Yet beneath the wheels of our vehicles lies one of the largest water basins on the planet: the Great Artesian Basin. Which behaves much like a giant sponge, soaking up water over the millennia, collecting it in impermeable underground holes and tunnels, caves and niches.
Two hundred million years ago this great flat dry land was covered in water. In parts of this basin you can still dig up sea fossils from that time. Back then the northern part of Australia tipped towards the sea. Not just once, but three times. Sea water flooded in, filling up these giant inland water bowls. Rain water funnelled underground from natural 'drain pipes' high in the eastern and northern mountain ranges; the 'piped' water behaved the way water typically behaves: gradually being pulled down and down by gravity until it finds the lowest point: a barrier, where its progress is stopped, where it is collected. It is as if there is a massive water tank deep beneath this sun-parched land, where gibbers and pebbles sometimes appear as the only surface vegetation.
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| The dry crossing between Queensland and South Australia |
Aboriginals, with their affinity for the land, were able to suss out water even when it had not rained for months, even years. White man was not so lucky. Out here, tales of torturous deaths from lack of water, lack of nutrients, are commonplace, still.
Yet, some men survived, even flourished.
Before he was even twenty-one, barely ten years after Burke and Wills disastrous and deadly trek through the very heart of Australia, John Conrick and his mates drove a thousand head of cattle from Warrnambool in Victoria, to settle on a holding near here, called Nappa Merrie. Conrick was a youngster, an overlander, a drover -- yet he rapidly learned bush skills that enabled him, his men, and his holdings, to thrive.
While it looks as if it grows nothing but dust, Nappa Merrie, leased today by Kidman & Co from Santos, runs anything up to 15,000 head of cattle on its vast stretches. We hardly saw any cattle, but the land goes forever: they were there. Great bores, supplementing the unreliable water that occasionally flows down channels and creek beds, have been sunk deep, searching out artesian water for the cattle. Sometimes they bore down 500 metres, sometimes 2,000 metres have to be drilled before water is reached.
Not far from the Nappa Merrie sign, along one of the worst gibber and corrugated roads we have travelled, still inside the station boundary, lies the iconic Dig Tree of Burke and Wills fame. Growing on the banks of the Bulla Bulla waterhole on Cooper Creek, stands the Coolibah tree, the eucalyptus microtheca, that bears the remnant scars of DIG scored into its bark. This tree lies at the very heart of Burke and Will's Camp 65 made here in December, 1860. In his rush to push north, Robert O'Hara Burke left his remaining team of men, camels and supplies, here, with orders to Brahe and his men to wait for them for the three months they expected to be gone. They took supplies just to cover the three months.
Brahe waited four months. Thinking that Burke and Wills must have taken a boat from the northern shores and shipped back to Victoria instead of returning overland, Brahe, with a paralysed man in his charge, decided to leave Camp 65 at 10.30am on the morning of 21 April, 1861.
He left a note, and what provisions he could spare, on the remote chance that Burke and Wills might return this way, planting them under a Coolibah tree, cutting a blaze in the bark of the tree on the land side, exhorting any searchers to DIG.
Barely nine hours later, at 7.30pm that night, Burke, Wills and King, hobbled into Camp 65.
They had just lost one of their team of four to the paralysis that had struck Brahe's party. Nutritional deficiency. Taking a day to bury him meant they missed Brahe. They had eked out their supplies over the four months, supplementing them with portulacae, trying to combat scurvy, but they were all weak, and in need of assistance.
They found the DIG tree at Camp 65. They uncovered the cache of supplies. But it was only when he read Brahe's note that Burke began to lose hope.
Brahe left a message saying they were heading back to the Menindee camp that day. He then reported that he and his men were in good condition. This news clanged like a death knell to Burke. He knew that neither he, Wills, nor King, had a hope of catching any party in good condition. And that nine hours advance by Brahe, was much too much to make up, given their weakened condition.
Days later, the trio set off stumbling in the opposite direction, with their noses pointing towards Mount Hopeless, in the hope they might make it to help before collapsing. That was not to be. Other trees now mark the spots where Burke and Wills died along the Cooper. Only King survived -- but not even he for very long. He lived to marry, but died soon after: made fragile from the harsh trek.
This tragic tale lies at the very heart of the early history of this harsh and uncompromising country.
Yet Cooper Creek appears at peace. Corellas nest in the coolibahs. And gather in their thousands, screeching and swooping at dusk, until they find a roost for the night in the silver grey gums beside the still blue waterholes.
Other blazes mark other coolibahs along the Cooper. Many scars have been made by early aboriginal tribes who wandered here, curling off outer bark with their stone axes and chisels, to make coolamon bowls. In these bowls they could mix ground coolibah seeds, shaping them into cakes with the flavour of eucalyptus. Soothing. Or prepare fish, which they caught in nets made from the lignum plant on the creek bank, soaking and pounding and weaving it into nets that they strung across the creek on reeds, catching fish after plentiful fish.
Or to leach nardoo. The fateful nardoo.
Had Burke and Wills been more inclined to take note of the aboriginal ways they might have observed that before they used any seeds they harvested from the nardoo plant at the water's edge, that aboriginals soaked the toxins from the nardoo before drying and pounding and shaping the flour into edible cakes.
A simple lessons that might have saved lives.
We camped at Innamincka on the Town Common on the Cooper, one of the most beautiful campsites in Australia.
We were just a short distance from the trees which mark the last resting places where Burke and his trusty colleague, Wills, lay to breathe their last: Wills with his diary in his hands, Burke with his gun, and his friend and fellow explorer, King, close until the end.
It seems incongruous that this river of plenty and peace has been witness to such a futile tragedy.
Yet, some men survived, even flourished.
Before he was even twenty-one, barely ten years after Burke and Wills disastrous and deadly trek through the very heart of Australia, John Conrick and his mates drove a thousand head of cattle from Warrnambool in Victoria, to settle on a holding near here, called Nappa Merrie. Conrick was a youngster, an overlander, a drover -- yet he rapidly learned bush skills that enabled him, his men, and his holdings, to thrive.
 |
| Nappa Merrie station entrance |
While it looks as if it grows nothing but dust, Nappa Merrie, leased today by Kidman & Co from Santos, runs anything up to 15,000 head of cattle on its vast stretches. We hardly saw any cattle, but the land goes forever: they were there. Great bores, supplementing the unreliable water that occasionally flows down channels and creek beds, have been sunk deep, searching out artesian water for the cattle. Sometimes they bore down 500 metres, sometimes 2,000 metres have to be drilled before water is reached.
Not far from the Nappa Merrie sign, along one of the worst gibber and corrugated roads we have travelled, still inside the station boundary, lies the iconic Dig Tree of Burke and Wills fame. Growing on the banks of the Bulla Bulla waterhole on Cooper Creek, stands the Coolibah tree, the eucalyptus microtheca, that bears the remnant scars of DIG scored into its bark. This tree lies at the very heart of Burke and Will's Camp 65 made here in December, 1860. In his rush to push north, Robert O'Hara Burke left his remaining team of men, camels and supplies, here, with orders to Brahe and his men to wait for them for the three months they expected to be gone. They took supplies just to cover the three months.
Brahe waited four months. Thinking that Burke and Wills must have taken a boat from the northern shores and shipped back to Victoria instead of returning overland, Brahe, with a paralysed man in his charge, decided to leave Camp 65 at 10.30am on the morning of 21 April, 1861.
He left a note, and what provisions he could spare, on the remote chance that Burke and Wills might return this way, planting them under a Coolibah tree, cutting a blaze in the bark of the tree on the land side, exhorting any searchers to DIG.
 |
| Old shot of the Dig Tree as it once was |
Barely nine hours later, at 7.30pm that night, Burke, Wills and King, hobbled into Camp 65.
They had just lost one of their team of four to the paralysis that had struck Brahe's party. Nutritional deficiency. Taking a day to bury him meant they missed Brahe. They had eked out their supplies over the four months, supplementing them with portulacae, trying to combat scurvy, but they were all weak, and in need of assistance.
They found the DIG tree at Camp 65. They uncovered the cache of supplies. But it was only when he read Brahe's note that Burke began to lose hope.
Brahe left a message saying they were heading back to the Menindee camp that day. He then reported that he and his men were in good condition. This news clanged like a death knell to Burke. He knew that neither he, Wills, nor King, had a hope of catching any party in good condition. And that nine hours advance by Brahe, was much too much to make up, given their weakened condition.
Days later, the trio set off stumbling in the opposite direction, with their noses pointing towards Mount Hopeless, in the hope they might make it to help before collapsing. That was not to be. Other trees now mark the spots where Burke and Wills died along the Cooper. Only King survived -- but not even he for very long. He lived to marry, but died soon after: made fragile from the harsh trek.
 |
| Where Robert O'Hara Burke lay dying |
This tragic tale lies at the very heart of the early history of this harsh and uncompromising country.
Yet Cooper Creek appears at peace. Corellas nest in the coolibahs. And gather in their thousands, screeching and swooping at dusk, until they find a roost for the night in the silver grey gums beside the still blue waterholes.
 |
| Nesting corellas awaiting the influx at dusk |
Other blazes mark other coolibahs along the Cooper. Many scars have been made by early aboriginal tribes who wandered here, curling off outer bark with their stone axes and chisels, to make coolamon bowls. In these bowls they could mix ground coolibah seeds, shaping them into cakes with the flavour of eucalyptus. Soothing. Or prepare fish, which they caught in nets made from the lignum plant on the creek bank, soaking and pounding and weaving it into nets that they strung across the creek on reeds, catching fish after plentiful fish.
Or to leach nardoo. The fateful nardoo.
Had Burke and Wills been more inclined to take note of the aboriginal ways they might have observed that before they used any seeds they harvested from the nardoo plant at the water's edge, that aboriginals soaked the toxins from the nardoo before drying and pounding and shaping the flour into edible cakes.
 |
| Nardoo: so green, so lush, so deadly |
A simple lessons that might have saved lives.
We camped at Innamincka on the Town Common on the Cooper, one of the most beautiful campsites in Australia.
We were just a short distance from the trees which mark the last resting places where Burke and his trusty colleague, Wills, lay to breathe their last: Wills with his diary in his hands, Burke with his gun, and his friend and fellow explorer, King, close until the end.
It seems incongruous that this river of plenty and peace has been witness to such a futile tragedy.
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