DESERT TRAGEDIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22353, 26 February 1936, Page 10

DESERT TRAGEDIES

VICTIMS OF THIRST " THREE MEN PERISH AUSTRALIA'S ARID WASTES [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, Feb. 17 Central and North-west Australia, ia the intense heat of summer, generally claims a few of the lives of the adventurers who challenge its- arid wastes, and this summer has been no exception. During the last week or so three men have perished. John Shaw, aged 50, prospector, tried to run the gauntlet through the heat and the baked, waterless desert of the north-west, but the pitiless sun mocked at him, and his death from thirst was reported to the Commissioner of Police in Perth. Shaw, whoiwas an Englishman who had spent many years on the goldfields in the north-west, knew ever}' inch of the country, and every waterhole. For some months he had been combing old alluvial fields, but it was lately known that he intended striking away from the beaten tracks to. seek a creek-bed which native rumour credited with holding much gold. Travelling light, as he always did, he went out. Whether he reached his hoped for El Dorado and what he found there are secrets now locked with him. It was on his return journey in a frantic effort to defeat the hot and waterless terrors of a district which had not known rain for many months that tragedy overtook him. Every waterhole he went to was dry. Without a Waterbag Despairingly, he pushed on to the next, and then to the next, to find nothing in them but hard, sun-cracked bottoms. No one will ever know 'the acute miseries Shaw suffered during the last few hours before he collapsed. He was found unconscious 40. miles from the coast. His tongue was black and swollen. The sun had burned away the skin from his face, hands, and arms, and his clothes were ragged and torn. Although rushed to hospital it was too late. Shaw had perished on one of the mocking horizons he was forever questing. Picked up unconscious near Kelly Well. Charles Simmons, aged 69, miner, was brought to Terfnant Creek, and died a few hours later. Simmons ha>d set out without a waterbag on the 50-mile trek to Bouny Well, where he was employed by a gold corporation, and had covered less than half the journey when he collapsed in the intense heat. Ellis Bankin, a Victorian schoolteacher, failed to survive the perils of a journey he undertook by motor-cycle. Bankin set out from Alice Springs to Ayer's Rock, a remarkable geplogical formation, to extend his knowledge of Central Australia. Police at Alice. Springs advised him not to go but Bankin replied that when he was in England, of every thousand questions asked him about Australia he could answer but few, so he was determined to see the country himself. He intended to go to Mount Olga, Ayer's Rock, Lake Amadeus, and into Musgrave and Peterman Ranges. He had done outback trips previously. In the 1934 Christmas vacation he rode his motor-cycle to Western Australia and back, and last Easter he made a trip to Central Australia. The total distance of those two trips was 10.000 miles. :] Warning Not Heeded ' Bankin had planned his trip this year carefully. He carried four gallons of. water in three water tanks, and had sufficient concentrated food to last at least a week. With two additional fuel tanks, his machine carried eight gallons of petrol—enough for a safe range of 400 to 500 miles. He left Alice Springs on January 9. He wa/s reported at Fraser's Station, 200 miles west of Alice Springs, on January 16, and at Ernabella Station, another 60 miles further on, a couple of days, later. He was then warned of the nature of the country between that station and Ayer's Rock. % It is so dangerous that even inotorists who know the country welF do not tackle it, but, if the journeyjbas to be made, use camels. But Bankiri persisted in continuing on his cycle. Betore leaving Alice Springs. Constable McKinnon, in charge of the patrol which covers this area, had told Bankin that conditions as far as Ernabella should not be very difficult, but beyond that scores of miles of sand and little water, too hard for ordinary travellers to find, made travelling impossible. On , his last patrol, water holes that were supposed to be permanent- were dry, and the constable and trackers had to dig soakages. Bankin's relatives in Melbourne became anxious, and at their request the Department of the Interior instituted a search, his body being found on February 14. Apparently he died of thirst and exposure.