Captain Charles Sturt Saga continues: Ron examines this report in the Outback region of South Australia

In the 1880s the old ghost town of Milparinka was home to a mini-gold rush of sorts. But today the town and its nearby water hole are major stopping off points on a trail following the footsteps of one of the nation's greatest explorers.

It was here on January 27th, 1845, that Captain Charles Sturt and his party - carrying a whaleboat of all things arrived - arrived in desperate need of rest. By the time Sturt and his men get here they're in a bad way. But their salvation was water at place Sturt called Depot Glen.

They would camp by the spring fed water hole for six months. After little more than three, Sturt wrote, "our hair, as well as the wool on the sheep has ceased to grow. So great is the heat we were obliged to bury our candles".

Scurvy had taken hold of the men and finally on July 16th, 1845, Sturt's Deputy James Poole died. Little did Sturt realise that the cairn he had his men build during their long drought enforced stay would become a monument to his loyal companion.

He would later write in his journal, "That rude structure looks over his lonely grave and will stand for ages as a record of all we suffered in the dreary region to which we were so long confined."

Poole's cairn or Poole's Monument as it's known was one of Sturt's work programs for the men. It was designed to motivate them, to keep their spirits up while they were stuck at Depot Glen. One can't help but wonder whether they praised him or cursed him. One suspects the latter.

By July 1845 rain began to fall and Sturt broke camp. He sent nine men from here back to Adelaide and pressed on with the rest of the party, determined to make it into the very centre of the continent in the hope of finding his inland sea.

For his final push into the heart of Australia Sturt headed northwest eventually reaching the shores of what was then a dry lake Pinnaroo. The Postcards team arrived after good rains so this part of Corner Country was flourishing.

John Kappe, Tri State Safaris: "This is Ruby Saltbush and these little berries are beautiful eating, very much like an apple. They are quite tasty which begs the question why Poole got scurvy while there's so much bush tucker around. I guess being Europeans and not knowing a lot of Australia's bush tucker they weren't game to eat anything in case of getting crook."

John Kappe has brought many a Sturt enthusiast into the National Park named after the first European to set foot here. "When he came through here it was virgin land. It had never been trodden on by white man before," said John.

At nearby Fort Grey, Sturt set up base for his last foray into the interior. He and three other men crossed into South Australia stopping at a waterway, which cuts through several deserts.

Sturt named it Cooper Creek after Sir Charles Cooper, Chief Justice back in Adelaide. The party pushed on even further into a featureless terrain, in temperatures that caused the men's thermometers to burst. It was a lonely, desolate and dangerous journey as the explorer and his party pushed on, reaching a wilderness they named Sturt's Stony Desert.

Sturt often spoke in nautical terms when describing his journey. He wrote, 'We were as lonely as a ship at sea and as any navigator seeking for land, only we had the disadvantage of an unsteady compass without any fixed point on which to steer.'

By this stage of the journey Sturt was suffering from sun blindness. The intense glare - a feature of his explorations up and down the River Murray and into the interior was taking its toll. But still the men pressed on until they reached the Simpson Desert where they were faced with sand ridges 30 metres high.

Just 240 kilometres from the centre of Australia, Captain Charles Sturt, finally conceded defeat and turned back to Fort Grey and later to Adelaide two years after his initial departure.

While not having discovered an inland sea this dramatic and heroic journey opened up much of inland Australia for pastoralism a feature of Corner Country to this very day.

Tri State Safaris run regular trips into the border country of South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. For booking phone (08) 8088 2389. Please email info@postcards-sa.com.au if you have any further questions.

Published 4th May 2008