Wallala Revisited

It was an ideal Sunday for a picnic so after church in the Poochera Hall we prepared a few sandwiches and we headed off. Beryl my wife, and Merle Brace were back seat drivers while Bob assumed the role of local navigator and tourist guide. It was mid May, but the day could have been mistaken for mid January, it was so sunny and dry.

We drove north nine kilometres from Poochera where nothing but stunted mallee and the never ending Todd water pipeline skirts the equally never-ending bitumen Eyre Highway. The strip map still showed a white dot with the words Capietha alongside it. Bob our guide thought it was an aboriginal word meaning ‘poison berry.’ Well, immediately we were aware our hosts and passengers were in touch, people with an intimate knowledge of what looked like arid bushland to me.

With development of the area in the early 1900’s the government had

surveyed many little townships for early settlers along the railway line. Believe it or not, seven roads converged on this little surveyed town that was never built, but as we whisked past in our air-conditioned car, I was aware of how easy it was for one generation to whisk past the relics, visions and stories of earlier generations, and those who had tamed this sort of country, We turned off the highway north of Cungena. Pointing to the roadside Bob said there was an aboriginal campsite there in early days. Men like Teddy Benbolt, usually worked around the area from a base camp, while women like Annie Wombat and other women used the camps as places of shelter. The sign said Coober Pedy 535, next service 250 kilometres. Not far from this turn off we came to the old

Yantanabie Centre. Once a thriving little community with two shops, five houses and a very big wheat shed. Now the old limestone Hall (built by a stonemason Mr

Alltop), a chimney, a few dirt tracks and a number of mature old gum trees clustered together making their stand against the winds of change, were all that remained. Of course our guide himself was another survivor who knew the spot well. At least some of Bob’s schooling took place here and although he was working at Courela at the time, it was from the Yantanabie Hall that the locals’ farewelled Bob and the other local lads, thrust into the horror of World War 2. The tone of Bob’s voice lifted as he pointed out the school house. “It was over there and the Jones and Miller families were over there.” The light of the afternoon sun lit the western wall of the old hall that seemed to look larger and more impressive as we made our way through the stunted grass. It was still a solid well built structure although there was more shell grit than sand in the concrete. The windows had been covered but it was an empty shell that echoed our voices. Inside the floor was still in good nick and surprisingly the galvanised roof had held out. A few disturbed pigeons flapped past us as we peered through the open door into the back supper room “That is original timber in the roof,” Bob said, as he pointed out where two old wood coppers years earlier had been faithfully fanned to provide cups of tea. Four bolts marked the spot where an engine had been fitted for a lighting plant. We followed the dirt road north past Wirrulla Rock and a telecommunication tower. It was hard to imagine the vast open spaces once being dotted with farm houses and towns and people, but if you know what to look for, a clump of trees, a splash of vegetation,

these were the tell tale signs. The hard natural selection process where neighbour had bought out neighbour in order to survive had been a way of life here for years. Families and whole communities who had invested their lives in the development of this very marginal land had moved on. There were few now who knew these remote parts and it was now 63 years since Bob had lived here but he spoke as if it were yesterday. We came to Wallala where Bob’s grandfather first cleared the land. This was really sacred ground for the Braces. Bob pointed in the direction he used to set off for school. It really was a school in the ‘never never’ even in those days but now not even a familiar tree remained, just sandy dirt and bushes. Later there had been another school built at Wallala West. Our car weaved around a road that had now become a narrow track until we reached a large granite outcrop known as Wallala Rocks. Being 446 feet above sea level around such a flat terrain the Rocks were quite significant. The white Wirrulla wheat silo stood out on the horizon. The rock surfaces were extensive with patches of faded green lichen everywhere. Bob

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explained that this was his playground as a child. The memories were still fresh. He had lived here until he was seven years old. The family home was just through a fence and a few yards north beyond the bushes. We strolled to the edge of the paddock and inspected the few remaining foundation stones of the old homestead. This was the popular spot for Sunday school picnics in days when boys dressed with hats and girls, fancied bows and long skirts. Bob pointed out the ‘Pulpit rock’ where the open-air services took place and it wasn’t difficult to imagine people sitting and gathered with only the silence of the scrub surrounding them. We found a comfortable spot and enjoyed a few meaty sandwiches.

The stories were starting to flow freely now. The significance of this lovely spot needed to be shared – with the generations that would follow. Aboriginal families used the hollows in the granite as cubbies and shelters. The pools of water on the rock surface were a source of water. There were still markings and smoke stained rocks that remained as evidence of times beyond our reckoning. The camel teams carting wool from ‘Hiltabar

and Yardia Stations’ had a rough track that passed through these parts. The aboriginal people often came here because it was a place they could cadge flour, sugar, tobacco and tea. Bob explained, “As a kid I was fascinated by their ways. They would prepare a black pitch in the cup hole of the granite rocks and cook the points of their spears. They were clever catching echidna and digging out rabbits. They could see a tree from a distance with a little knot of gum in the trunk and when they cut the notch, out would come tree grubs. They would live off a rabbit warren and were sometimes employed by the farmers to do that in order to get rid of the vermin. The route of the rabbit was traced by digging a hole, perhaps four feet deep. Once detecting the direction of the passage they would wiggle their spears into places a crowbar could never go to locate the rabbit’s central nesting chamber. In this way they would trap their prey and evening meal.” Bob recalled that a number of aboriginal folk like Ben Wombat and Jack Jacobs camped on properties, stump picking or fencing for their tucker. We carefully explored the rock face and reaching a long break in the surface our guide explained that in these early days his aboriginal friends were adamant that the huge granite rock had its surface split and broken by a devil spirit. Looking north through the shimmering heat of the sun, the Gawler Ranges formed a thin blue Having made our bush pilgrimage and stirred the memories, our guide advised us to turn the car around and make for home. We had to live

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in the present after all, but our day had been made rich by that shared journey of yester-year.

Photos Page 1 Bob & Merle Brace Cungena Hall Page 2 Bob by Pulpit Rock Page 3 Bob at Old Home

Ruins Page 4 Devil Split Rock Distant Gawler Ranges

Written by Ted Curnow 15 May 1994 Printed - November 2000

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backdrop on the horizon, a place where once wild horses and aboriginal clans roamed. It was a sparse remote landscape that could be both harsh and beautiful. It was a place with many stories that would remain untold. Once the white cockatoo, now replaced by the pink galah flew here. Once settlers stalked kangaroos through the spinifex scrub and ‘no mans land’ with a single shot 22 rifle. Once wild turkeys were found amid the crops, but all that had changed now, these days were gone.