LOST IN THE WILDS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 65, 19 March 1925, Page 2

LOST IN THE WILDS

NORTH AUSTRALIAN TRAGEDY

WIOH ODB OWN CORRESPONDENT.;

SYDNEY, 11th March.

All wild and empty places send forth an ' unceasing call to the adventurous, and the call of North Australia must be very loud and clear,'if one, may judge by the number of people who go plunging into that dangerous interior, apparently for no other reason than to be able to say that they survived the journey.. /•' \ . ■ Hardy men have ridden through the ftorth, . cycled ■• through it, motored through it; "camelled" through it, flown over jt, and not a few optimißtic souls have-: started out to , walk over it._ Most of them have survived, told their coloured stories to the newspapers, accepted philosophically the Government s refusal to pay them a couple of hundred younds for a report on the rail.way possibilities as they saw them, und have disappeared into lobscurity. Some have not returned from the adventure. •lo the latter category belongs two young men who set off into the trackless interior from Queensland in 1922 Ihey were returned soldiers,'and they could not settle dawn to uneventful farm life m the> northern State. Eventually they > decided to walk to Darwin, and perhaps on down towards the south-west into the cattle country about, the Kimberley Ranges, where there is now considerable settlement". They took with them only as much-as they could carry, including a rifle for each. •_ The two men were heard of from the isolated settlements at the back of , Queensland. They were plodding steadily westwards and northwards, and they had planned a route by which they hopod to encounter a string of waterholes and small streams. From the time they left tho last waterhole, until recently, they completely disappeared. As the months went past, and no word came from them, their relations concluded that disaster had over-taken them. Even£ua£jy y, search party was organised in-the region where ithey bad disappeared, but no trace was found, A blackfellow has now reported to the pohco that he found human bones, a couple of rifles, and returned soldiers' badges in the bed of Morell Creek, in the Far North: The numbers on tho badges showed that the. remains were those of the two'ex-soldiers who'disappeared in 1922. There is not much ■#>übt about what happened to them. Inat year was a year o£. drought in, many parts of Australia, and the two men, trying to strike across the uplands of tho interior found. that the usual waterholes had disappeared. Still they jnust have fought on pluckily, for Morell Creek shows them well on their journey. When they reached the .creek, however, thoy. were desperately in need of water, and they found the bed of tho creek quite dry. Probably they followed it some ■distance before they gave up the struggle and died there in the wilderness, y ''..-■"'. A man who seems to cross these' great wastes with impunity is Francis Birtles. In the past six months he has driven a Bean care, through-them, and has motorcycled right ..across. Last week, he plunged in again, this time with another type of motor vehicle. He is now bound foi;.Arnheiin.,Land,,in t ; h<? : _extreme north, ■whiqh.he says, he-is 'goihg-Jto exploro .i