...small sand watercourse (quite dry as usual) where me made a short stop for lunch.
The last two miles of the morning's trip were through rather more 'fertile' country with some very large desert oaks and mulgas and quite a number of scattered grass trees.
The Gosses Ranges are quite spectacular as there are high stone cliffs completely surrounded by sandy plains. They have the most marvelous and varigated colouring with red predominating. This structure rises straight out of the plain with no other elevation within miles.
Here Strehlow and Petering left us to continue into the Gosses while we made about six miles to an old set of stockyards which mark the boundary of the mission station. Here abouts also ended the skeletons. The mission lost at least 4,000 head of cattle, all of its many thousands of sheep, all but a few goats and donkeys, and a high proportion of the Arundta tribe in the big drought.
We believed that we would get good water here but when we dug a soak the water turned out pretty foul and smelt. However as this was the only water we had seen that day we had to make it do. We were carrying an eight gallon drum on the pack camel so we were not seriously inconvenienced. Rain again threatened but once again it fell somewhere else if it fell at all.
The boy was given his flour, tea and sugar and a little jam and we turned in early.
Next morning we were up and away pretty early as we always manage to wake about 20 minutes before the sun. We started a very interesting days trip. Soon after leaving the camp we started to cross the stony foothills of the Macdonnells and then following up the bed of a small creek (Rudalls) we negotiated a pass into the heart of the range. The camels were slipping and sliding about on the loose stones.
