On the 20^th of August 1860 a huge bunch of men with 21 tons of supplies and 26 camels left Melbourne. In command was one Robert O’Hara Bourke and his mission was to be the first man to cross Australia south to north and return. At stake was a 10,000 pound prize with certain fame and fortune to follow. 65 odd days later a breakaway forward group of men arrived at the banks of Cooper Creek where the now famous camp 65 was located. At this point the group split further and Robert Bourke, William Wills, John King and Charlie Grey made a dash for the gulf leaving some others behind in camp 65 to “hold fort” and await their return. The instructions were to wait at least three months.

Four gruelling months later Bourke, Wills and King arrived back at camp 65 to find it abandoned just days or even hours earlier.  Charlie Grey had died on the trek. The just departed party had inscribed “DIG” on a Coolibah Tree where some supplies had been cached. Australian history knows this place as “The Dig Tree”. Bourke and Wills perished near here and the sole survivor and first known man to successfully cross Australia south to north and return survived by befriending local aborigines. John King was eventually found by a rescue party and it is he who lived to tell the sad and sorry tale of adventure, hardship, death and survival.

How do I know this stuff? Well my partner Kat and I are camped at The Dig Tree by our plane three nights after leaving Tasmania. It is cool, lush and green and the Cooper Creek is running. It is totally deserted and what was planned as a single nights stop has turned into two nights as the beauty and remoteness has enchanted us. At the airstrip is a small unmanned information centre and the actual dig tree is still growing some 500 metres further on, on the banks of the Cooper Creek. The original “Dig” inscription is still, in part legible. There is a huge variety of birdlife and a cheeky crow has already attempted to trash our camp in a short period we left it unattended. There are wild dog footprints in the mud nearby, we have seen several dingoes and the dog howls at night add to the desert ambiance.

Day one of this trip saw a late start from Launceston made even later by a flat battery and a hand start after briefly charging the battery enough to get the radio working. My elderly 172 has a generator that does not start to produce power until around 2000 RPM. A flat battery means no radio until take off power is applied.

Our first stop was Wynyard where I borrowed a fire extinguisher and a cargo net from Seair, the seaplane folk I work for. The plane started outside their hanger but needed “propping” again at the fuel bowser after a taxi with the radios on. I was beginning to wonder where along the way I could get a new battery.

We crossed Bass Strait via King Island under low cloud and landed at Port Fairy for night one, camping under the wing. Here I rearranged the load to shift the C of G rearwards in the vague hope of another knot or two and a more responsive elevator.

Night two saw us at Broken Hill after refuelling at Hamilton and having a picnic lunch at Hopetown where two alpacas and some sheep watched us through a fence on an almost abandoned looking airstrip. The terminal building at Hopetown had a chair in it that was so connected to a desk by cobwebs it was comical. The C of G change has worked and our plane definitely feels better in the air.

The trip to Broken Hill was another low level affair into light headwinds and medium rain. Visibility was down to around 5000 meters in spots and I was glad the overcast had a base, my plane has good instruments and for the lack of mountains. Rain in Tasmania generally prevents anything but coastal VFR. Here at least we could fly safely.

At BH we stayed with Kat’s dad then the next day made it here, to The Dig Tree, still under overcast but with a slight tailwind. En route we stopped at Cameron Corner for fuel which was Mogas from the roadhouse. We taxied from the strip to the bowser via the road, much to the amusement of some tourists in four wheel drives. Cameron Corner is worth a stop, it is the border corner between Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales, there is an airstrip, a store with some accommodation and a bit of info at the corner survey marker.  Here also was a couple of Jabirus and a Zenith to break the radio silence but they were airborne before we landed, heading West for the Kimberly’s. We bid them bon voyage! The highest we have been so far since leaving Tasmania is 1500 feet ... but the battery problem seems fixed. I removed it in Broken Hill and put it on an overnight charge.

From here at the Dig Tree we intend to go to Longreach but that is another story.

Filling up at Cameron corner

The Dig Tree airstrip. as you can see only half is useable. we used the second half.

Sunset on The Dig tree airstrip from our campsite