Gismo Queen and her King

Burke & Wills Dig Tree to Merty Merty Station

It was a lovely quiet morning on the banks of the Cooper this morning, until we shattered the peace by starting the generator! The fridge is keeping cold overnight and with the long driving days, it is powered by the car on the road. Nevertheless, we hoped to get gas in Innamincka today. So after our kettle of boiled water was delivered from Cafe Bushtracker and we had breakfast, we walked over to the Dig Tree to see what was still visible. The ranger arrived at the same time we did and told us he was about to do a talk about the tree. I raced back to camp to get Neill and Jude as a few of our fellow campers arrived. He did an excellent job and had some really great stories - as well as some honest opinions about the various writings that have been done in recent times. He was complimentary about the one we are listening to "The Dig Tree" by Sarah Murgatroyd. So for those who are not familiar with the story - here's a short overview. The Royal Society established a Victorian Expedition in 1860 to traverse the interior, from the south coast to the north coast. They appointed Robert O'Hara Burke as the expedition leader. It was the most well resourced expedition on record and they left from Royal Park in Melbourne. It took them a long time to travel to their first depot in Menindee via Bendigo and Swan Hill. From there, the party split and half of them pushed onto Cooper Creek and established Depot 65 - where we camped. After setting up there, Burke, together with 2IC Wills and two other men (Grey and King), set out for the Gulf of Carpenteria. They told the remaining party they would return in 3 months, and if they weren't back by then, the party could return to Menindee. Wills confidentially told them to see if they could wait 4 months - he wasn't convinced they would be back within 3 months. So off they set, and following water courses, made it to mangroves just short of the north coast. We had been to their northern most camp - Camp 119 - just out of Burketown on the Savannah Way in 2014. On their way back, they started to run out of food, their camels started to die, and they were getting very weak. One of the men, Grey, died just before they got back to Camp 65. They arrived back here on 21st April at 7:30pm, to find the campfire ashes still warm but the campsite abandoned - the remaining party had left earlier in the day, assuming the four explorers had perished and were not returning. They buried a cache of supplies and a letter 3 foot out from the Dig Tree, which the three remaining explorers eagerly fell upon. Being too weak to follow them, they started in another direction (not before Wills buried his diaries of the trip in the same hole (in a trunk)). Wills died first, then Burke. King survived, thanks to the kindness of the local aboriginal community. He was so friendly with them, he fathered a daughter with one of their women. Her great great great granddaughter works in the National Parks Office in Innamincka now. Thanks to Wills' diaries and King's verification, the truth of the expedition's succcess of the now renamed to Burke and Wills expedition was published and Burke and Wills became national heroes. It was a real bonus for us to have heard the extra stories from the Ranger but it did mean we were a little later leaving than originally planned. It was 70km into Innamincka so we arrived there just before lunch. This is a very small town that has re-established for tourism, after dying after the droving days. We got fuel, got our gas bottles filled (yay!), then decided we may as well have lunch here. So we enjoyed a very pleasant meal at the Innamincka Hotel before hitting the road on the Strzlecki Track at about 1:30pm. The Strzlecki Track was in better condition than the Birdsville Track, so we were mostly averaging 60-70km/hr. There was very little to see though. We traversed the extensive Moomba gas fields and skirted around the huge plant, and apparently even got Telstra signal there but didn't realise it. After 120km, we turned off towards Camerons Corner but as that was still 116km away and it was after 4pm by this stage, we decided to find a campsite. 10km down the road we found this great site and are camped a mere 20m away from a magnificent red sand dune. The sunset from the top of the dunes was amazing! We have a campfire roaring but it is by far the mildest night we have had so far - Jude and I are still in shirts! It was also quite a warm day today, hitting 25C this afternoon. We'll have to remember this night next Sunday night when I am facing a return to work!

posted by Tracey @ 7:47 pm