Mount Oxley, New South Wales

There are several shallow craters on top of Mt Oxley and no one knows how they got there. They were there when Captain James Stuart first climbed the mountain in 1828 and the mystery still hasn't been solved.

He and another explorer Sturt reported hearing what sounded like a gun discharging or explosions coming from the mountain.

Dr J. Burton Clellend wrote a paper about it, here is an extract.

There was an interesting report from a Mr D.G. Stead. He wrote "In regard to mysterious rumblings or explosive sounds - when I was on the dry Bogan during August of last year, I stayed for two nights on Mr Barton's station at Mooculta. While there, and while discussing various natural phenomena with Mr Reginald Kirkwood, Mr Barton's manager, the former told me that, not infrequently, at the end of the very hot days just around and a little after sundown were to be heard coming from the direction of Mt Oxley (which I could see from there, and which is a distant about fourteen or fifteen miles) rumbling explosive sounds, sometimes loud, sometimes muffled, according to the state of the atmosphere and the direction of the wind. I suggest that it would probably be caused by bursting rock which had become intensely heated during the day, and was undergoing a rapid cooling process. He agreed that this was extremely probable, but could not say from actual observation. He also told me that the summit of Mt Oxley had numerous peculiar crater-shaped conical depressions: these were only about the summit. This was most interesting to me and I specially noted it in my book at the time. Upon making a close enquiry later, I found similar sounds had been heard coming from Mount Gundabooka, which I have also seen, and which is about forty miles SSW from Oxley. Now both of these short ranges stand up like islands in a veritable 'ocean' of plain country, the radiation from which must be enormous.

There are many other theories but no one knows for sure. Mount Oxley is on private property 50 klm from Bourke and a gate key is available from the the Visitor's Information Centre.

Bourke, New South Wales

Poet Henry Lawson, the late Mother Teresa, Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Ministers, government ministers, including Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull, have all been to Bourke. The first Catholic Missionaries of Charity nuns arrived in the early 1970s, Mother Teresa herself walked past the Aboriginal reserve in 1969 and decided that something needed to be done. Loved by everyone, the sisters teach scripture, provide childcare for Aboriginal families, visit the sick and elderly around town and run a hostel/hospice for homeless Aboriginal men.

Bourke has a history of hard times but the drought of 2001 - 2007 was just too hard for many farmers to keep going. The shire lost 730 people, 20% of its population and was left with just 3200 hardy souls. In 2007 the Darling River, which runs through the town was brackish and low. Father Brian Roach from the Anglican Church’s Company of the Good Shepherd, visited many of the outback families.“There is a lot of depression. There have been a few suicides,” he said. “A quarter of the population of Bourke has gone. The farm hands have been laid off. There is an enormous amount of debt.”

Front Street

This moving poem by Murray Hartin is called Rain from Nowhere

His cattle didn’t get a bid; they were fairly bloody poor,

What was he going to do? He couldn’t feed them anymore

The dams were all but dry; hay was thirteen bucks a bale,

Last month’s talk of rain was just a fairytale.

His credit had run out, no chance to pay what’s owed,

Bad thoughts ran through his head as he drove down Gully Road,

‘Geez, great grandad bought the place back in 1898,

Now I’m such a useless bastard, I’ll have to shut the gate.

“Can’t support my wife and kids, not like dad and those before,

Crikey, Grandma kept it going while Pop fought in the war.”

With depression now his master, he abandoned what was right,

There’s no place in life for failures, He’d end it all tonight.

There were still some things to do; he’d have to shoot the cattle first,

Of all the jobs he’d ever done, that would be the worst.

He’d have a shower, watch the news, then they’d all sit down for tea

Read his kids a bedtime story, watch some more TV

Kiss his wife goodnight, say he was off to shoot some roos

Then in a paddock far away he’d blow away the blues.

But he drove in the gate and stopped – as he always had

To check the roadside mailbox– and found a letter from his dad.

Now his dad was not a writer, mum did all the cards and mail

But he knew the writing from the notebooks he used at cattle sales.

He sensed the nature of its contents, felt moisture in his eyes

Just the fact his dad had written was enough to make him cry.

“Son, I know it’s bloody tough; it’s a cruel and twisted game,

this life upon the land when you’re screaming out for rain,

there’s no candle in the darkness, not a single speck of light,

but don’t let the demon get you, you have to do what’s right

I don’t know what’s in your head but push bad thoughts away

See you’ll always have your family at the back end of the day

You have to talk to someone, and yes I know I rarely did

But you have to think about Fiona and think about the kids”

“I’m worried about you son, you haven’t rung for quite a while

I know the road you’re on ‘cause I’ve walked every bloody mile

The date? December 7 back in 1983

Behind the shed I had the shotgun rested in the brigalow tree”

“See I’d borrowed way too much to buy the Johnson place

Then it didn’t rain for years and we got bombed by interest rates

The bank was at the door; I didn’t think I had a choice

I began to squeeze the trigger, that’s when I heard your voice”

“You said, where are you daddy? It’s time to play our game

I’ve got Squatter all set up, we might get General Rain

It really was that close, you’re the one that stopped me son

And you’re the one that taught me there’s no answer in a gun”

“Just remember people love you, good friends won’t let you down

Look you might have to swallow pride and take that job in town

Just ‘til things come good, son, you’ve always got a choice

And when you get this letter ring me, ‘cause I’d love to hear your voice”

Well he cried and laughed and shook his head, then put the truck in gear

Shut his eyes and hugged his dad in a vision that was clear

Dropped the cattle at the yards, put the truck away

Filled the troughs the best he could and fed his last ten bales of hay

Then he strode towards the homestead, shoulders back and head held high

He still knew the road was tough, but there was purpose in his eye

He called his wife and children, who’d lived through all his pain

Hugs said more than words –he’d come back to them again

They talked of silver linings, how good times always follow bad

Then he walked towards the phone, picked it up and rang his dad

And while the kids set up the Squatter, he hugged his wife again

Then they heard the roll of thunder and they smelt the smell of rain.

Post Office

Professor Fred Hollows loved Bourke so much he wanted to be buried there. He hated social injustice with a passion and was shocked when he discovered that almost all Aboriginal people living in outback communities had eye diseases caused by dirty conditions and poor health. His goal was to provide the highest quality eye care at the lowest possible cost. His legacy was the gift of sight not only to Aboriginal people but other disadvantages people all around the world.

The famous Fitz's Hotel

He was very good at inspiring people to help and getting things done, he had no time for red tape and his flaming temper made him a few enemies. But doctors gave their time and many others volunteered and in three years the team travelled all over outback Australia and tested about 100,000 people. The book Beyond Sandy Blight tells of the frustration he must have felt when in the 1970's, Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had Fred and his team expelled from the state because they were helping Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders to get on the electoral roll so they could vote.

Fred's Memorial at the grave site

He first visited Bourke in the early 1970s and loved it. His eye team held their first clinic at the showground, and later relocated to Bourke District Hospital. In 1985 he worked as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) and visited Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh on short-term assignments.

Granite sculpture by Andreas Buisman

On the 10th February 1993 he died far too early from cancer, he was only 63. After a huge official state funeral at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney and in accordance with his wishes, he was buried in the dusty Bourke Cemetery with his glasses, a bottle of whisky, letters from his children, sawdust from his workshop, his pipe and a tin of tobacco. His coffin was draped with a cloth lovingly hand painted by the people of Enngonia, who he loved dearly.

Phillip Sullivan, an Aboriginal Heritage Conservation Officer with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service was chosen to represent the local Aboriginal people at the funeral. He said:

........"And I think that if we are to leave here with anything today it is that yes, he was an eye doctor but he was a very special eye doctor because he saw things with his spiritual eye, and that is why he went out and done his work. He did it, he didn’t sit back and write a paper about it, he went out and did it. And so today we honour him for that, we come from all over the place – us mob here, we come under an old coolabah tree – and that was his wish. Buried under the shade of a coolabah tree. So we come here today and we give him honour because he put us first. He put my old aunties first, he put us all first".

Fred Hollows - hero - legend - citizen of Bourke

Broken Hill Dust Storm, 22nd September 2009

We were parked outside the caravan repairers in Broken Hill waiting for a new awning to be fitted to the caravan when the dust storm started on Tuesday afternoon the 22rd September. The 19 foot awning blew off in another dust storm in Port August about 2 weeks ago and was being replaced with a new one, the insurance company was fantastic and didn't quibble a bit. At about 3.15 pm the sky suddenly went a weird orange colour and the wind was so strong, it almost knocked me over when I got out of the car to take a photo. A few moments later, as we sat in the car gaping at the now magnificent blood red sky and the ferocious wind bending the trees almost double, day suddenly turned into night and everything went black. At 3.30 in the afternoon, it was suddenly night time, so exciting because it couldn't possibly be happening. All traffic stopped, nothing moved, motorists and truckies, all with hazard lights flashing in the darkness, sat stunned, waiting for something to happen. I took lots of pictures but the flash was on and only took the dust particles and blackness. It lasted for about 20 minutes before it was safe to move.

I was a bit disappointed next morning when I discovered it had dumped on Sydney and most of the east coast, I thought I was one of the few who'd had a unique outback experience.

Menindee, New South Wales

The little town of Menindee is 110 kms from Broken Hill and is surrounded by lakes fed by the Darling River. Grape Exchange Farming is Australia's largest producer of table grapes and has 300 hectares of vineyards in Menindee. They employ around 310 workers at harvest time.


Here in the outback you would never believe that vineyards or anything else could survive in brightly coloured red desert sand, but they do. The company brew up what they call a special 'tea' made out of compost which increases the bacterial and fungi content of the soil. Table grapes are much more labour intensive because everything is hand pruned and picked. They are suppliers to Coles and Woolworths.

The Darling River

Menindee is also famous for the doomed Burke and Wills expedition. At nearby Pamamaroo Creek there is a tree where they made camp. We had lunch at the hotel, now known as the Maiden's Menindee Hotel. Burke and Wills used the hotel as a staging point for their ill fated expedition.

The main weir

In 1860, policeman Robert Burke led an expedition to cross Australia from the south to the north. With the promise of fame and a handsome prize from the Government of South Australia for the first expedition to make it, they left Melbourne on 20th August 1860. There were 15 men, 27 camels, 23 horses, wagons, 2 years supply of food and many other necessities.

The expedition reached Menindee in about 8 weeks without incident. Burke heard that explorer Stuart was also going to attempt the arduous trek to the Gulf so he promptly left some of the men and supplies at Menindee and pushed on to Coopers Creek and established his base camp.

Pelicans waiting for fish to come over the weir

Burke looked upon Aboriginal people as his inferiors and couldn't bring himself to depend on them in any way so he refused gifts of food from the Yantruwanta people. Instead, Burke and his team tried to copy them, knowing they prepared nardoo cakes from the seeds of a local fern. What they didn't know was that nardoo seed is toxic to humans if it's not soaked in water first so the team slowly died from starvation and chronic loss of Vitamin B1 caused by untreated nardoo seed.

Storm clouds in the desert

Thanks to the diligent diary entries of Wills, we get an insight into the final days. Mentally and physically exhausted, this is his final entry.


Friday, 26 June, 1861
Clear cold night, slight breeze from the East day beautifully warm and pleasant. Mr Burke suffers greatly from the cold & is getting extremely weak he & King start tomorrow up the creek to look for the blacks. It is the only chance we have of being saved from starvation. I am weaker than ever although I have a good appetite and relish the nardu much but it seems to give us no nutriment & the birds here are so shy as not to be got at. Even if we got a good supply of fish I doubt whether we could do much work on them and the nardue alone, nothing now but the greatest good luck can now save any of us and as for myself, I may live four or five days if the weather continues warm. my pulse are at forty-eight & very weak and my legs & arms are nearly skin and bone: I can only look out like Mr. Micawber “for something to turn up” but starvation on nardu is by no means very unpleasant but for the weakness one feels and the utter inability to move oneself, for as far as appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction certainly fat & sugar would be more to one’s taste, in fact those seem to me to be the great standby for one in this extraordinary continent, not that I mean to depreciate the farinaceous food, but the want of sugar & fat in all substances obtainable here is so great that they become almost valueless to us as articles of food, without the addition of something else.
W.J. Wills

Four days later King, having left Burke dead on the route, came back and found that Wills had also died. He joined the Yantruwanta people who looked after him until he was found a few months later by other explorers on the 15th September 1861.

Broken Hill, New South Wales

Looking across to the Miner's Memorial

A huge mullock heap towers over the town of Broken Hill. On the top is the Miner's Memorial where 795 miners died over the life of the mine. The mullock heap is estimated to weigh 6 million tons and still contains zinc tailings which will be extracted at a later date.








In 1883 on remote Mount Gipps sheep station, boundary rider Charles Rasp discovered what he thought was tin oxide and immediately registered a 40 acre claim. He went straight to his boss, station manager George McCulloch and told him he was quitting work to mine his new claim. The canny Scot McCulloch suggested a syndicate of seven station employees be formed to develop the first claim and peg out six more. It turned out to be one of the largest silver-zinc-lead deposits in the world. The company they formed to prospect the 7 kilometre lode became Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) - the Big Australian.








2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the BHP Lockout. Unionists were locked out of the company gates for rejecting pay cuts. BHP cut wages to below the minimum wage because of declining mineral prices. When the workers took the case to the Federal Arbitration Court, BHP locked out every man who refused to accept the cuts and hired scab labour to replace him.

The conflict reached a head in January 1909. Justice Henry Bourne Higgins was sympathetic to the working class and ruled that the welfare of the Broken Hill workers outweighted the economic struggles of BHP and ordered the company to increase pay above the minimum wage. But BHP refused to pay and shut the mine down for two years.

Mad Max's Car

BHP ceased work at Broken Hill in 1940 and today the mine is operated by Perilya who acquired it in 2002. They say they have extended the mine's life by more than six years but the writing is clearly on the wall. Last year they sacked 440 workers after mineral prices fell and mining activity has declined so drastically over recent decades that young people have had to look elsewhere for work.

A couple of Pro Hart's Rollers

Tourism is on the rise as people are keen to visit the outback town because it's so accessible from major capital cities. They were queueing up to go down the famous mine until they stopped the tours about two years ago when mining resumed. There is lots to see, 50 artists live here and there are 27 private galleries and studios. Movies and commercials are also made here, they come for the earthy colours and magical light.

Water Mirage


As they say in the brochure - Broken Hill - the accessible outback.

Broken Hill Artist Pro Hart, New South Wales

Broken Hill was the beloved home of eccentric self-taught artist Pro Hart. Born Kevin Hart, he was a knock-about bloke who worked in the mine for twenty years. His mining mates nicknamed him 'Professor' because he was a bit of a know-all, and was constantly coming up with daft inventions. And so he became Pro Hart. He also had a passion to draw, even though he never had any official training. He couldn't resist painting on the wooden beams in the mine, often having a shot at someone, including the shift boss. Humble beginnings indeed for a man whose private art collection was once valued at 30 million dollars. He was discovered by Kim Bonython, a gallery owner from Adelaide in 1962 and his popularity as an outback artist began. He travelled the world and met Kings and Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers and his art resides in large international collections.

Although his paintings are popular with ordinary Australians, the art critics were particularly cruel about his work. 'It's got to be said that they're the ugliest things you've ever seen,' leading Sydney art dealer Ray Hughes said of Hart's enormous output. 'We've sunk to such a low state of self-esteem that people have been celebrating the fact that he made a shitload of money for paintings that are totally unworthy.' Pro said he didn't care.

Pro once bought 2 paintings by famous Australian artist Sidney Nolan and was furious when he discovered they were fakes - very good fakes. Will Blundell has fooled the experts for years, he's a 'copyist' and can paint in any stye and he's so good that buyers and dealers often mistake Blundell's work for the real thing. So when you go to an auction room, there's a good chance some of them will be fakes.

Pro Hart decided he'd had enough and devised a plan to beat the cheats. With the help of some DNA technology, Pro had a swab sample taken from his cheek and his DNA mark is then applied to every one of his paintings and read by a special scanner which proves each painting's authenticity. DNA technologist Ron Taylor explains how it's done.

"In the case of artwork, we've mixed it into paints - both visible and invisible. So it can be a visible mark on there, such as the artist's signature, or it can be applied totally invisible, as part of the painting, and we'll only know it from our digital image we take of where the location is." .

At Broken Hill on 4th April 2006 Pro Hart received a state funeral. With his casket draped in the Australian flag and a miner's helmet and lamp placed on top, the Silver City said farewell to Pro Hart - artist of the people.

Coober Pedy, South Australia

Coober Pedy is the largest opal mining area in the world. If you wish to look for opal, you need to get a mining permit and an explosives permit which involves a criminal record check by police, then you will be allocated a claim 50m x 100m.

Serbian Orthodox Church

There are no big mining companies in Coober Pedy because finding opal is so unpredictable, they can't forecast future earnings, it's too much of a gamble. Eighty five percent of all claims in Coober Pedy have not produced opal.

Underground Museum

So Coober Pedy is a town full of little battlers dreaming of a big strike. Miners came from all over the world and there are 45 different nationalities in the town.

Dog fence - longest fence in the world

Although opal was discovered in 1915, it wasn't until the 1960s that hundreds of eager young men from Europe flocked to Coober Pedy to purchase mining rights to small parcels of land.

If a miner has some success in finding opal, he will probably get what they call 'opal fever' and dedicate the rest of his life to finding more. This has resulted in some sad tales of broken marriages and wasted life savings but also stories of great wealth and success.

Tourists aren't allowed in the mine fields anymore, too many have been killed falling down the thousands of gaping holes. One young woman walked to the top of pile of dirt to take a photo when suddenly it collapsed under her, two men grabbed her and all three fell down the shaft.

Coober Pedy is an ugly place, man and his search for riches has completely ruined the already bleak landscape. It's easy to believe that this landscape was once an ocean bed 200 million years ago.

18 hole golf course

There are holes and mounds of dirt in every direction, it's a wonder there is any spare land left and it's so hot in the summer, around 40 to 65C in the opal fields, people live underground to escape the heat.

The greenies want all the holes filled in but if they did, nobody would know where previous shafts had been and dangerous cave-ins would occur when new shafts were dug near to old ones, so they stay with the ugliness.

They made Mad Max and Priscilla Queen of the Desert here

Cooper Pedy is a town of optimistic, hard working people, who believe they are just metres away from success.

Kings Canyon, Northern Territory

Spot the climbers?

When I discovered that Uluru and Kings Canyon Resorts were owned by Voyages, I was curious to find out what sort of agreement with the Aboriginal people had been worked out.

On the first of January 1994 a National Park lease agreement was made between the Commonwealth Government of Australia and Uluru - Kata Tjuta Aboriginal Land Trust. The traditional Aboriginal owners of the park granted a lease to the Director of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW).

The terms of the agreement include the right of entry for Aboriginals to hunt or gather food and to use any part of the park for ceremonial and religious purposes. The Land Trust also reserves the right to request the Director of National Parks and Wildlife to sublet any reasonable part of the Park to a relevant Aboriginal Association.

The term of the agreement is for a period of 90 years. The annual rent is to be $150,000 payable in advance. In addition, the land trust is to receive 25% of entrance fees and 25% of any charges, fees or penalties imposed by the Director in respect of commercial activities within the Park, in excess of $30,000.

Kings Canyon is the last of the 'must see' mighty monoliths, canyons and gorges of this area. Tomorrow we head into South Australia towards Coober Pedy. Last night 3 dingoes came into the park just on dark, they moved rather quickly, showing no fear of humans cooking dinner and kept up a steady pace until they vanished into the night. We also saw our first wild camel.

Goodbye Northern Territory, thanks for the memories.

The Olgas (Kata Tjututa), Northern Territory

About 50 kms up the road from Uluru are The Olgas as they used to be called but now the traditional owners call them Kata Tjuta.

There used to be lots of walks here once but the Aboriginal owners have closed all but two so they can practice their ancient culture in private.

Thousands of years ago ceremonies were conducted here by the Pitjantjajara people and still are, particularly at night. One of these ancient ceremonies included a type of public punishment, including death.

Yesterday an elder told us through an interpreter that if a man did something wrong and needed to be punished they would run a spear through the offender's thigh from the outside in.

When the wound healed, the scar would be visible for all to see and the people would know that this man was not to be trusted.

Kata Tjuta means place of many heads. It's two hundred metres taller than Uluru and consists of 36 individual domes.