PART 5 OF THE OZ ADVENTURE 

   The cameras stopped clicking, we got back into the Toyota and it was goodbye Mundiwindi as we drove away from the old telegraph station in the late afternoon with our most immediate task being to find somewhere to camp for the night - it got dark about 6p.m. The first aim of this incredible trip had been to find that old building where Will had worked for a while and where he had written those letters to my mother which now sit here in my desk drawer. That had been achieved. The images danced in my mind's eye as we drove so that I hardly noticed where we were going.

   This area was not far from the track to the Jigalong aboriginal reserve and Will had mentioned in one of his letters that they had a native gin working in the house. He described the scene one day when a horrific wind blew up. He had been in the garden putting two natives to work digging a patch, while his mate was pulling up two bullock hides that had been pegged out to dry. The wind picked up one of the hides, carrying him along with it and nearly deposited him in the well, while when they got back to the house they found their jin in tears. She had just finished laying the tea-table out on the veranda when the wind swept it all to the ground, smashing the crockery.

   It is quite probable that she and the other workers came from nearby Jigalong. We did not have time to visit the community, much as I would have liked to - we were so near - and in any case we would have had to obtain a permit well in advance. But what we did have was a permit to be on the aboriginal reserve, necessary in our search for the old telegraph station. I have my own copy of this, our three names clearly identified, and reinforcing my memories of that day.

   My first night of bush-camping arrived. Ruth helped me put up my tent (they had had a trial run at home), then prepared supper as the sky quickly darkened. Clearing up, we then went off to sleep, for morning starts were promptly at dawn. I lay snug in my tent, looking out through the mesh screen across the doorway, trying to accommodate all that had happened since getting out of that plane at Newman. I remembered the look of delight on the face of the young man sitting next to me as I told him the reason for my flight. I should have taken his address so that I could send him photos of what we had seen! I know he would have shared my feelings.

The site of that first night of camping in the bush.

   We found a suitable piece of ground on which to spend the night, not far from Savory Creek. Requirements for being "suitable" means a level spot clear of the almost ubiquitous and always vicious spinifex, and with suitable scrub cover nearby for the obvious disappearing into when necessary. In the photograph at the left above, the change of colour around the rear of the ute shows the trampling of our footsteps, but also level with the word Toyota and more to the left can be seen the lighter outline square of where my tent had been. Ivy was there! Is it still visible? These photos were taken just before we set off for the day round about 7a.m., well after dawn but with the sun still low in the sky. A time of poignant anticipation of what the day may bring, I never failed to react to its solitude, its peace.

After a short drive we reached Savory Creek. It rises deep in the Little Sandy Desert, on the edge of which "Will's" Mundiwindi stood, and as far as I can see from my map is a tributary of the mighty Ashburton River which crosses the whole of the Pilbara until reaching the sea on the west coast. A later photograph will show the Nanutarra Gauging station on the Ashburton which we saw when driving down the North West Coastal Highway. We stopped at Nanutarra Roadhouse for petrol and a drink - and the labels on the toilet block doors were great! 

   Then we set off to find Burranbar Pool, several miles further along the Savory Creek. It proved to be a beautiful stretch of the river, but there was a special reason for seeking it out. In one of Will's letters, dated January 1925, he had mentioned that on New Year's Day a party of twelve had gone in his neighbour's car (neighbour coming from 90 miles away) to a pool about 20 miles distant with the intention of going kangaroo and duck shooting. After a good swim they spotted a black snake on the bank. Will wanted its skin and in trying to catch it both he and snake toppled into 17 feet of water.

   My Aussie friend John had searched his maps, measured distances and decided that two possible locations for the snake episode were Burranbar Pool and Poonda Rock Hole. The one mystery was the 17 feet of water, very deep for both places, especially considering that January was the height of summer and rivers were low, if any water were showing at all. However, there were no other likely stretches of water within the radius of 20 miles. And anyway, I would not have missed seeing either of them, so beautiful were they both. And to prove it, Burranbar Pool is below to start with.

Looking west and east

   Pool this certainly was, though lengthy, for not far way was another stretch. See below.

Looking west - completely dry, while eastwards is the start of the Pool

TO COME

   Places we saw on our way round the Pilbara, camping at night in the stillness and getting up about 5.30 so as to make an early start on the day's journey. We saw dry river beds, flowing with water only in the Wet, for this is cyclone country and severe floods are commonplace then, yet there are still rock pools and lakes reached by those barely discernable tracks in the dust. We were shown around a gold mine and the neighbouring diamond mine, next on to Marble Bar with its massive water tank on which was painted "Our summers are hot, our winters are warm and water is precious". The "marble" is actually jasper, and I have a piece amongst the rock samples Will sent home.

   We drove the long straight road to Port Hedland, while on the way the ute was pushed across the road by a willi-willy as John wrestled with the wheel. Once at the port from which is exported the iron ore extracted from WA's massive mines we saw the train from the docks taking I don't know how long to pass under the road bridge from which we were watching. While there I was taken to the School of the Air, a visit which John had secretly booked for me as a surprise, and sat in on some lessons, having a chance to talk with some of the pupils.

   Not far from Port Hedland was Indee, a cattle station whose history John had been researching, and while camping there two nights we made daily excursions around the area, seeing some great petroglyphs, then to Cossack, once the site of a former leper colony. Leaving Indee we went on down the coast - Carnarvon with its mile long jetty, at the end of which while hoping to see whales we saw a manatee surfacing briefly - a stroke of luck. Not so lucky was getting back to shore..... On the way out of Carnarvon was the Satellite Earth Station.

   Then to Hamelin Pool to see the stromatolites.... on to Geraldton with its moving memorial to the crew of HMAS Sydney, sunk by a disguised German boat. Then to Moora (Will had been there) and finally back to Perth. Gone were the dry, baking hot days - it was just pelting down, in tune with my sense of being torn away from the red earth of the Pilbara, a region that I had taken to my heart.