THE NULLARBOR PLAIN

“Two feral camels and a bolting mule”

While harness driving across the Nullarbor Plain in my 4-wheel buggy, my faithful mule Sparkle managed to bolt.

The bolt happened halfway across, at Denman, 740 km west of Port Augusta when a pair of feral camels came strolling closely past our morning camp - too close for my mule’s liking.

Two enormous, curious camels appeared on top of the railway tracks to the north of us about 200 meters distance, just as I was stepping into the buggy - half in half out. Sparkle took one look at them and leapt forward throwing me from the buggy, and then took off to the south-east across the Nullarbor with the buggy in tow. It contained all my belongings, including my 2-way radio. My ‘loyal’ red heeler pup, Yakka, cleverly keeping in the shady spot under the buggy, running off with Sparkle.

I was left standing there, gazing after the bolting and quickly disappearing mule until only two small dots, one white, one black followed by a red plume of dust was to be made out. Surrounded by the eerie silence of the barren Plain all the sudden I had an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, of being very small. Not a sound, no breeze, not a point of reference other than the glistering band of the railway line and the tracks of the buggy.

The wheel tracks of the buggy – that’s it! Suddenly my spirits lifted, my feet began to step out. Surely, if I followed the thin double line in the sand I would soon catch up with my outfit?

How wrong I was! For a white dot turned out to be a rock, a black dot the shadow of a salt bush.

When I looked back I could no longer make out the railway tracks and with dispirited mood and also physically hurting I followed the buggy tracks back to my empty camp. The two camels? Nowhere in sight! I knew that at some point a railway worker would show up with his High Rail to collect our two empty jerry cans left last night containing our water. (a 4 WD with extra steel wheels enabling it to use the “rail tracks”).

 Luck would have it that the swishing sound of the High Rail neared within the hour. “Where’s your mule… your buggy… and your dog?” wondered the railway worker greatly puzzled. “Thataway…” I pointed my outstretched arm in the south-easterly direction of my outfit’s disappearance. “What happened… are you ok… ?” Everything is hurting right now!” “Hop in the ute, we follow the buggy track and soon should catch up with this mule of yours.”

 Well, we slalomed around salt bushes, rocks and skirted precariously close to the edges of enormous wombat holes - but we never caught up with my lot. After 2 flat tyres and no spare left my rescuer pointed the bonnet to head back east to the 40 km distant railway settlement of Cook.

A rescue party consisting of two 4WD vehicles provided by Australian National Rail, the ambulance with Annalisa, Cook’s hospital’s nurse and a longtime resident Henry, an old local who, in his own words “had been born in the back of a horse-drawn vehicle” carrying a rifle (I gave him precautionary instructions to end any misery should my mule be found seriously hurt), set out for the rescue mission. Since the last sighting was that of the mule bolting to the south-east a 3-point rescue plan was set in action, hoping to squeeze in the runaways.

With the pain in my left shoulder worsening I was left behind in Cook to ponder my fate and await the nurse’s return and assessment, which was a torn trapezius muscle.

Here they came. Rolling into Cook late in the afternoon with Henry at the reins. It seemed the whole 56-strong community came together to cheer the run-aways and rescuers.

The next morning I was put on the very service I had set out for to raise money, the RFDS!

 I spent 6 weeks in Port August in rehab. All the while Sparkle being tended for by the locals in Cook. Feed was brought in by train from Port Augusta. In the meantime Henry harnessed up the mule to ‘take him for a run” on the RFDS  runway creating confusion for the pilot who couldn’t figure out what had made the stripes on the aero strip.

 Despite emphatic medical advice to not continue my trip I felt the need to keep on raising money having found at how good the service really is.