The Song of the Desert
by Cavan Brown
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 61
Winter 1998

Part 2

And then I found that Ernest Giles discovered that other dimension. In July 1875 while exploring near Ooldea, a station now on the Trans Australian Railway, the explorer tells us that a voice from heaven came to him and said: "Be bold of heart, be strong of will, for unto thee by God is given to roam the desert paths of earth, and thence explore the fields of heaven."

My hope, in doing the Gunbarrel, was to occasionally slip out of the "desert paths of earth" and do some exploration of "the fields of heaven". Typical of a modern explorer, I wanted it to happen in three days rather than Giles' experience of wandering around half-dead through thirst for three years.

Driving past the Wongawol station, we stopped at a billabong named Harry Johnston Waters or Mingal Camp. This was the only natural water course in 800 kilometres. The place was a classical Australian billabong with river gums alongside red muddy water. It even boasted of an old shearers' open kitchen, a bedroom and en suite (well, a couple of old beds and a tree). After hours of the same dry, flat spinifex it was a very welcome change.

Giles often came across scenes in the desert that led him to exuberant praise: "Here I found a spot where nature had 'Shed o'er the scene her purest of crystal".

Mingal Camp Pool wasn't quite that good but I could, on the basis of the last two days, easily settle for "This was really the most delightful spot I ever saw."

I felt very Australian, and understood why we often, in moments of nationalistic pride, pass over the National Anthem and sing "Waltzing Matilda". I spontaneously broke into song a few times, which was broken not by troopers coming down, but by an old truck that we had seen leaving the Wongawol Station. We actually passed the truck, which is a rare feat for this Land Rover. Three Aboriginal men emerged from the truck and I invited them to come and have a cup of tea with us. They told us they belonged to the Mungili Aboriginal Community which is in the middle of the Gibson Desert. I asked whether they wanted some food.

"We had some emu", they said.

"Did you shoot the emu?" I asked, to keep the conversation going.

They laughed and one pulled out a can of Emu Bitter beer. But they did share a cup of billy tea and I have never felt more Australian in my life.

We arrived at Carnegie Station to get the last fuel for about 800 kilometres and then hit the Gunbarrel Highway built in 1956 by the legendary Len Beadell.

The Gibson Desert conjures up images of Sahara sand drifts, dead bones and clear dry sky. The sky was in fact overcast. The vegetation was sparse at times but then the mulga seemed to re-appear wherever any small rise created some run off for the rare rain. However, there was always the spinifex, or triodia, to use its proper name.

"The triodia here reigns supreme, growing in enormous bunches and plots, and standing three and four feet high, while many of the long dry tops are as high as man. This gives the country the appearance of dry grassy downs".

This grass, created uniquely for Australia, stops the inland of Australia becoming like the Sahara. The job description of spinifex is 'to tie Australia down', and it does it brilliantly.

We camped that night in a small grove of bloodwood (Eucalyptus chippendalei) trees and after tea, sat around a small fire and expressed thanks for getting to where we were without any mishap. The night was clear and the stars were brilliant and that sets the mind on the vertical dimension.
Ernest Giles often let his mind be moved by the night sky: "The mind is forced back upon itself, and becomes filled with an endless chain of thoughts which wander through the vastness of the star-bespangled sphere; for here the only things to love, and upon which the eye may gaze, and from which the beating heart may gather some feelings of repose, are the glittering bands of brilliant stars".

To: Part 3

Cavan Brown Cavan Brown is the minister of Geraldton Baptist Church, WA, and is the author of Pilgrim Through Barren Land, Albatross, 1991, and the forthcoming The Blackfellas' Friend: a life of John Gribble (Access Press, 1999).