2011 - Theses - Flinders University

Used with permission.When Jack sees the clouds thin in the warming air, he trades their horse for two donkeys andfashions a double harness onto the cart. ‘Too rough for horses in there,’ 15 he says, noddingtowards the hills.‘See you then,’ the other families call out, seeing the cart with its sea chest, blankets andother belongings loaded and ready to go. Rebecca sits on top of the load, and waves. ‘You’regoing in, Mrs Forbes!’ she hears, as they pull away at the short choppy pace of theirunimpressed donkeys.Italowie Gorge, 2000You climbed up from the dun coloured plain then –dip! – you were down into a red gorge andpicking your way around rough cut stones and gravel. I drove slowly for me, but there wasstill plenty of jolting. The chalky gravel bit and growled at the all terrain tyres of the UnitingChurch Troupe Carrier, and the way through Balcanoona was rough and windy. At IthalaAwi, the sides of the Gorge were nearly close enough to touch, and the creek bed snaked andwrithed against its walls. The earth jutted to the sky, or fell to the ground, full of the latentenergy of whatever blow rent them like this. In some places the cuts were fresher, sharper,where pick and dynamite had forced a path for wagon loads of baled wool pulled by theAdnyamathanha’s donkey teams. I always pulled up where the track ran across the wide riverbed, and searched the far river bank for two date palms. There, in a tiny cave part way up thegorge face, was a basin of water in the rock, fed by the secret drips of water travellingthrough rock. I showed my young children how to cup their hands and draw out a mouthful ofthe coolest, clearest water I knew.11