A Remarkable Feat – 1893, Australia East to West

Thomas began a remarkable feat in 1893 which has put him down as the first man to ever cross Australia from the east coast to the west coast. In 1893, Thomas, his 2 sons, a horse team and 2 bullock teams left Gympie to cross Australia from ‘East to West’. They were headed for the western goldfields, Kurnalpie in particular. They unfortunately had to stop when they reached Charleville due to lack of water. In this time Thomas’ son Tom, better known as Dick, returned home to his mother to help with the family farm. Nine months later when the drought broke, Thomas and his other son, Charlie loaded up their teams and headed west again. They were both faced with many outback difficulties. Thomas possessed no geographical knowledge and without even a map he crossed the land only knowing that Western Australia was in the direction of the setting sun. They would also obtain directions from people on their way.

Some of the highlights of their journey include: Crossing the flooded Coopers Creek which was 5 to 6 miles wide: swimming the teams across the channels without unyoking, apparently this was a remarkable feat: crossing 106km of desert: travelling through country where the sandhills were ‘as steep as the roofs of houses’, many of them were nearly 2km long on the side they had to climb, they faced 392km of this country: crossing the Nullarbor Plain where they had one stretch of 200km without water, they managed to carry four tonnes of brackish water with them in tanks: they took 5 days to cross the Nullarbor Plain: his son Charlie tracked a lost horse for 200km and he returned 6 weeks later with the horse in tow.

Thirty-one months later, they reached the goldfields. Thomas left Charlie to his fortunes and returned home by coastal steamer to return to Queensland, arriving back in Gympie after a six week voyage just 33 months after his departure on December 14, 1895.

Thomas gave the “Gympie Times” an interesting account of his trip.

“Two years ago last March (said Mr. Whitmore) I started from Gympie with a horse team and two bullock teams, the drivers being my two sons—Tom (better known in the neighbourhood as Dick) and Charlie. My intention was to push right through to Western Australia. However, when I got to Charleville I was blocked in the mulga country on account of the drought and the dry state of the roads to the west of that place. It was about nine months before I could make a fresh start, and before doing so my son Charlie returned home to help his mother on the farm. When the drought broke up I loaded the teams with goods for the rabbit-proof fence on the South Australian border, and encountered the usual difficulties of travelling in Western Queensland during flood time, for the drought had been succeeded by floods. After delivering my loading I crossed the South Australian border at the Diamantina, south of Birdsville. and followed that river up to Cooper’s Creek. Owing to the creek being in high flood I had to run it down as far as White’s Crossing, near the Missionary Station, before I could get over. As many Gympieites may not know what a Western creek or river is like, I may explain that in flood time they usually have several channels. Where I crossed Cooper’s Creek there were four narrow currents as channels, from the first to the further one being from five to six miles. I swam the teams across these currents without unyoking. You look Incredulous, but it is a fact. The channels being narrow there were always some of the animals with footing on dry ground. After getting safely over I steered south to Hegott sixty miles, and then ran the overland telegraph line up to a small township called The Coward. As far as here the country had been good generally, but now we had to enter on poor grass and bad water, and to the end of my journey, except at one place, the water was brackish. After passing The Coward we got on to gravelly soil, which was very hard on the bullocks’ and horses’ feet, in fact, I was told I should never be able to get through without having the animals shod. One hundred and sixty miles past Mount Eva station brought us to Paddykillyan (I believe this to be the name of a plant that is said to take the place of water with stock) station, where was the only fresh water creek I saw between The Coward and the time I left Western Australia. Here I sold one of the teams of bullocks. Then commenced the desert, and seventy miles of desolation, to which I got accustomed long before the end of the trip, brought us to Woolgeena, which is a sheep station. I found the only chance I had of getting on was taking or following the “camel pad” across the sand ridges to the Fowler’s Bay-road, owing to there being a sixty-mile dry stage on the Streaky Bay-road, which I had been following. No teams had ever been along the camel pad, and I was told that all the bullocks on Woolgeena would not be able to take a waggon over the sand hills. When making a start from this place we had 260 miles before us of desert and knew there was one stage thirty miles and one of thirty-five miles without water. We found that the Woolgeena people were quite right when they described the sand hills as being as steep as the roof of any ordinary house, and also found that many of them were from a half to three-quarters of a mile long on the slope we had to pull up. The camel pad zigzagged up the side, but with the teams we had to face the straight pull. The long dry stages we had to do without water for the horses (until we lost them) and bullocks, as at this time I had not any tanks. At the sixty-two-mile well I lost the team of horses, and I believe them to have perished wandering about looking for water.” For nine days Dick was away looking for the horses, but he was unable to find them owing to there having been a shower of rain. Just sufficient to obliterate the tracks. During this time I lived on salt water and plums, as I had to stay at the well to bail water for the bullocks, and the wagons having been taken eight miles further on so as to shorten one of the long dry stages. Not being able to find the horses, we had to abandon the horse dray and harness. After striking the Fowler’s Bay-road we made our way towards the coast about 140 miles, crossing one stage of forty miles without water. On the Fowler’s Bay-road about every fifteen miles the Government have erected small sheds, connected with each of which there are a series of tanks, holding in all about 1000 to 1200 gallons of water, caught from the roof where rain falls. These were originally put up for the use of the workmen while building the telegraph line. At the time I passed along these tanks were all nearly empty owing to the farmers having been carting their wheat to Streaky Bay for shipment. Fowler’s Bay is a small settlement and landing place for coasting vessels. Here the police collected the sum of £19 10s. from me as border duty on the team of bullocks I sold at Paddykillyan for £60. What do you think of that? One third of the money realised! From Fowler’s Bay we travelled about 130 miles along the coast, where the roads were a little more favourable, till we came to Nellorbarr Plains, a sheep station at the commencement of the Great Australian Bight. On the road I had provided myself with one 400-gallon and two 200-gallon tanks, as I was told that after leaving Nellorbarr Plains we should have a stage of 120 miles without water. We could only get salt (brackish) water, and so loaded up our tanks with 4 tons of this from the Government well, and, bidding good-bye to Nellorbarr, and possibly to the world, we tackled the 120-mile dry stage. The road was fortunately good and sound, and after five days we reached Eucla on the West Australian border, very little the worse for our trying experience. Eucla is an important, though small, township, as there is a very large telegraph office, with a strong staff of operators. I had cause to know that I was passing into another colony, as I was again mulcted of £22 as duty on the cattle, horses, &c—£1 10s per head on the bullocks, £1 per head on the horses, and £2 on the wagon, gear. &c. Still along the coast and sixty miles without water, brought us to Kennedy and M’Gill’s station, at which place I made the mistake of disposing of the bullock team and providing myself with two horses and a dray. I did this because it was strongly represented to me that I could not possibly get through with the team. These representations I found out afterwards were made from interested motives, and I was later on offered more than double the price for which I had sold. After leaving Kennedy and McGill we had another waterless sixty miles distance to travel before we reached a deserted station, then across the “Sand Patch” ninety miles dry, and another stage of seventy miles without water brought us to Ponton Bros’ station. When eighty miles from Kennedy and M’Gill’s we lost one of the horses I bought there, and Dick did a bit of tracking that would be a credit to any bushman, and is, I think, worth recording, particularly as the lad is not yet 19. When the horse got away we thought he would make straight back for the station, and Dick went after him. Not finding the horse, he returned for rations, as the tracks did not follow the road, but went off into the bush. The next morning, making another start, he followed the tracks 120 miles through the bush, and found the horse only four miles from Eucla. It was six weeks before he got back, bringing the horse with him, and during that time I did not have a mouthful of meat, though, as I was with the dray. I had plenty of flour, tea, and sugar. At Ponton Bros. I loaded up a supply of rations, and made my way to the Kurnalpie goldfield, distant about 250 miles, and on reaching there I considered my trip finished, as I had reached the Western Australian diggings. Kurnalpie field was considered one of the best alluvial fields in WA and there is very little reefing. There is no run or lead of gold on any of the fields I visited. The country being quite flat, and a very small rainfall, the gold has not travelled, but is found just where it is blown from the reefs. All the alluvial work is surfacing, termed ” specing,” and a good deal of the gold has been found actually on the surface without breaking the ground. When I was on Kurnalpie there were about fifty men on the ground, and some good slugs (nuggets) had been found, but take it all through it is the poorest ground I ever saw worked in my life. I took a mate with me who had tools, and pushed on to a new rush called “Pendenie,” and. though we expected to be among the first there, we found from 700 to 800 men on the ground, and should judge there to have been about twenty on payable gold. My mate and I gutted two claims out in about a fortnight for 2oz. of gold, which was recovered without water, as is all the gold, by shakers or dry blowers. I did not stay there three weeks, drinking water was getting scarce and rations very dear—flour 1s. per 1b, sugar 1s., butter 2s. 6d., tinned meat 1s. 9d. and 2b. per lb, and so on, other articles being at proportionate prices. I never saw so much poverty in my life as on this field. One afternoon I saw seven men come in wheeling their tools, rations, and water on barrows, scarcely one of them had a decent pair of boots, or sufficient clothes to cover their nakedness. I was on several of the other small fields, including the Norseman, and don’t think much of any of them. My general opinion of the Western Australian goldfields I visited may be summarised as follows:—(1) The gold is very patchy; I have never seen a good, denned, permanent reef in any of the fields. (2) I would caution any one against going to Norseman without means. There are very few really experienced diggers to be met with, the majority of the men being of a very undesirable class. Leaving Dick behind me I sailed for Esperance Bay—the port for the Norseman—six weeks ago in the steamer Helen Nichol for Adelaide, and came on via Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, arriving home last Saturday, the 14th— and very glad I was to get back to Queensland.”

Thomas and Jane are buried in the Gympie Cemetery along with some of their children.

 This story was written by Denise Juler and it previously appeared in the Gympie Today.

Sources: ancesty.com; Trove; GFHS Research Collection; Ancestry.com; Find My Past.