Crossing the Dead Heart

The Dead Heart of this book's title refers to the Simpson Desert in Central Australia. The Simpson Desert occupies parts of the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia, although the smallest part sits in Queensland. Until 1939, when Madigan's expedition makes its attempt to cross this desert, no white man nor any Aboriginal (probably) had achieved this crossing. Madigan gives an explanation of those who had tried and failed in an early chapter, which includes such well known figures as Sturt and Burke & Wills, as well as many, many others I don't recognise, a good number of which are surveyors. Most were turned back by conditions or lack of preparation, some died in the attempt. The book states simply that no white men knew of any black men who had crossed the desert. The Aboriginals asked did not acknowledge any crossings either - I won't take this as fact.

Many had passed long the fringes of the Simpson Desert; Madigan himself had flown over in 1929. It was Madigan's plan to traverse the desert from Andado Station (From Adelaide they travelled by train and car to this station) to Birdsville by camel train, and then on south to Marree. Madigan was an explorer and geologist, and it was he who named the Simpson Desert after A.A. Simpson, former president of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (1925 to 1930), who was conveniently also the patron of this expedition.

As well as simply completing the crossing, the goal was to carry out a full botanic and biological survey. In practice this is collecting a sample of each plant and each insect, lizard, bird and mammal sighted. In practice this means lots of containers of spirits (one baggage camel was dedicated to this).

Joining Madigan (geologist) on the expedition are RL Crocker (surveyor & botanist), RA Simpson (son of the patron and radio operator), HO Fletcher (paleontologist who acted as biologist), David Marshall (photographer), Albert Hubbard (cook) rounded out the scientific team. Afghan Jack Bejah, the camel guide, was also engaged. He arranged the camels and was responsible for their care on the journey. Joining the camel team was a young Afghan called Nurie. They also wanted to take a young Aboriginal with desert skills to assist in collecting lizards and small mammals; Andy was his name. All of these men were volunteers, the money raised for the expedition was spent solely on food, equipment and transportation there and back.

So with their riding camels and pack camels carrying water and equipment they set off. The description of the journey is detailed, and does become slightly repetitive as Madigan reports the statistics of travel each day. While water was anticipated to be the biggest problem, if fact it turned out that there was more rain than normal. While the waterways were running it was the mud which posed the bigger problem - camels don't do well in mud. The journey was completed (to Marree) in fifty days; to Birdsville it was 24 days.

I found this book interesting, perhaps more than the average reader, because there was a time I spent in the desert near here assisting in the biennial (I think?) biological survey. I was a volunteer and did a lot of the donkey work like digging pit-traps to catch small rodents and insects, setting up the nets to catch bats, bagging up the botanical samples and marking the numbers on them (ie nothing very technical). I had a fantastic time; I think it was about three weeks we spent out there. I tried to find an old diary to track down exactly where I was, but I am not sure where it is now. I know we went partially down the O0dndatta track and through William Creek, and Oodnadatta. After teh work was done I left them when we hit the main road and commenced my hitch-hiking to Coober Pedy then Alice Springs on my way to Western Australia while they returned to Adelaide.

This book was first published in 1946, some 7 years after the journey. The war of course is the reason for this. In fact the scientific work was delayed as well as the writing, and at the end of the book where you might expect to read about some of the scientific discoveries, there is this explanation, and confirmation of the fact that work was in progress. Various new species of spider and lizard were discovered, among other insects and a number of plants. These were mentioned in the text through rather than in a summary table.

To rate this book without the personal experiences it might be a 3 or 3.5 star read. I enjoyed it (and wish we had gone on camels and not Toyota Land Cruisers) a little more, so will happily give it 4 stars.