An Outback Nurse Page 18

  59

  The Kookaburra

  It was strange how frequently the unexpected happened at Wave Hill. Early in my station life, I wasn’t surprised to hear of the station’s connection to one of Australia’s longest-running aviation mysteries. This mystery, often spoken of around Wave, involved a Westland Widgeon aircraft, the Kookaburra, and its relationship to the Australian pioneering aviation hero Sir Charles ‘Smithy’ Kingsford Smith and his plane the Southern Cross.

  After a historic flight from San Francisco to Sydney in 1928 by the Southern Cross, pilot Smithy and co-pilot Charles Ulm wanted more challenges, so they decided to fly to England. They were to refuel at Wyndham in the north of Western Australian, but they never arrived. ‘We are about to make a forced landing in rough country,’ was the last message received from the Southern Cross that day.

  Scores of planes were soon frantically looking for Smithy and Ulm. However, attention would shortly be focused on another plane, the Kookaburra, piloted by Keith Anderson and carrying his mechanic, Bob Hitchcock.

  Anderson was convinced that the search planes had been looking for Smithy in the wrong area. After hasty preparations, with no radio and a faulty compass, and short on provisions, the Kookaburra took off from Sydney on 4 April 1929. Engine trouble caused a forced landing in an area of loose sand and turpentine scrub in the Tanami Desert, 128 kilometres southeast of Wave.

  Having managed to fix the engine, Anderson and Hitchcock found that the scrub was too thick to permit a take-off. Anderson had brought a pencil and wrote an account on the fabric of the Kookaburra’s rudder, describing the forced landing and their inability to take off again.

  In a touch of irony, Anderson and Hitchcock were awaiting certain death from dehydration as Smithy and Ulm were found safe and well.

  Planes were sent to search for the Kookaburra when it went missing. Lester Brain was the pilot who found the plane; he noted a body under the wing and dropped water. A ground search was mounted from Wave Hill, and thanks to three Aboriginal trackers—Banjo, Daylight and Tanami—after great difficulty the search party found the site and buried the two heroes. Later a party from Newcastle Waters Station arrived with coffins on board and removed the bodies, which were sent south to families for proper funeral services.

  There was a propeller on display in the Wave Hill Station rec room, in perfect condition—a reminder of this race against time and fate. Apparently many of the search planes had landed at Wave Hill to refuel and collect supplies, such as the replacement propeller. I was told that it was meant as a replacement for one of the search aircraft, but had never been fitted, because the plane it had been intended for had met a fiery end. The burnt out remains of the plane were later transformed into a ‘beef buggy’, a small trailer for carting beef.

  In later years, many unsuccessful attempts were made to again find the site of the Kookaburra. But Wave was about 16,000 square kilometres in size, with about half of this being unexplored desert country, with only one main road going through. Nearly fifty years passed and the location of the Kookaburra remained a mystery.

  One morning in July 1976, I awoke to hear that Dick Smith and his party of Kookaburra searchers were amassed on the Wave Hill airstrip. Dick, one of Australia’s best-known entrepreneurs and aviation adventurers, planned to write the last chapter of this historical quest. He had the money to do the job, but he was also working on a dream to find the plane that had gone in search of Smithy all those years ago.

  On a preliminary trip in April, Dick had flown over Wave in a Twin Comanche with two friends, one a cameraman. July’s Kookaburra expedition was much larger, and certainly well equipped: Dick had a huge four-wheel drive truck called a Unimog and about four or five other vehicles.

  Soon after their arrival, Dick flew out to view the desert country in John Weymouth’s helicopter. Upon landing, he walked only a few metres away and found, on turning, that he could no longer see the helicopter! One of Australia’s most intrepid adventurers had lost his bearings. In that moment he could relate to the fear that Anderson and Hitchcock must have experienced.

  Dick had talks with the Aboriginal people who’d been in the first search party. He hired the station grader together with its driver, Claypan. He graded a track down to what they called Anderson’s Corner, where lines of longitude and latitude met on the map, south-east of Cattle Creek Station. But after five days of grid grading to ensure comprehensive searching out in the Tanami Desert, they still couldn’t find the Kookaburra.

  Dick had brought with him two memorial plaques: one to be left if they didn’t find the Kookaburra and the other to be left at the site if they did. After placing the former, Dick and his party departed—but he was still determined that the desert was not going to win.

  After those first visits, Dick contacted Lester Brain, the pilot who’d first found the Kookaburra. Dick discovered that a blowhole Lester had noted in 1929 was in a straight line with the Kookaburra and the Wave homestead.

  The next year Dick returned, this time with his wife, Pip, his girls, Hayley and Jenny, and some of his experienced crew.

  Following the directions Lester had given him, Dick, his family and team set out in Dick’s helicopter with high hopes of achieving their objective. This time they were successful—they found the wreckage in the rough turpentine scrub of the Tanami Desert, 125 kilometres south-east of Wave Hill.

  Standing around the burnt-out remains of the Kookaburra, there were mixed emotions. They were elated to find the plane but extremely saddened, too, as they viewed this symbolic reminder of the daring of those brave aviators. Dick later said, ‘It was a moment to remember forever, a moment to dream about, to talk and laugh and cry about.’

  On their return to the station, we gathered for a barbecue—part-celebration and part-hastily convened memorial service for the men of the Kookaburra.

  As a result of this tragedy, compulsory planning of flights was introduced, so Anderson and Hitchcock did not die in vain. The remains of the Kookaburra were taken to Alice Springs where they are on display at the museum.

  60

  Where did we go wrong?

  Education came to Wave Hill in 1961, when Ralph rounded up all the school-age children at the station and put them on the truck to take them to the settlement school. In 1976 these children, now adolescents, returned to Wave a few weeks before the Negri Races. They had completed their education at Kormilda College in Darwin.

  Everyone, white and black, was busy preparing for the exciting event. The stock camps had taken the horses over several weeks before and were training them and setting up our campsites. On Monday the rest of the station travelled over to join them: truckloads of Aboriginal residents—including the adolescents, who usually missed out because they were away at school—and whites in their four-wheel drives, leaving a skeleton staff to hold the fort.

  On arrival we settled in, unpacked, decided on meals for the day, and caught up with friends in the evening or just had a quiet night in our own camps. Everyone was so enthusiastic and looking forward to the rest of the week.

  That same night the hawker vans arrived, and the proprietors started to set up their gear in preparation for Tuesday when trade would begin. This year there were three hawkers; they’d parked their vans in a row opposite the racecourse and hall. One was our friend Ben Humphreys.

  After breakfast, Ralph took a truckload of workers down to the racing area to tidy up around the jockeys’ room, the hall and the grandstand, and to put up the decorations. I went down sometime later with my baby daughter, Penny, and the new female bookkeeper from Wave Hill. We parked the car at the far entrance to the hall and then strolled along the avenue of hawker vans. There seemed to be quite a few people around but it didn’t dawn on me until later that there were no Aboriginal women or children present. This was most unusual, as they all loved looking at the hawkers’ merchandise.

  Just in front of us as we strolled along was Leo, one of the white stockmen. Two Aboriginal youths came up
and tried to pick a fight with him. Leo, a very easygoing fellow, just shrugged them off and said, ‘Cut it out, you fellows. I don’t want to fight with you.’ But a third Aboriginal youth quickly joined them and they all started punching poor old Leo.

  We were horrified and, racing across to the hall, I called frantically, ‘Quick, Ralph, some of the blacks are picking on Leo. He’s in trouble.’

  Ralph and the other men, including tribal elders, ran out of the hall and looked over to the vans. A line of at least fifty young Aboriginal people, a metre apart, were carrying fence pickets and marching towards us chanting, ‘Fuckin’ cudia, fuckin’ cudia.’ (Cudia meaning ‘white man’.) I thought I was watching a western movie with the Indians attacking the cowboys!

  ‘Hurry, Thea,’ Ralph yelled, ‘jump in the car, get up to Nicholson and tell the police in Wyndham.’

  As we ran to the car, the bookkeeper said, ‘Give me Penny while you open the door.’ I handed her my daughter. Near the car, another mob of adolescents raced up to us. One young fellow, whom I’d known well and had fed as a child in the soup kitchen, threw a large rock that missed Penny by only a few inches.

  Somehow, shocked as we were, we managed to get away and drive at speed to Nicholson. Len Hill, the manager, reported the incident to the police in Wyndham by two-way radio. Six policemen were immediately dispatched by plane to Nicholson and vehicles were made available for them to do their job. A few fights had broken out in some of the camps, but thankfully there were no injuries and everything settled down. Fortunately Leo came out of it okay.

  The women were ready to go home from the Negri, but the men said, ‘What’s wrong with you? Of course we’ll continue.’ It’s a man’s world sometimes!

  But it wasn’t the same. Everyone—whites, Aboriginal elders and families—was very upset. Why had these adolescents acted in this way? Were they taught to hate whites at college, or did they hate the Vesteys? Maybe they were suffering like many adolescents today, who are unemployed, lack social support and have too much alcohol. These things can lead to extreme states of discouragement, and to rebel may seem to them to be their only option.

  I guess we’ll never know. All I know is that they ruined the best race meeting in the country that day.

  61

  Aboriginal customs

  In 1976, Ralph received a letter from a guy who’d worked on the station about fifteen years before. This man had taken some sacred stones from a native burial place on Wave Hill and brought them with him to Queensland. He claimed his life had been hell since he’d committed this crime. His health had suffered, his wife had left him, one child had become very ill.

  The sacred stones were already in the mail on their way to Wave when the letter arrived. The man wanted Ralph to return the stones to their rightful burial place, and Ralph was not happy. When the parcel arrived in the mailbag, he refused to go into the office. He sent Algie in to pick the parcel up, and then gave him a vehicle to take the gudarji back to where it belonged, or whichever sacred site the elders decided on.

  One of the older Aboriginal men, Lightning, had come up to the hospital one time feeling weak and lethargic. I couldn’t find anything wrong with him. I put him down on the list to see the doctor on his next visit. The girls sitting around the hospital said that Lightning had been ‘sung’.

  When the Aerial Medical Plane came, the doctor examined him and found nothing wrong, so they took him to Darwin for further examination and tests; again, nothing was found. He was sent home and died the week after.

  Ralph believed in the Aboriginal superstitions. ‘Gudarji,’ he would say, about pointing the bone or singing someone. ‘Bad medicine.’

  On Boxing Day 1978, Ralph took most of the station folk, white and Aboriginal, out to Seal Gorge on the Victoria River for a day of fishing and swimming. The area is very rocky with large amounts of scrub sweeping up from the river.

  After a great day of swimming, fishing and barbecuing, it was time to leave. The troops were all mustered and were walking up the slope to our vehicles. But some of the Aboriginal people hadn’t come with us. They were looking for Brisbane Sambo, who had disappeared.

  Then the whole station started looking, in the gorges along the riverbank, up and around the hills, without success. According to his family, Brisbane Sambo knew that his time had come and, in the Aboriginal way, didn’t wish to cause any fuss.

  ‘Him bin gone, him bin finish,’ the elders said.

  The search continued until night fell, resuming again the next morning, but no trace of Brisbane Sambo was ever found.

  62

  Bidji Park

  In 1976, Madeline and Milton left Gordon Downs and bought a property in the Brisbane Valley at Toogoolawah. I was envious of Madeline’s accounts of pre-school meetings, parent–teacher evenings, sports days and football matches. Ralph and I had missed out on so much of our children’s education.

  We only went to end-of-school-year concerts at OLSH and St Joseph’s every two years, when on holidays. There were no cheap flights in those days. Occasionally our boys would bring their mates home for holidays, or down south we’d have contact with their parents, going out to Pancakes on the Rocks, or Centrepoint restaurant, high up above the other city buildings. That was fun, but it wasn’t the same as Madeline’s day-to-day friendships with other parents in Queensland. Sometimes I did feel our isolation.

  Each week I would read the Queensland Country Life, pouring over property sales. We and many of our friends wanted our own place in the country: to work for ourselves, but not too far from civilisation. How stupid we were—after living in the Territory, we could have made a life anywhere!

  Ralph and I started looking at properties every holidays. It had to be in Queensland, but I’m not sure why we chose Queensland now; perhaps because it was cheaper and more countrified than New South Wales. While staying with Madeline and Milton one year, we found and bought a lush little property, with irrigation and good cultivation, on the hills just outside Toogoolawah. At first we couldn’t think of what to name it, when Cudge suddenly said, ‘Call it Bidji.’ Penny, aged two, had been saying bidji bidji every time she looked at a bunch of grapes. Perhaps Penny had picked up the name ‘bidji’ from her Aboriginal nanny, Pansy. The Aboriginal people had a word that sounded like ‘bidji’ for some bush berries. But wherever Penny got that phrase from, we decided to call the property Bidji Park. It was a dairy to start with, but later we changed it over to a Murray Grey cattle stud.

  When we first bought Bidji we employed a dairy farmer, went to a few dairy sales, managed to get a milk quota with Caboolture Dairy Association, and then went back to work at Wave. Gone were our extravagant holidays down south; our money went into sprucing up the rather dilapidated homestead at Bidji.

  We were still committed to our life outback, though. Our friend Roger Steele, who was the Territorian government’s Minister for Industrial Development, Overseas Trade, Primary Production and Fisheries, asked Ralph to become a board member of the Northern Territory Development Corporation in Darwin in 1978. Its chairman was Noel Buntine, the man who’d brought road trains to the Territory. He did a lot for the Territory and in recognition of that they changed the name of the Buchanan Highway to the Buntine Highway.

  Answering to Roger, the corporation looked at unusual development opportunities throughout the Territory that needed support, in some cases offering financial assistance when this was unavailable from the banks. Ralph was happy to join the board and enjoyed going to Darwin to assist with this very worthwhile venture.

  One example of the work carried out was at the Rapid Flat roadhouse in the Tanami Desert—the most isolated roadhouse in Australia. It needed funds for a new lighting plant. These were unavailable from the banks, but the Northern Territory Development Corporation was able to help and prevent closure.

  Times were changing. Some of our Vestey friends started leaving the north. Commitment to family was stronger than working for Lord Vestey. There were disturbances in the me
at industry; meat workers going on strike for higher wages in the Vestey abattoir in Rockhampton, followed by rumours of Aboriginals marching on Vestey stations. It was a frightening time, especially after having experienced the riot at the Negri.

  It was a difficult decision but in 1979 we decided to leave Wave Hill Station.

  63

  Leaving the Outback

  After twenty-five years for Ralph, and twenty years for me, we left Wave Hill Station. Jenny and Dick Jansen took over the management. Dick was a nephew of Ray Jansen of Limbunya.

  Jimmy Stretton held a ‘silver service’ lunch for us down at Five Mile Creek. We either drove down or rode the horses. As usual, the food and drinks were served beautifully. It was great fun.

  After a big farewell party in the rec room the following day, I took photos of all my Aboriginal staff. We felt sad leaving them all. What did their future hold without Ralph’s guidance?

  Then we headed off. Ralph was putting on a brave face. I’m sure he hated leaving, but he never actually said so.

  Not only did we have our dairy farm at Bidji to go to, but we’d also bought the corner store in Toogoolawah to generate cash flow until the farm got on its feet. We still had three children at boarding school, now at Downlands College in Toowoomba, much closer than Sydney.

  *

  Did we miss the Northern Territory? At first I think we were so busy with our farm, the shop, our children and making a new life that we didn’t have time to think about it. We had our Territory mates, the Fulchers and the Dorans, living not far away, with whom we could open up, compare problems, relax and enjoy great company. Without them we wouldn’t have survived so well.