Thread: Where am I? Competition.

Originally Posted by Xtreme

................................ is it one of the artesian basin springs?

No, but it is a spring.

Deano

Just a guess (I have not got there yet)

Dragon Tree Soak Reserve ?

Right on the money .

Quite remote and the only accessible (fresh) water for hundreds of kilometres in all directions. The 'dirt' around the soak is actually a sort of peat. Very strange for the middle of a desert.

An incredibly scenic and challenging journey to get there and out again, not for the faint hearted.

This is typical of the country traveled through to get there.



View from McLarty Hills looking west, approx. 100 Km or so to the NE.

Here's a location map and route taken to get there.



We followed the path in 2014 of an ExploreOz group who visited there four years previously. There was no evidence of any other vehicle tracks since then although there was another group from Bairnsdale in Victoria, who took a different route and also visited around the same time we did.


Deano

Thanks Deano,

I have long wanted to go there but It would be somewhat foolhardy to try it alone - it would be good to join up with others.

When I gat back home later today I'll get another location photo up

Regards - Laurie

Originally Posted by DeanoH

Here's a location map and route taken to get there.



We followed the path in 2014 of an ExploreOz group who visited there four years previously. There was no evidence of any other vehicle tracks since then although there was another group from Bairnsdale in Victoria, who took a different route and also visited around the same time we did.

Deano

Another destination to add to my 'must visit' list.

Thanks Deano

Originally Posted by 87County

Thanks Deano,

.............................. It would be somewhat foolhardy to try it alone

Regards - Laurie

In todays environment, suicidal, though back in 1936 an aboriginal stockman and bushman by the name of Tom Gray did just that. On horseback and and in Janurary.

It turns out he'd got word about the death of a white 'dogger' out in the desert who'd been killed several months earlier by aboriginies. He saddled up and rode off from Anna Plains Station around 200 Km to the south to investigate. Eventually he located the 'scene of the crime' and also located the body of the dead dogger whose corpse had been interred in a hollowed out ant hill. He also found the body of a dead aborigine who had been shot and whose remains had been placed in a tree.
After burying the dogger he returned to Anna Plains Station and contacted the police in Broome. Tom Gray then led the police party to recover the doggers body and went looking for the killer. He spent some time in the McLarty Hills area 'watching and waiting' and finally caught the killer who was arrested and sent off to Perth for trial.
It seems that the dogger, who job entailed spending months alone in the desert, had become a bit 'lonely' and had made inappropriate advances to a nomadic aborigines wife. The aborigine was shot and killed for his 'objections' and the dogger was speared and killed by another aborigine as the dispute escalated.
But what is totally remarkable is that when the circumstances of the crime(s) became known to the authorities back in Perth the accused was released and sent back 'home' with no charges to answer.

Tom Grays signature can be found scratched in the rock at a vantage point in the McLarty Hills. He joined the 2/16 Battalion and was killed in action in 1941




I guess people were a bit tougher back in the old days.


Tom Gray would have been certain to have watered at Dragon Tree Soak.


Deano

Fascinating and interesting historical snippet DeanoH,

I also had gathered that there is an idea that Leichhardt, (there has been limited evidence of his eventual fate), could have travelled as far as the Great Sandy - but it could be just a myth?

Also...

There was an interesting survival show on the ABC recently about a bloke who set out to ride his bicycle there - the sand beat him on the bike so he continued on foot, missed the soak and was rescued in the McLarty Hills - amazing survival story.

Miracles - Miracle In The Desert : ABC iview

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0HkRY_hYI[/ame]

Hi all,

This quite isolated landmark shouldn't be too hard for those who have travelled at night in NSW, the nighttime accounting for the reduced photo quality - apologies for this.

We're looking for the name of the landmark and its location please.

Good luck