A LONELY WANDERER

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6630, 8 June 1928, Page 3

A LONELY WANDERER

LONDON’S MAN’S LONG TRAMP. SOME THOUSANDS OP MILES. SYDNEY, May 18. A remarkable man is Robert Morlcy,,a Londoner, who arrived in Sydney recently after a tramp of several thousands of miles. Almost always alone, lighting his way through summer and winter, flood'ed rivers and desert sands, ho has been trudging over Australia for years. And so, it seems, not all the men who carry their swags through the lone outback are “true Aussics.” In fact, there is many a Londoner among them, and Mr. Morloy is the most remarkable of them all.

Since two months after the w-ar, his gratuity money gone, Mr. Morley has scarcely ever slept in a proper bed. Lonely bush tracks, flooded rivers, thirsty stretches, blacks and alligators, and the never-ending “damper”—for years these have filled his life. He has wandered through the lonely wastes, travelling by the compass only, depending on cockatoos, pigs and turkeys for food, meeting alligators, and even young crocodiles, and ceaselessly guarding against snakes- and leeches. Taking the little-known back track, far away from any railway or telegraph line, any road or bush track, Mr. Morley has conic to Sydney over a route of 3000 miles from Darwin. Actually he travelled many more thousand miles on foot. He is a keen-eyed man of 45 years of age, straight and wiry. Ho set out from Sydney in 1921 to walk toward North Queensland for a new start in life. But work was hard to get, and from-Cairns he trudged to Cooktown, and then, later, across the lonely wastes to Darwin.

From Camooweal to near Darwin Mr, Morlcy’s companions were a Frenchmen and his dog—but for the rest, nought but the silence of the bush and plain, and the wanderlust to urge him on. Leaving Darwin some four years ago, carrying only revolver and rifle, tobacco and flour, the wanderer set out on the long and lonely tramp south to Sydney, a journey which he has just completed. “There were uneasy moments, when blacks and alligators were to be feared,” Mr. Morley said, explaining his experiences, “and sometimes I was badly in need of water. But I feel better than ever I did, and there is no telling when a man will take it into his head to have another little stroll around the place.” In the meantime, in Sydney, he is mending umbrellas and doing a little tinsmithing for a precarious living.