More Carnegie Retracing

Hi all,
Following on from my retracing of Carnegie in 2013 I have now followed his route from Mount Webb to the Gunbarrel Highway near Lake Breaden.



There was initially myself and Massie the dog and 4 other vehicles with 6 people.
We covered over 800kms in 18 days cross country.



Later on near the Searle Hills we would meet up with representatives of the Ngaanyatjarra Council.




Carnegie found a Native Well near a small range he thought was the Winnecke Hills of Tietkens. We found this well and there were many petroglyphs at the site.Carnegie saw a big hill to the east form the top of the range which was Mount Leisler.






He also found a rockhole near the Turner Hills. He thought these hills were the Davenport Range. We found this rockhole.




He also found a rockhole 8 miles south of the Turner Hills. We found this one also.



Then we went slightly off route to Sheridan Rocks, named by Hann - this was close to the route and we needed some water from a pump at the Sandly Blight Junction Road also.






I was always the lead vehicle and got many punctures. I had 5 brand new tyres plus 3 old spares and completely ruined them all by the end of the trip.




We met the Ngaanyatjarra people out near the Searle Hills.





We took them to a Pillar Carnegie passed on 27 May 1897 and they identified it through stories as Markura.




We found a rockhole that may have been visited by Carnegie on 29 May 1897 and everyone was quite excited about the discovery.



Then we visited Deep Rockholes. We didn't know exactly where this was. When we found it the Traditional owners immediately made it a provisional Aboriginal Heritage Site.





We then headed to the south west.Carnegie found another rockhole somewhere in this direction and we found a couple but cannot be sure they were Carnegie's.



Later we came across some old tracks of a vehicle and we followed these for a while. Mr Bennet was in my vehicle and was an expert tracker. He saw things I didn't. However we gave up following them after a while.



The Ngaanyatjarra people left us and headed west.
A couple of days later we crossed the Patjarr Track and some of went in to get some fuel. I had had two major fuel leaks due to bits and pieces getting ripped out from beneath my vehicle.



Heading south east again from Tikatika Rockholes I passed a man made line of rocks on the top of a ridge. Investigating there were a few rockholes below and many different arrangements of stones.




On June 6 1897 Carnegie found a few waterholes around a breakaway. I was a bit confused here at first as the smaller rockholes we found would not contain 30 gallons as Carnegie had described.



However I found the rockhole in the morning. It was completely filled in.


This is a video of us all digging it out.



Carnegie passed a creek on 7 June 1897 and found a native well along its course. We followed the creek but gave up looking as there were a number of possible places.


Before reaching Lake Breaden Carnegie found another Native Well. We found a couple of likely spots and they were almost spot on with Carnegie's stated latitude.



We reached the Gunbarrel and we all went our separate ways.

This report is just a summary - in all we found 21 Native Wells/Rockholes - not all of them were Carnegie's.

Cheers
Alan