Two Journeys Westwards from Horseshoe Bend and Oodnadatta, Central Australia

DURING June 1930 I was approached to lead a prospecting expedition to the Petermann and Tomkinson Ranges, and though a great part of the cool dry season had passed, it was nevertheless arranged that a party should enter the field. On July 17 Messrs. W. Williams, W. J. Bird, E. A. Colson, and I departed from Horseshoe Bend equipped with three months* stores, seven camels, and a British Morris truck. During thirteen weeks' absence we travelled outwards via Erldunda Station, Mount Connor, Ayers Rock, and Mount Olga, thence to the eastern end of the Petermann Ranges, where we arrived three weeks after our departure, having done 343 miles. Since its original exploration by Ernest Giles in 1872 the area has been visited by some twenty or thirty bushmen, notably J. Tregartha (1896), T. Maurice (1901), A. D. Breaden and W. Oliver, and F. H. Hamn (1903), and Brumby and Brown (1929). The George Expedition (1906) reached Mount McCulloch, but had two men speared there and did not proceed farther, and latterly the Mackay Expedition (1926) viewed the area for its pastoral possibilities. The Mackay Aerial Expedition also flew over the district some months before our visit

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