Date: October 10th 2008

 

Westprint Friday Five October 10, 2008 

Included this week are:

·        History of Aprons

·        Four Minute Mile

·        Bev’s Reply 

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Friday Five 10/10/08

1. Australian Vertebrates  The CSIRO list of Australian Vertebrates. Gives listings on conservation status, distribution, species' status for all known Australian amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. An indispensable reference guide for anyone working with and publishing on Australia's vertebrate fauna. Normally $69.45, two copies only $50.00 including post.

2.  Exploring Queensland & Far Nth QLD – DVD. 'Exploring Far North Queensland' - This video features Cairns, Great Barrier Reef, Atherton Tablelands, Port Douglas, Coastal Islands, Mossman, Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Bloomfield, Laura, Cooktown, Bamaga and Weipa. 'Exploring Queensland' Beautiful one day - perfect the next! Includes Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Fraser Island, Whitsundays, Longreach, Winton, Cairns, Undara and Weipa. Normally $43.95 two copies available $35.00 including post.

3. (The) Four Minute Mile – DVD. The true story of John Landy, Roger Bannister and the "race of the century". Though Bannister will always be remembered as the first man to break this barrier, this film continues to the 1954 Empire Games and their first head to head race. Two copies only $30.00 including post.

4. Treasures of the Deep. By Hugh Edwards. Well known and respected writer on coastal history of Western Australia. This book is the story of Cp Mike Hunter and his life retrieving sunken treasure. 279 pg. Normally $39.45 inc post. Four copies available $28.00 inc post. 

5. Shot. Gail Bell. When Gail Bell was 17 she was shot in the back. The shooter was never found. An astonishing memoir. 248 pp. Normally $37.50 including post, four copies available $25.00 including post

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Please note that the opinions and articles included in the Friday Five are not necessarily those of the Westprint crew. Nor do we endorse products (other than our own) listed in contributed articles.

Friday Forum

Jo’s forum comments in green.

John Milner

Readers may remember the story of the Milner’s in the Friday Five a few weeks ago. Briefly it goes as follows…

Ralph Milner, with his wife Phoebe and brother John decided to take sheep to the Northern Territory following McKinlay’s tracks. He set out in 1863 but when he reached Cooper Creek, he was marooned by drought and built a house beside a waterhole. Phoebe Milner died during the late 1860s and in 1870 Ralph and John Milner crossed from Cooper Creek to the Overland Telegraph Line intent on following Stuart’s tracks to Port Darwin.

Milner’s trip certainly was not without hardship; two thousand sheep died from eating poison bush somewhere near the Devil’s Marbles and John Milner was killed by an Aborigine near Tennant Creek. Milner reached the tropics near Katherine to find men from the construction crews starving because their supplies of food were bogged down during the wet. Milner’s sheep saved many lives.

Milner arrived at Port Darwin with the last of his sheep and a broken arm but the reward offered to the first person to deliver stock to Darwin was for some reason not paid to him. Milner’s troubles were still not over as it is believed that the ship in which he was returning to Adelaide sank, taking with it all of Milner’s diaries. He finally reached New Zealand where he lived for the remainder of his life and where his relatives still reside. 

The Search for John Milner’s Grave

By John Deckert. Part 1. 

·        Bev and I, assisted by Beryl and Alan arrived at Attack Creek mid afternoon, intent on making a thorough search for John Milner’s grave. All we had for a guide was a map drawn in 1958 from an original map drawn by William Harvey, a surveyor on the Overland Telegraph Line (OTL) construction crew in 1872.

This map had been adapted to a composite map of the area and a satellite photo from Google Earth. From this we had concluded that the grave should be on a particular bend of the creek about 6 kilometres from the present Stuart Highway. This point was given a GPS reference and plotted on our map running on OziExplorer in our laptop.

Permission had been obtained from the property manager and so we followed several tracks hoping to get near our chosen point. Finally, after some scrub bashing, we camped on a flat area about 10 metres above the creek bed and made plans for an extensive foot search the following morning.

Our plan was simple – check every big tree within 200 metres of the creek over a distance of one kilometre each side of our plotted position. Eagerly we set off next morning and walked straight to the plotted position. It was immediately apparent that it had no hope of being the gravesite, so then we started walking to every tree we could find, searching for any remnant of a wooden grave post or surround. Then when it became clear that we were unlikely to find anything even remotely like a big tree with a grave beside it we started to walk the waterholes looking for crossings with big trees nearby. Crossings were easy to find but big trees are very scarce. Then we had to ask ourselves ‘what constitutes a big tree’ when almost every tree is less than 4 metres high and less than 300 millimetres through at the base. By mid afternoon four weary, foot-sore searchers sat staring at the campfire wondering what we would do next day. Would it be more of the same?

Next morning we conferred over our maps and decided to move closer to the highway. Another long and fruitless search continued until early afternoon when we again decided to spend more time staring at our maps until evening. Although we had found some land marks as shown on the maps we had not found anything remotely like the position we would expect a grave to be put and in particular we had not found a big tree, the only real reference to where John Milner may be buried.

The third morning brought enough enthusiasm to search another area further downstream. All distances had been scaled onto modern maps again and a revised position set. However, once again we were unsuccessful. We concluded that fires during the last 130 years would have completely consumed all of the wooden structure that was recorded as being the only visible evidence of John Milner’s grave. It was apparent that we would have to do more research so we decided to drive to Tennant Creek and make enquiries to see if we could get any sort of a lead.

A contact at the information centre set us up with a few possibilities but although we had some great conversations with drovers and former station managers we didn’t come up with much new information, just one snippet of conversation that suggested that a particular waterhole was the best on the east side of the highway.

A couple of days in Tennant Creek was enough to make us decide to go back to Attack Creek and try again. We wanted to wait for a letter to arrive anyway so we may as well be out in the bush. We enjoy it there. We drove in to the creek at a place we thought much too far east and made camp late in the afternoon. Next morning we walked west to join up with our other search area and within a few hundred metres came across several things of interest. We found a very old set of cattle yards, a good campsite and two large trees but no grave. While we were having lunch I decided to visit this area again by myself. During the next couple of hours I became confident I had all of the pieces together and now needed to try my theory on the others. After our evening meal when the conversation turned to what we would do next day I told them I was going to show them where John Milner was buried and then we would go back to Tennant Creek and the rest of our trip. Much scepticism followed.

Next morning we walked about 200 metres from our camp and I showed the others every piece of the puzzle and how it fitted. I was not sure how it was going until they suggested we should now take some photographs. At this stage we still cannot prove that we have the correct location because there is nothing showing above ground apart from the rocks but I believe that it is the only place on the creek where all the circumstantial evidence and all the known facts come together and can be explained. There is no other place that is suitable. No other place fits. I hope next year to do more research in that area and perhaps prove the theory that this is the location of John Milner’s grave. Continued next week. 

Bev’s Reply 

We hadn't actually told Bev that we were going to use her story in the Friday Five but we had so many emails addressed to her that we had to come clean. Some replies (from men) commented that she had missed out on a great view. Most replies said 'I know how you feel - my husband does that too!' Here is Bev's official comment on the story. 

I would like to thank all the people who sent emails of support for my dislike of mountainous hills and difficult climbs. To the other people who think I am not very adventurous I would like to say in my own defence that I have twice run across the Simpson Desert on 60 degree heat (Celsius that is) as support crew for Pat Farmer in the middle of summer (well I ran down one sand dune). During that run I was without more than a few minutes sleep for four days and nights and shared my sleeping bag with scorpions and snakes (too tired to care).

I have flown on the inaugural flight of a new plane with the daughter of the President of Fiji (but I think that even though the plane looked very small they would have been sure she would be safe at least). I have walked through the crocodile infested waters of the Reynolds River to help a fellow traveller who was stuck in the middle (I didn’t know about the crocs at the time). I have driven through raging flood-waters of the Ord River not long after a caravan and vehicle had been washed off the causeway (teenage locals told us how to face the vehicle into the current). I have had to put out a shed fire with my 12-year-old son while John was away enjoying a trip (the shed was filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment).

I have pushed a fully laden 4WD to get it started because someone!! had wired the batteries the wrong way (that’s another story). I have survived being left alone down a cave on the Canning Stock Route in the absolute pitch dark with a torch with a flat battery, then survived being hauled out on the end of a rotten piece of rope because the ladder into the cave had broken. I have driven the Canning with two broken rear springs while John kept saying “She’ll be right” and everyone else saying “He’ll never make it” (I must admit that John did make it, right into Perth).

I have risked my life in the crocodile infested waters of Red Lily Lagoon to help John get photographs of water lilies. (We had heard crocs barking the night before but John assured me they wouldn’t be in that particular lagoon. Never again!) I have driven Arthurs Pass in New Zealand where we had to make a three point turn to get around a sheer mountain hairpin bend. I have hitch-hiked through the highlands of Malayasia with my sister and been picked up by two nuns and as if that is not enough I have had three knee replacements which will probably set off all the airport alarms if I ever fly again (I do only have two legs). Probably the bravest thing I have ever done was hold my grandaughter’s pet rat in my bare hands. However, I will never never ever drive with John up Len Beadell’s pot-holed vertical track into the Sir Frederick Range in our brand-new third-hand super-dooper Troopy with the two limited slip thingies in the front (no matter what you blokes say).

Friday Funnies 

·        The History of  'APRONS'
I don't think our kids know what an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.
And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron--except love.  

·        A woman is standing looking in the bedroom mirror. She is not happy with what she sees and says to her husband, 'I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly.  I really need you to pay me a compliment.' 

The husband replies, 'Your eyesight's perfect.' 

And then the fight started… 

·        When I was a child, I remember my Mum telling me, "Son, when you grow up, you can marry any girl you please."

When I became a young man, I learned the sad fact was that I could not please any of them.

 

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Cheers for now,

Jo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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