Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876Giles, Ernest
History
Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876
Giles, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
After crossing the salt lagoon or animals' track, and going five miles
farther, about north-north-east, we arrived at some granite rocks
amongst some low hills, which rose up out of the plain, where some
rock water-holes existed, and here we found the two blacks that had
preceded us, encamped with the camels. This pretty little place was
called Pidinga; the eye was charmed with flowering shrubs about the
rocks, and green grass. As the day was very hot, we erected tarpaulins
with sticks, this being the only shade to sit under. There were a few
hundred acres of good country round the rocks; the supply of water was
limited to perhaps a couple of thousand gallons. From Pidinga our
route to Youldeh lay about north-north-west, distant thirty-three
miles. For about twenty-five miles we traversed an entirely open
plain, similar to that just described, and mostly covered with the
waving broom bushes; but now upon our right hand, to the north, and
stretching also to the west, was a dark line of higher ground formed
of sandhills and fringed with low scrub, and timber of various kinds,
such as cypress pines (callitris), black oak (casuarinas) stunted
mallee (eucalyptus), and a kind of acacia called myal. This new
feature, of higher ground, formed the edge of the plain, and is the
southern bank of a vast bed of sandhill country that lies between us
and the Musgrave Ranges nearly 300 miles to the north.
Having reached the northern edge of the plain we had been traversing,
we now entered the bed of sandhills and scrub which lay before us,
and, following the tracks of the two black fellows with the camels, as
there was no road to Youldeh, we came in five miles to a spot where,
without the slightest indication to point out such a thing, except
that we descended into lower ground, there existed a shallow native
well in the sandy ground of a small hollow between the red sandhills,
and this spot the blacks said was Youldeh. The whole region was
glowing with intense heat, and the sand was so hot, that neither the
camels nor the horses could endure to remain standing in the sun, but
so soon as they were unpacked and unsaddled, sought the shade of the
large and numerous leguminous bushes which grew all round the place.
As there were five whites and four blacks, we had plenty of hands to
set about the different tasks which had to be performed. In the first
place we had to dig out the old well; this some volunteered to do,
while others erected an awning with tarpaulins, got firewood, and
otherwise turned the wild and bushy spot into a locality suitable for
a white man's encampment. Water was easily procurable at a depth of
between three and four feet, and all the animals drank as much as they
desired, being watered with canvas buckets; the camels appeared as
though they never would be satisfied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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