A Walk-About in Australia

Philippa Bridges crossed Australia one hundred years ago, supported by an Aboriginal Tracker, Macumba Jack and a Lubra named Topsy. Over 600 of those miles, from Macumba Station in South Australia, to Darwin, she travelled by camel. 'Her most ambitious undertaking was to cross Australia from south to north, approximately along the route of the transcontinental telegraph line. Her companions were an aboriginal boy and lubra. She was profoundly impressed by the loneliness of the great empty spaces, but even more so by the courage and kindliness of those who dwell in these solitudes. Darwin has a somewhat invidious reputation, of which Miss Bridges was not unaware, but she has a good word for the town. "Certain it is," she writes, "that one hears the worst of it, but none of the best of it, long before may arrives there." But she can only speak of it as she fount it like other parts of Australia. A place of real hospitality and pleasant friendships.' - Sydney Morning Herald, 1926