4 
Cunninghamia 
Vol. 1 (1): 1981 
Figure 7. Gidgee (Acacia cambagei ) near Milparinka. 
Figure 8. The tanksinker and his donkey team in degenerate Mulga country near Tibooburra, 
We crossed several dry creeks edged with River Red Gum and finally reached 
Fowlers Gap Creek with its woodland of trees and a stone house on its northern 
bank. The house, a 2-roomed structure with a waterproof iron roof, was then an 
outstation of Corona and was occupied by a boundary rider. Later, the block of 
land was taken over by the Department of Conservation as a research station (see 
Mabbutt, 1973) when it was occupied periodically by groups of students from the 
University of New England. Some 15 years ago a wall of water which overtopped 
the eucalypts edging the creek destroyed the house, fortunately unoccupied at the 
time. This creek flows into Lake Bancannia, which we were to see the following day. 
It was dark when we reached the Fowlers Gap hotel, but we could see that its 
days were numbered. Hotels along this road were located about every 20 miles 
[32 km] to provide for people travelling by horse-drawn vehicles. The one at 
Euriowie, once a tin-mining town, located some 40 miles [64 km] north of Broken 
Hill, had been abandoned several years before. The hoCel at the Gap provided us 
with good meals and satisfactory accommodation. Apart from a lamp for the 
lounge and one candle for each room, we had no lights and the specimens had to 
sweat in the wet papers till lunch time the following day. 
The most memorable view on the journey northward to Milparinka was the 
vast area of purple pea (Swainsona swainsonioides), which dominated the plain 
north of the hotel. We calculated a sheet of purple of 18 square miles [c. 50 sq. km]. 
The plants were copiously nodulated with rhizobial nodules. 
The road led us past Lake Bancannia, with a fine supply of water complete with 
sea gulls on a “holiday” from the coast. The mud supported a community of the 
rare Australian liquorice (Glycyrrhiza acanthocarpa). Then more Mulga scrub (much 
with bad erosion, Figure 6), and saltbush downs until we reached the one-time 
mining town of Milparinka, which once had a population of c. 3,000 people. 
