Kapi Road

The Great Central Highway

Stephen K Ewings 2002

water holes
Rock Art Symbols for Waterholes

Where there is water, there is life within the desert.
Nakamarra 2000

Introduction

Central highway map

Australia’s arid and semi-arid region comprises 70 per cent of the total landmass with an annual average rainfall of 500mm or less. It is the driest continent, apart from Antarctica (AUSLIG 2000). The arid region accounts for 30 per cent of Australia, containing ten desert areas representing 18 per cent of the mainland. The desert regions receive less than 220mm of annual precipitation; consequently, water is a significant issue for anyone living or working in the central part of Australia. Little wonder many European explorers followed watercourses and rock holes as they moved across the country.

If early European explorers ignored local Indigenous inhabitants, it was at their peril, for they were the custodians of life-saving watering points. It should come as no surprise that the Great Central Highway stretching from Laverton in Western Australia to Winton in Queensland, follows a string of watering points across three States. The following is a brief account of transport and communications covering the 560-kilometre western leg from the Laverton to Warburton Ranges.

Water

beegul rockhole
Beegul Rockhole

‘Where there is water, there is life’, and the Aboriginal people of the Western Desert have names for several categories of Kapi, or water, ranging from ephemeral surface water in claypans to permanent rock holes. Aboriginal people carefully maintained permanent waterholes or springs. This could mean keeping the hole clear of sand in-filled by flooding, covering the top to stop animals from falling in, or installing tree ladders to allow animals to clamber out in the event they fell in.

kapi road
Minnie Creek, WA

Another vital water source is soaks. These occur in creeks or run-off areas around the margins of large rocky outcrops, and evaporation is low due to the sandy covering. Exposed rock platforms and hill gullies are other places where rock holes exist. Depending on the ratio of available surface area to overall volume, which dictates evaporation rates, these rock holes can hold water for years.

dry claypan
Dry Claypan

The least reliable category is the claypan, and the use of this surface water is opportunistic following good rains. The high evaporation rates mean claypans are highly unreliable sources of water. However, all these water sources were essential features of the landscape. The massive pulse of life generated after rains turns a lowly claypan into a focal point and could sustain a group of Aboriginals for many weeks. No matter how clever or innovative a person is, they cannot survive in the arid region without water.

European Explorers

Giles

kapi road
Empress Springs

On his second expedition to the central arid region of Australia, Ernest Giles travelled northwest from Beltana in South Australia. Arriving at Elder Creek in the Warburton Ranges in November of 1873. While his intended destination was Perth, Giles was forced to turn back due to water shortages. Although, unbeknown to him, a string of rock holes extended 600 kilometres west through the Great Victoria Desert to the Laverton area. Giles did not think it necessary to have Aboriginal guides in his first or second expeditions, and even after the death of Alf Gibson, he saw Aboriginals as scarcely human, his journals showing evidence of indifference and active contempt (Erickson 1978).

Peter Warburton

Ernest Giles
Ernest Giles

The Warburton Ranges are named after Peter Egerton Warburton (although he never reached the ranges), who left Adelaide in 1872 in the competitive race to Perth. After fifteen months of great hardship, hunger, and thirst, Warburton reached Oakover 1200 kilometres north of Perth on the point of starvation.


“Warburton’s account of this epic struggle against the desert was published in 1875 under the title ‘Journey Across the Western Interior of Australia’ and consists of excerpts from the explorer’s journal, with additions and amplifications added by the editor, Charles H. Eden, a relative of Warburton’s. Eden was selected for the task because, as he explains, the privations and suffering of the long journey had “so enfeebled the explorer, and had so affected his eyesight, that he had little inclination, nor the capability, to pen a full narrative of the expedition.” (Olding)

John Forest

John Forrest
John Forrest

The first European to travel through the Laverton area, originating from the west, was John Forrest in 1869. He was looking for the remains of the Ludwig Leichhardt expedition. During a fortuitously good season in 1874, Forrest travelled further west to Warburton Ranges, making him the first European to undertake the Laverton to Warburton journey.

Sandalwood cutters revisited the Laverton district in the 1870s and 1880s, looking for valuable aromatic timber before gold miners arrived in the 1890s. People initially called the township ‘British Flag’ after the first gold strike in 1896. On 6th July 1900, Laverton was offically gazetted. Four years later, the railway arrived, but the only track to Warburton at this stage was the route travelled by Aboriginal people via rock holes.

Kapi Road – Camel Tracks

The camel (Camelus dromedaries) and their Afghan handlers are an essential element in the history of inland transport. Initially, explorers like Giles and Warburton were resistant to using camels, maintaining the animals and Asian handlers were too temperamental and unreliable. Still, later they would become known as ‘ships of the desert’.

Camels on Warbo Road
Camels on Warbo Road

John Horrock

The explorer John Horrock imported the first camel in 1840. However, authorities shot it after the animal caused his death in 1846. Another group of 24 camels followed in 1860, destined for the ill-fated Bourke and Wills expedition. Realising the camel’s potential, Samuel Stuckey went to Karachi in 1866. He succeeded in bringing out more than a hundred camels. Thirty-one Afghan cameleers were employed as nobody knew how to handle camels. (Flinders Range Research 2003).

Water Guzzlers

Between 1860 and 1907 over 10,000 camels were imported into Australia. Likely contemporary populations are in the vicinity of a million. A large camel can carry up to 600kg, tolerate high levels of salt in water, and survive many days without water (Williams 1999). However, explorers used camel trains that impacted meagre inland water resources. Conflict often broke out with Aboriginals over this issue (Ericksen 1978).

For instance, on his fourth expedition, Giles needed around 1,000 litres of water per week, which would empty many rock holes. This same water could sustain a small Aboriginal group for weeks and provided the means to move on through the land to the next water.

Once Giles and his entourage drained the water, lack of water broke the chain in a link of rock holes. This made life extremely difficult for the locals, often doubling or trebling distances to the next water resource. At Victoria Springs, Giles camped for nine days and five days at Ularring. “over a hundred of the enemy” attacked his party (Giles in Ericksen 1978). The camel undoubtedly contributed to opening up the arid region. However, even at this early stage, European explorers imposed additional hardship and disrupted Aboriginal living patterns.

The Warburton Road

In the 1930s, government employees Paine and Barclay completed a survey of the track to Warburton Ranges. Wongi people from the area pointed out a track that followed rock holes, soaks and waterholes, forming a corridor leading from Laverton to Warburton Ranges. The missionaries Wade and Jackson were the first Europeans to use this track during 1932-33 regularly. The missionaries travelled by camel from Mt Margaret near Laverton. Stopping to water their animals along the way and making contact with the Ngaanyatjarra people. The missionary’s first camp at Warburton was near the Mirlirrtjarra waterhole. About 5 kilometres from the present township, and a mission station soon became established.

The development of the road follows a simple truth. “there would be no routes if there were no stopping places” (Braudel 1966). Known colloquially as the Warbo Road, this meandering sandy route followed a string of water points that were indeed ‘stopping places’. Ultimately, as motorised transport became readily available, the distances between stopping places increased. This is due to decreasing reliance on intermediary watering points. However, the motor vehicles manufactured in Britain or America were not engineered for the terrific heat of Australia’s inland. Motorists still used rock holes to replenish the overheated and fuming radiators, designed to keep an engine warm, not cool.

Motorised Vehicles

The first motorised vehicle to complete the trip was a 1300cwt (660kg) Dodge in 1934. The driver is guided by the sinuous camel pads threading through spinifex and sand. The pegs the surveyors Paine and Barclay placed at every mile augment the navigation. (Harry Lupton pers. Comm., 12th June 2003). The 560-kilometre journey took several days, and as the Mission became established, a regular monthly supply trip ensued.

The mobility and avenue for communication associated with the Warburton road changed. From foot tracks to camel trains and then trucks. This is juxtaposed against an increasingly sedentary lifestyle of a once nomadic Indigenous people.

Missionaries exchanged commodities such as flour, tea and sugar for the game in these early years. Locals were also paid two pounds per dingo scalp. The Mirlirrtjarra waterhole was well known in the region as a gathering place after heavy rains. Over time more people gravitated to the Mission. By the 1960s, after being directed to vacate the Woomera rocket-testing region, more than 400 people assembled at Warburton Ranges.

People from Jameson (Mantamaru), Blackstone (Papulankutja), and Peterman Ranges made up the community. Plus groups from Giles (Warakurna) and Wingellina ( Irrunytju) and other outlying areas. The disruption to living patterns, ceremonial activities, Aboriginal law, and amalgamation of different groups gave rise to some conflict. Several ‘out stations’ were established in the 1970s, and many returned to their own country.

Radio Communications

royal flying doctor
RFDS Radio

With the advent of Alf Traeger’s radio and the establishment of the Kalgoorlie Royal Flying Doctor Base in 1937, the region reached a new level of remote communication. Apart from placing food and fuel orders, there were medical and health benefits, and telegrams communicated personal and administrative information. Critical communications were not reliant on slow vehicular transport for the first time but reached out to Warburton in seconds.

For seventy years, trucks and cars have made the sandy and corrugated journey to Warburton years. For many years, supply transport was provided by United Aborigines Mission (UAM). At one stage, when funds were low and while waiting for another truck, a tractor with a trailer made the voyage.

Gasified Trucks

During the war years, with fuel rations, trucks were converted and powered by charcoal gas burners. Green Mulga (Acacia aneura) gathered from the roadside was the fuel source. The crew dug pits, and the smouldering heap watched until it provided enough charcoal for the remaining journey.

The pit method required a large pit dug into the ground and lined with bricks or sheet iron. A small amount of kindling wood is placed in the bottom for lighting purposes after the pit had been stacked with the timber to be carbonised. The crew cut the wood into logs, regular in size and shape. Then it was stacked very carefully into the pit to utilise as much space as possible. They stacked it to a level higher than the ground. Then the party covered it with sheets of iron or sods of the earth. This is to stop air from entering the fire after igniting the kindling wood.

The sides and bottom of the pit, lined with sheet iron, bricks or stone, prevented the charcoal from becoming contaminated. The type of hardwood burnt influenced the quality of the charcoal. Charcoal was stored and transported in disused grain sacks with a sack of charcoal weighing about 40 lbs. (18.2 kg.)

During the 1960s, British-built Gardner and Foden trucks made weekly trips. The eight-wheeled Foden licensed to carry 8 tons, labours under 12 tons while pulling a 12-ton trailer.

The Leyland Hippo

Dennis Meaker
Dennis Meaker Warbo Run

Perhaps one of the most famous drivers was the Englishman Dennis Meaker. He nursed his 1970 Leyland Hippo for nearly two decades, clocking up millions of miles. After being awarded the contract for the ‘Warbo Run,’ Dennis built a truck with two gearboxes, one behind the other. The ability to select low gearing enabled him to crawl through the sand with two 16-metre trailers dragging behind.

A bogged semi-trailer once blocked Dennis on Warbo road about a 100kms from Warburton Ranges. Dennis can’t get past… and says, ‘I’ll pull you out’. With his gearboxes, he can crawl along. Dennis pulls the whole rig off to the side through spinifex and sand. No road, just an uphill dune, creeping at 0.5 k/ph, he brings his unit in front of the bogged semi. He hooks on and pulls the semi-free!

Today, Warburton Ranges is a thriving Aboriginal community. Warburton has satellite television, internet and telephones, and regular road and air transport. The road is far from the single winding foot track of the 1930s. Over the decades, the Shire slowly straightened the road bypassing the rock holes. Only a few rock holes and watering points are visible from a speeding Toyota. This brief account covers the Great Central Highway from Laverton to Warburton. Another 2,000 kilometres lie ahead in the journey from Laverton to Winton.

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