrontations with wild bull camels also add a codicil to camel exploration in Australia. It will be even more difficult now that feral camels have become so widespread.
We join Davidson setting out from Docker River, several hundred kilometres west of Uluru.
As I left the settlement, alone, I was aware only of a flatness, a lack of substance in everything. My steps felt achingly slow, small and leaden. They led me nowhere. Step after step after step, the interminable walking dragged out, pulling my thoughts downwards into spirals. The country seemed alien, faded, muted, the silence hostile, overwhelming.
I was twenty miles out, tired and thirsty. I drank some beer. I was about to turn off and make camp when through the beer-hazed afternoon heat came striding three large strong male camels in full season.
Panic and shake. Panic and shake. They attack and kill, remember. Remember now, one—tie up Bub securely, two—whoosh him down, three—take rifle from scabbard, four—load rifle, five—cock, aim and fire rifle. They were just thirty yards away and one was spurting a cylindrical arch of red blood. He didn’t seem to notice it. They all came forward again.
I was scared deep in my bones. First, I could not believe it was happening, then I believed it was never going to stop. My ears thumped, cold sweat stuck to the hollow of my back. My vision was distorted by fear. Then I was past it, not thinking any more, just doing it.
Zzzzt. This time just behind his head and he turned and ambled away. Zzzt. Near the heart again, he slumped down but just sat there. Zzzt. In the head, dead. The other two trundled off into the scrub. Shake and sweat, shake and sweat. You’ve won for now.
I unsaddled the camels and hobbled them close, glancing around constantly. It was getting dark. They came back. Braver now, I shot one, but only wounded it. Night came too quickly.
The fire flickered on white moonstruck sand, the sky was black onyx. The rumbling sound of bulls circled the camp very close until I fell asleep. In the moonlight, I woke up and maybe twenty yards away was a beast standing in full profile. I didn’t want to harm it. It was beautiful, proud. Not interested in me at all. I slept again. drifting off to the sound of bells on camels, peacefully chewing their cud.
Came dawn, I was already stalking, gun loaded and ready. They were both still there. I had to kill the wounded one. I tried to. Another cylinder of blood and he ran away nipping at his wound. I could not follow, I had my own survival to think of. There he was, the last young bull, a beautiful thing, a moonlight camel. I made a decision. This one of the three would be allowed to live until he did something directly to jeopardise my safety. Happy decision. ‘Yes, maybe he’ll tag along right to Carnarvon. And I’ll call him Aldebaran and isn’t he magnificent, Diggity, what a match for Dookie. I don’t have to kill him at all.’ I snuck around to catch the camels. He watched me. Now, last camel to catch, Bub. Off he galloped in his hobbles, the new bull pacing lazily beside him. I couldn’t catch him with the other bull so close. I tried for an hour, I was exhausted, I wanted to kill Bubby, to dismember him, rip his balls out, but they’d already gone. I took the rifle and walked to within thirty feet of the now excited and burbling young bull. I put a slug right where I knew it would kill him. It did not, and he bit and roared at his wound. He didn’t understand this pain, I was crying. I fired again into his head and he sat down, gurgling through his own blood. I walked up to his head, we stared at one another—he knew then. He looked at me, I shot him in the brain, point blank.
Bubby was puzzled. He walked up to the carcass and drank some blood. It was all over his nose, like clown’s lipstick, and he threw his lips around. He allowed himself to be caught, I didn’t hit him. I walked on.
I entered a new time, space, dimension. A thousand years fitted into a day and aeons into each step. The desert oaks sighed and bent down to me, as if trying to grab at me. Sandhills came and sandhills went. Hills rose up and hills slipped away. Clouds rolled in and clouds rolled out and always the road, always the road, always the road.
So tired, I slept in the creek and thought of nothing but failure. I could not even light a fire. I wanted to hide in the dark. I thought it was surely longer than two days, I had walked so far. But time was different here, it was stretched by step after step and in each step a century of circular thought. I didn’t want to think like t
his, was ashamed of my thoughts but I could not stop them. The moon, cold marble and cruel, pushed down on me, sucked at me, I could not hide from it, even in dream.
And the next day and the next day too, the road and the sandhills and the cold wind sucked at my thoughts and nothing happened but walking.
The country was dry. How could the camels be so thirsty and thin. At night, they came into camp and tried to knock over the water drums. I hadn’t enough to spare, I rationed them. The map said ‘rockhole’. Thank god. I turned off the track somewhere in that haze of elastic time and walked in. More sandhills, then a stretch of gibberflat, wide and dry and desolate with one dead bird, and two empty holes. Some string somewhere inside me was starting to unravel. An important string, the one that held down panic. I walked on, That night I camped in those sandhills.
The sky was leaden and thick. All day it had been grey, smooth, translucent, like the belly of a frog. Spots of rain pattered on me but not enough to lay the dust. The sky was washing me out, emptying me. I was cold as I hunched over my meagre fire. And somewhere, between frozen sandhills, in a haunted and forgotten desert, where time is always measured by the interminable roll of constellations, or the chill call of a crow waking, I lay down on my dirty bundle of blankets. The frost clung like brittle cobwebs to the black bushes around me, while the sky turned thick with glitter. It was very still. I slept. The hour before the sun spills thin colour on the sand, I woke suddenly and tried to gather myself from a dream I could not remember. I was split. I woke into limbo and could not find myself. There were no reference points, nothing to keep the world controlled and bound together. There was nothing but chaos and the voices.
The strong one, the hating one, the powerful one was mocking me, laughing at me.
‘You’ve gone too far this time. I’ve got you now and I hate you. You’re disgusting, aren’t you? You’re nothing. And I have you now, I knew it would come, sooner or later. There’s no use fighting me you know, there’s no one to help you. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’
Another voice was calm and warm. She commanded me to lie down and be calm. She instructed me to not let go, not give in. She reassured me that I would find myself again if I could just hold on, be quiet and lie down.
The third voice was screaming.
Diggity woke me at dawn. I was some distance from camp, cramped, and cold to my bones. The sky was cold, pale blue and pitiless, like an Austrian psychopath’s eyes. I walked out into the time warp again. I was only half there, like an automaton. I knew what I had to do. ‘You must do this, it will keep you alive. Remember.’ I walked out into that evil whispering sea. Like an animal, I sensed a menace, everything was quite still, but threatening, icy, beneath the sun’s heat. I felt it watching me, following me, waiting for me.
I tried to conquer the presence with my own voice. It croaked out into the silence and was swallowed by it. ‘All we have to do,’ it said, ‘is reach Mount Fanny, and there is certain to be water there. Just one step and another, that’s all I have to do, I must not panic’ I could see what had to be Mount Fanny in the hot blue distance, and I wanted to be there, protected by those rocks, more than anything I’d ever wanted. I knew I was being unreasonable. There was more than enough water to get by on to Wingelinna. But the camels, I’d been so sure they’d do a week comfortably. I hadn’t planned on the sudden dryness—the lack of green feed. ‘But there’ll be water there, of course there will. Haven’t they told me so? What if there’s not? What if the mill’s run dry? What if I miss it? What if this thin little piece of string that keeps me tied to my camels breaks? What then? Walk walk walk, sandhills for ever, they all looked the same. I walked as if on a treadmill—no progress, no change. The hill came closer so slowly. ‘How long is it now? A day? This is the longest day. Careful. Remember, it’s just a day. Hold on, mustn’t let go. Maybe a car will come. No cars. What if there’s no water, what will I do? Must stop this. Must stop. Just keep walking. Just one step at a time, that’s all it takes.’ And on and on and on went that dialogue in my head. Over and over and round and round.
Late in the afternoon—long creeping shadows. The hill was close. ‘Please please let me be there before night. Please don’t let me be here in the dark. It will engulf me.’
It must be over the next sandhill surely. No, then the next one. OK, all right, the next, no the next, no the next. Please god, am I mad. The hill is there, I can almost touch it. I started to yell. I started to shout stupidly at the dunes. Diggity licked my hand and whined but I could not stop. I had being doing this for ever. I walked in slow motion. Everything was slowing down.
And then, over the last sandhill, I was out of the dunes. I crouched on the rocks, weeping, feeling their substance with my hands. I climbed steadily, up the rocky escarpment, away from that terrible ocean of sand. The rocks were heavy and dark and strong. They rose up like an island. I crawled over this giant spine, where it emerged from the waves in a fuzz of green. I looked back to the immensity of where I had been. Already the memory was receding—the time, the aching time of it. Already, I had forgotten most of the days. They had sunk away from memory, leaving only a few peaks that I could recall. I was safe.
W. J. PEASLEY
A Frontier Closes, 1977
The great drought of the late 1970s had the Aboriginal people of Wiluna worried. They knew that there was still one old couple ‘out there’ in the western Gibson Desert, living as their people had always done. But could they survive, alone, in the extreme conditions of the drought? Their concern prompted Western Australian doctor W. J. Peasley to undertake his epic search by four-wheel drive for ‘The Last of the Nomads’. Its successful conclusion ended a major phase of Australian exploration, for with the removal of Warri and Yatungka from the desert, the frontier between autonomous Aboriginal and European cultures had vanished, just 189 years after it opened in Sydney Cove.
Soon after leaving the depot we crossed an area of burnt country and Mudjon again found the footprints of Warri and Yatungka. They were moving towards the east-north-east, heading towards the waterhole that existed out in that direction.
Nine and a half kilometres further on we came to a well known as Ngargin, located amongst some rather pathetic looking mulga trees. Several small windbreaks had been erected in the vicinity, suggesting that Warri and Yatungka had been able to obtain a little water and had remained there until the well was dry.
We continued to the east-north-east for another twenty-one kilometres to the well of Wangabaddi. Mudjon was our navigator, we relied on his knowledge of the country to guide us. He was leading us from one waterhole to another through almost featureless country, without tracks to guide him or a compass to assist him. He shrugged his shoulders, as was his fashion, when we commented on his skill, saying it ‘was nothing,’ that he was following the ‘main road.’ By this he meant we were travelling the same paths that his people had trodden for centuries as they moved between the wells. But one associates a main road with a broad track of cleared country along which vehicles of all descriptions can travel, while the ‘road’ we moved along was unmarked by a single vehicle. There was not even the faintest suggestion of a footpath to indicate that the desert people once moved to and fro across the land.
Wangabaddi soak was located in the centre of a flat stony clearing about a hundred metres in diameter. A few spindly mulga trees struggled to survive in the rocky ground, although on the northern edge of the clearing grew a little clump of healthier looking specimens.
The well was three and a half metres deep, and it would have been an extremely difficult and even dangerous undertaking to climb into, and out of, the shaft, especially if one was in a weakened condition. The well was dry and not even the slightest moisture could be found after extensive digging.
Warri and Yatungka had camped at Wangabaddi on many occasions in the past. The remains of many fires and several windbreaks were discovered, and at one of their old campsites was a spear, a digging stick, several old cans and a grindin
g stone. What was of special interest was something wrapped in a piece of ancient canvas wedged in the fork of a mulga tree about forty-six metres from the well. Mudjon appeared not to notice the object and made no comment although I was certain his keen eyes would have seen it long before we did. We were fascinated by it but as Mudjon was acting in a peculiar manner we did not wish to investigate immediately for fear of offending him.
Our first thought was that either Warri or Yatungka had died and the remains had been placed in the tree, and Mudjon’s actions reinforced that assumption. We waited until he had moved off to the north, past the clump of mulga and out onto the sandy spinifex plain to search for footprints before we attempted to examine it.
John Hanrahan climbed the tree and passed the bundle down for inspection. The covering was a piece of tattered canvas, possibly the remains of a groundsheet that Warri had been given long ago. It was unfolded carefully and with some trepidation, and the contents were found to be not human remains as we expected, but the bones of an animal! What on earth was the reason for wrapping animal bones in canvas and placing them high in a mulga tree at Wangabaddi? Was it possible that one of the Aboriginal couple’s dogs had died and they had given it a tree burial? Closer examination showed the remains to be those of a kangaroo, but the mystery remained.