Over the centre of this mighty continent there hangs a veil which the most enterprising might be proud to raise .[TH].[TH]. I shall envy that man who shall first plant the flag of his native country in the centre of our adopted one. [EP] Adelaide, 1840. The explorer Charles Sturt thus captured the mystery and challenge of Page1 Story continues … Enter N for more
npenetrating central Australia -and the honour of being the first European to do so.[EP] South-eastern Australia was then generally known, but what lay north of Adelaide was shrouded in mystery. Most colonists believed the interior was a region of barren deserts. But some, including Sturt, still hoped that ‘the centre’ hid a fertile pastures – and even an ‘inland sea’. Adelaide farewelled five pathfinding central Australian exploring expeditions in the two decades from 1840 62: Edward Eyre’s in 1840; Charles Sturt’s own party in 1844; and John McDouall Stuart’s three trans-continental expeditions in 1 860, 1 861 and 1 862 .[EP] Eyre’s, Sturt’s and Stuart’s explorations were historically and geographically related. All aimed to reach ‘the centre’, and to then continue to the north or north-west coast. And all crossed vast stretches of country hitherto totally unknown to European Australians: the traditional lands of numerous Aboriginal tribes.[EP] Their journeys transcended those of most other Australian inland explorers. Ten years ago – inspired by their discoveries, moved by their hardships, and provoked by some recent belittling accounts – I set out to research their expeditions.[EP] The work, leading to three books and AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC features, spanned six years. It led me into library archives in Australia and Britain, and took me three times across some of Australia’s most forbidding regions.[EP] Retracing their routes, and experiencing and photographing the country they crossed, were my keys to re-assessing the explorers’ journeys. Camped along their tracks, I came to recognise the challenges they faced – and to better understand both their achievements and Page2 Story continues … Enter N for more
nfailures.[EP] My own four-wheel-drive expeditions each lasted about two months. They were often grinding, but never burdensome. Indeed, the sheer exhilaration of being amidst the outback’s desert wilds – ‘the fearful joy’ that urged on the explorers themselves – was always enlivening. Dust, mud, flies, boggings, all were compensated for by the inland’s sweeping space and harsh grandeur.[EP] [EP] Edward Eyre was only 24 when he left Adelaide on 18 June 1840. Driven by ideals of ‘honour’ (Si Je Puis – If I can – was the family motto), and accompanied by seven men, Eyre planned tto reach central Australia by following the Flinders Range northwards.[EP] By early July, 400 kilometres north of Adelaide, they were surrounded by the Flinders Range’s peaks. Reconnaissances from the ranges were met in every direction by forbidding salt lakes. Blocked by these lakes, ‘brilliant and glittering beyond conception’, Eyre wrote, Our toils and labours had all been endured to no purpose .[TH].[TH]. and the only alternative left to us would be to return, disappointed and baffled.[EP] However, unwilling to return humiliated to Adelaide, Eyre decided to travel westwards along the south coast towards Western Australia. There, they found massive dunes fringing a desert coast. It was beautiful but utterly forbiding and, apart from some Aboriginal wells, there was no water. Yet Eyre still resolved to travel some 1500 kilometres westwards around the Great Australian Bight to AlbanPage3 Story continues … Enter N for more
ny.[EP] The decision was fraught with peril. Predictably, the ensuing five-month journey was appalling. Water was virtually nonexistent, food critically short, and only halfway to Western Australia half the horses were dead. Worse still, John Baxter, Eyre’s loyal companion, was killed when desperate fears split the party.[EP] Eyre and one Aborigine, Wylie, finally triumphed over the landscape, and struggled on to Albany. But a fearful saga of fatigue, hunger, tormenting thirst and tragedy was seared into their minds.[EP] The Bight’s coastline is still virtually unsettled and, retracing Eyre’s journey with a friend, we were moved by Eyre’s courage. Halfway to Albany, along a particularly remote section of the coast, we were bogged for over a day. Our RFDS radio was broken, but we had water, food and maps. By comparison, the isolation of Eyre’s band seemed almost unimaginable: a few men and horses, and this vast unrelenting coastline.[EP] Eyre, passionate if not always prudent, had survived against all odds. But, though his courage was tinged with folly, Eyre’s conclusions about the likely nature of central Australia were prophetic. Future expeditions, he predicted, would discover mostly deserts, salt lakes and isolated ranges.[EP] [EP] Charles Sturt, older but no longer more experienced than Eyre, thought differently. Despite the damning evidence of his young protege’s expedition, Sturt still believed that Page4 Story continues … Enter N for more
ncentral Australia hid an ‘inland sea’ – and, by implication, fertile pastures.[EP] Sturt’s Central Australian Expedition left Adelaide on 10 August 1844, almost exactly one hundred and fifty years ago. The antithesis of what Eyre recommended, it included 15 men, 11 horses, 30 bullocks, 200 sheep and four drays – and a boat! Beyond the Darling River, near where Menindee now is, Sturt was overjoyed by reports of ‘water’:[EP] Tomorrow we start for the waters. We have the heart the interior laid open to us, and we shall be off in the boat with a flowing sheet in a few days.[EP] The waters were a mirage. .[TH].[TH]. Indeed, by February 1845 the expedition was trapped trapped by drought at Depot Glen, near where Milparinka now is. The steadily falling Depot Glen waterhole was the only permanent water in the entire region.[EP] Rain finally freed the expedition in mid-July 1845. Then, taking only four men and some packhorses, Sturt rode northwestwards towards ‘the centre’ – to where he still expected to discover an ‘inland sea’. But relentless, rust-red spinifex-and-sand formations crushed his lingering hopes.[EP] Sturt – as rash as Eyre – advanced into country without first discovering permanent water. In just four weeks they crossed some 600 kilometres of normally virtually waterless country. As Harris Browne, Sturt’s deputy, recorded:[EP] Mere puddles of water enabled us to go thus far, and we knew a few weeks would dry them all up. It was just touch and go with us. Retracing Sturt’s route near here, beyond north-west NSW and past the Cooper floodplain, I had my own problems. My friend Page5 Story continues … Enter N for more
nhad had to leave, so I was travelling alone – and my battered Subaru was barely a match for the country. Alone for days on end, I was exhilarated but often edgy. The security net of twice-daily calls to the RFDS Birdsville base was comforting. But despite that the hazards in such remote, waterless country were very real. A snake bite, a broken leg, rolling the vehicle – any of these, I knew, could bring disaster.[EP] Ironically, Sturt’s ‘inland sea’ led him directly to the wastes of the Simpson Desert. Awed by towering, fiery sand ridges, increasingly fearful that his retreat might be cut off, he turned back with bitter regret in September 1845:[EP] It is impossible to find words to describe the terrible nature of this dreadful desert. In a country so dry all efforts are abortive…[EP] The immense gulf between Sturt’s hopes and the realities of inland Australia was the measure of his tragedy. But if Sturt had been mistaken about his ‘inland sea’, his attitude towards the Aborigines was far ahead of his time – and his enlightened views undoubtedly influenced both Eyre and Stuart. Sturt treated blacks he met with uniform respect and cultural understanding. Desperate for water during his final retreat, he wrote of ‘these kind folk’:[EP] I found the Aborigines’ waterhole so small that I did not think it fair to let the horses drink at it. They would nearly have emptied it, and I wished to act with justice towards them though it might be at our expense.[EP]Page6 Story continues … Enter N for more
n EP] John McDouall Stuart renewed the quest to reveal the true nature of central Australia in the late 1850s. Small, tough and by then a consummate bushman, Stuart was utterly resolved to reach the long-sought ‘centre’, to travel from there to the north coast – and thus to succeed where Eyre and Stuart had failed.[EP] Stuart left on the first of his three trans-continental expeditions from near Lake Eyre South on 2 March 1860, taking with him just two men and 13 horses. Speed, Stuart knew, was essential and the party rode rapidly northwards.[EP] Only six weeks later, on 22 April 1860, they reached the point generally seen as the geographical centre of Australia, now named Central Mount Stuart. But the relentless travelling was grinding them down: ‘My party is too small, this is terrible killing work’, Stuart wrote, now afflicted with scurvy:[EP] My mouth and gums are so bad that I am obliged to eat flour and water boiled, and the pains in my limbs are almost insufferable.[EP] Two months later, near where Tennant Creek is today, Stuart was forced to turn back. Drying waterholes, the horses’ gaunt condition, Aboriginal harassment, starvation rations and Stuart’s worsening scurvy demanded a grim 2,000 kilometre retreat to Adelaide.[EP] Here, amidst the vast mulga plains of the central Northern Territory, my companion and I felt an overwhelming lassitude. The cause was the land itself – the same country that twice defeated Stuart. Extremely hot weather, smoke-hazed skies, featureless plains Page7 Story continues … Enter N for more
nand never-ending scrub conspired against us. They made life miserable, and they made taking telling photographs particularly difficult.[EP] Meanwhile, in August 1860, Robert O’Hara Burke, fired by fleeting passions, had set off from Melbourne leading the most lavishly equipped expedition Australia ever saw. Impulsive and disorganised, Burke raced northwards and reached the north coast in February 1861.[EP] But only months later Burke and two companions starved to death along Cooper Creek, the inland’s most fertile watercourse. In all, seven of Burke’s eighteen men perished; and some Aborigines – ‘mean spirited and contemptible people’ according to Burke – were killed. For what result? Burke left only a sketchy record, and his route was only passable in good seasons.[EP] Ironically Burke, not the truly great Stuart, is the bestknown Australian explorer today. (‘Geez mate’, said a petrol bowser attendant along the Stuart Highway, ‘I never heard of Stuart – but I’ve only been here five years.’)[EP] Emaciated but alive Stuart reached Adelaide in October 1860. Then, barely recovered from his recent ordeals, he rode northwards again with eleven men and 49 horses on New Year’s Day 1861.[EP] Once again beyond Tennant Creek however, and despite months of wearying reconnaissances, no reliable water could be found leading northwards. Finally, rather Page8 Story continues … Enter N for more@
nthan risk the life of a single man, Stuart made the anguished decision to retreat again to Adelaide.[EP] A compelling urgency now drove Stuart, for he knew his health was collapsing. Indomitable, the explorer led his third and final expedition northwards from Adelaide on 8 January. Finally, weary with incessant journeying, Stuart and his twelve comrades reached the north coast at Point Stuart -Ioo kilometres east of Darwin – on 24 July 1862:[EP] I was gratified and delighted to behold the waters of the Indian ocean in Van Diemen Gulf – the sea, the sea!. The party gave three long and hearty cheers.[EP] The morning after we reached Point Stuart, my co-driver and I watched the sun rise golden over Van Diemen Gulf. Exhausted by our own 6,000 kilometre journey from Adelaide, my companion and I were awed by Stuart’s bushmanship, tenacity and courage. The harsh tracts that we had just crossed convinced us that Stuart was, with little doubt, the greatest of Australia’s inland explorers.[EP] Two days after reaching the coast Stuart turned for home. A few weeks later he collapsed: ‘I am very doubtful of my being able to reach the settled districts’, he coolly recorded. Yet, despite drought conditions, Stuart successfully led their long return march through a withering drought. Not a single life, white or black, had been lost on any of his three expeditions.[EP] Nothing could detract from Stuart’s achievement. His three expeditions had blazed a Page9 Story continues … Enter N for more@
nlasting route across central Australia, removing forever the ‘veil’ that Stuart had visualised in 1840.[EP] The last expedition of the most challenging phase of Australia’s inland exploration was over. Central Australia, though far from a lush nirvana, was not all heartless deserts – as subsequent discoveries confirmed.[EP] Eyre, Stuart and Stuart were all awarded Gold Medals by the Royal Geographical Society but, for various reasons, none ever went exploring again. All three later left Australia, and, although they clearly wished to return, none ever did. Fate, and official indifference to their achievements, swept them elsewhere.[EP] McDouall Stuart died just four years after reaching the north coast, in London in 1866; his health had never recovered. Charles Sturt died at Cheltenham in 1869, the same year that the Suez Canal cut through another desert ‘inland sea’. And Edward Eyre died in his old age, in Devon in 1901 – the year of Australia’s Federation.[EP] Eyre, Sturt and Stuart had faced challenges and hardships their contemporaries could barely comprehend, and which today are even harder to grasp. But though their journeys have slipped from the common memory, their achievements live on: in the routes they pioneered across the inland, and in the lives of the people who live there.[EP] During my own three expeditions I had covered some 15,000 kilometres across the remote interior – slow, wearing journeys by four-wheel-drive. In libraries I had uncovered key material, including Sturt’s hitherto unpublished daily field journal of Page10 Story continues … Enter N for more
n1844-45 and revealing correspondence concerning all three explorers.[EP] But my own journeys, and the harsh realities of the inland, had told me more about the explorers than any library.[EP] And, whatever the views of politically correct writers who today condemn the explorers for their undeniable flaws and the inevitable impact of exploration and settlement on Aboriginal people, for me the country itself showed these three leaders in true light. As Pat Auld, who nursed Stuart as he fought off death during the worst days of the return march, said years later:[EP] There is nothing touches one more than the remembrance of the deeds of a truly brave man. We have had the honour of having served one.[EP] CONTRIBUTOR NOTE[EP] Edward Stokes is the author of TO THE INLAND SEA, CHARLES STURT’S EXPEDITION 1844-45 (pub. Century Hutchison) and THE DESERT COAST, EDWARD EYRE’S EXPEDITION 1840 41 (pub. The Five Mile Press). His book on Stuart is in course of publication. His exploration projects were supported with Australia Council fellowships, and a Northern Territory History Award. He is currently working on an environmental history of the Hong Kong countryside.