AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 267, 24 August 1936, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK

PIONEERING VENTURE. NEW STATION ESTABLISHED The colour of pioneering still remains in the Australian outback. Until recent years, the Musgrave Ranges, in the far north-western corner of South Australia, had known only the itinerant dingo hunter, but pastoral pathfinders have found well-grassed valleys in between the folds and along the rarely-fed creeks, and though they are cut off by 300 miles from the railway and the nearest township, they have taken the bounds of settlement out still further. The latest holding is near Mount Woodroofe, the highest point in the, State, and under the hands of hardworking men and stout-heartedi women the station house at Ernabella Springs has been mq.de the centre for the few white men for hundreds of miles around. They meet there once a month when the mail goes out from Oodnadatta by motor-lorry, which takes them their supplies. At first Rie centre was a tent and rough bough shelter, but an iron house has now been built, and brought into touch with -.be outer world through one of the pc l table wireless sets installed by the Australian Inland Mission. Tlnit enables the “flying doctor” to be called in emergency. Sheep and horses, the former shepherded by civilised natives, are grazed and for two years the pioneer of the Musgraves has brought top price in the Adelaide market for his scoured wool.