Macca's Meanderings

HAATST BLUFF - 3 Recently, we took a drive to Mt Liebig via a road 'less used' and returned via the main road through Papunya. When I say 'main road' it is a main road for this area but is not sealed and less than 10 vehicles per hour. From Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff) we crossed a creek lined with white gums and then past the communities airstrip (again a gravel runway) and off into the vast empty spaces west of here. Initially we drove through reasonably flat red sandy country. The weathered ranges to our north and south dictated a westerly path. No traffic, no mobile service, no radio stations, no roadhouses, no traffic signs, no road side service, no speed cameras, no 'civilisation' many would say - yet there is a beauty here and we enjoyed a great day. Come for a drive with us? Double clicking on the photos will enlarge them.  The track had recently been graded so made for pleasant driving. This area is sometimes referred to as the 'Red Centre'. The

HAASTS BLUFF - 2 Some Central Australian History and Blind Moses It is good to learn something of the history of an area and the real life characters and events that helped shape the present. I have just read a book that has done just that - 'Blind Moses, Aranda man of high degree and Christian evangelist'. Moses or Tjalkabota was born in 1872 near Hermannsburg, south west of Alice Springs. At that time the first white explorers had past through this area just a few years earlier. The over land telegraph line was under construction. The colony of Queensland had not long been established. Moses's family had still not seen a white man yet they had heard of them. This was about to change. Some German Lutherans arrived to establish a mission station at Hermannsburg on the Finke River. Pastoralists brought large numbers of sheep and cattle. Prospectors came seeking their fortunes. European diseases were introduced with devastating results. At times tensions erupted into