AN EXTENSIVE OASIS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 August 1924, Page 14

AN EXTENSIVE OASIS.

INTO THE “DEAD HEART” OF AUSTRALIA.

The combined Commonwealth Government, Lady Stradbrolce, and Dutton parties arrived at Alice Springs, in Central feouth Australia, at half-past 3 o clock on 24th July after a 50-nnle run m three hours from Deep Well where we had all been the guests over night at the station owned by the driver of the Government car Mr Gerimrdt Johansen, who has 1000 square miles of fair grazing land, writes Villijalmur gtefansson in the Melbourne Aigus. As yet he is able to use only about 200 square miles of his lease, but he expects gradually to use more and more of it by ' boring extra wells lfmnu h ? V( ! S I,lcrease - He now has *3 w head of good stock. He have now seen 350 miles of country from Oodnadatta. If this bo a desert we must have been travelling through an oasis the whole wav. Not that the country resembles the oases ot popular imagination, which are little verdant paradises on earth, hut, rather, that it looks like the oases of reality ns, for instance, those found bv the Mormons in Utah, and eventually" made productive by their skill and industry. nis is the best possible time to form an opinion of the country’s drawbacks for the season is already one 0 f the longest dry spells on record in some places, and the longest in others .Sergeant Stott, said to he the bestknown man of interior Australia has been in the Northern Territory for 40 years, and is emphatic that it is the worst season in his expefsanco. In y^ irs " there rains »s late as March, hut this vear there have been none since January. Nevertheless Sergeant Stott says "there will be no loss of stock anywhere near Alice Springs,, even if there is no rain for another six months; and everyone considers that before then rain is a certainty. Since leaving Oodnadatta we have encountered, accidentally, perhaps two dozen mobs of cattle ahd horses One lot each of horses and cattle were noticeably thin; the othersranged from presentable to fat. whv to r me that the chief reason A 6 f d ’i SpU - e S ° much whether Omt tl ev tralU l 1S a desert he that they do not agree on the meanin K whirh , V V - OrC -" 1S a coutllJ 7, too, uhieh it is m many places easy to deceive with photographs Turn "the -toiler and sand only, but face it the a id' r tair V you £et ha »dsome trees ° r Perilil f ,s ■»»'#» , ' ol ’ ,s a, :« enthusiastic about Mie beauty and variety of the scenerv ;!’! d ) l ' ft Ji,ld 't easy to understand wbv ouiyono we meet here says he or she '■?- n J,I K here because they like the - nnntc nml ,bo ,„„„ trv jZ t £* t £ •nv other on earth. Doubtless, there "!, ust bf> dissatished persons here some ii^eem aS t ,11 |° th ' ?r p,aPPS -’ ],ut uonG nf ,; t •’ P< rn t,J ha '"o met any of them as lhe throe parlies are separating at Mice Springs. The C’oiintoss of sfradooke expects to remain with her party Sort W*? of «»cl Mrs hioh* r! • ° a 7 i T al af Lnrd Strad : °,\ l - His probable that the ntber e?nnent' Vill + d ° f ' ide to fo)]oiv tlm Govb™t rkr y ti„.