Buckshot Bear

BARKLY TABLELAND - 1870’s Beef Central. William Landsborough was the first non-Indigenous Australian person to explore the tableland, and named it after Sir Henry Barkly, then governor of Victoria. In 1877 the overlander, Nathaniel Buchanan and Sam Croker crossed the Barkly Tableland and rode on to the Overland Telegraph Line opening new land for settlement. It was not until the introduction of generous leasing arrangements on the Barkly in the late 1870s that the region became more settled. In 1883, Harry Readford, one of the inspirations for the literary character Captain Starlight, drove a mob of cattle to the Barkly and subsequently established Brunette Downs (then called Corella Creek), with outstations at Anthony Lagoon and Cresswell Creek, for Macdonald, Smith and Co. In 1884, 2,500 cattle were driven to Brunette Downs and in 1885, Readford brought in 1,200 mixed cattle from Burketown. Other cattle stations in the area include Alexandria, Mittiebah and Walhallow.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Sonny Phillips with a young Vietnamese girl during the distribution of clothing, toys and soap to peasant families in An Bac.

GREATEST DROVER OF ALL - 1881 In 1881, Nat Buchanan, regarded by many as the greatest drover of all, took 20,000 cattle from St George in Southern Queensland to the Daly River, not far south of Darwin, a distance of 3,200 km. Cattle stealing has long been part of Australia's history and some of the country's biggest droving feats have been performed by cattle rustlers or duffers. The most notable one was Harry Redford who established a reputation as an accomplished drover when he stole 1,000 cattle from Bowen Downs Station near Longreach, Queensland in 1870 and drove them 1,500 miles (2,400 km). His route took him through very difficult country down the Thomson, Barcoo, Cooper and Strezlecki rivers thus pioneering the Strzelecki Track. Women have been noted as exceptional drovers as well. One of the true legends of the outback is Edna Zigenbine, better known as Edna Jessop, who took over a droving job from her injured father, and became a boss drover at 23. Along with her brother Andy and four ringers, they moved the 1,550 bullocks the 2,240 kilometres across the Barkly Tableland to Dajarra, near Mount Isa, Queensland.

80-100klm hour winds from the West yesterday, we can get weeks of this around this time of the year.

I think WWI was when they started to be worn in earnest.

Nope.....they go together like .......hmm.....pork and apple sauce

‘SARBI - THE BOMB SNIFFER’ Sarbi was a remarkably intelligent hound that became a hero for the Australian Special Forces during the war in Afghanistan. The black lab and Newfoundland-cross was adopted by the Australian Defence Force to become an Explosive Detection Dog (EDD). She had the important task of sniffing out explosives during her several tours of Afghanistan. Sarbi spent nearly 14 months missing in September 2008 when she disappeared during a nine-hour battle after a Taliban ambush. A gunshot severed the metal clip on Sarbi’s leash, and the wounded and frightened dog limped away from the chaos of bullets and blasted desert sand. The distraught soldiers searched for her after the battle, but Sarbi was declared missing in action after three weeks. Happily, 13 months later, Sarbi reappeared in healthy condition in an Afghan village, and she was eventually bargained back into the hands of her handler, David. Sarbi received The Purple Cross in 2011.

Australians assisting a wounded American near Ronssoy. Known to be in this photograph is Quartermaster Sergeant J. P.Miller, 38th Battalion.

‘THE ABORIGINAL TRACKERS THAT TRACKED NED KELLY’ - 1880 Why the only police Ned Kelly really feared during a two-year manhunt involving 200 cops were a group of Aboriginal trackers brought in to capture or kill him. They were the six young Aboriginal trackers brought down to Victoria from North Queensland to capture or kill the outlaw. From April 1878 when Kelly first went on the run until February 1879 when his gang took over a New South Wales town for three days, the bushranger was virtually untouchable. But for the next 16 months with the Queensland trackers on his tail Kelly was so worried about getting caught he was barely seen in public. The story of these remarkable black bushman has now been told in a new book called The Kelly Hunters by journalist and author Grantlee Kieza. There had been calls to bring in Queensland trackers since October 1878 when Kelly shot dead three policemen at Stringybark Creek in the Wombat Ranges. After the murders Kelly could be shot on sight by anyone and took extreme measures to evade capture as he committed crimes to fund his life in hiding. 'When Ned Kelly heard Queensland was sending down Aboriginal trackers he was truly terrified. As tough and fierce as he was he was mortally afraid of them.' The trackers were aged 16 to 24 and not all could speak English. Most had been riding with O'Connor for the past three years and were from Mackay and Fraser Island. There was Jack Noble, also known as Wannamutta, who had been pressed into service aged 14 or 15, and his brother, Corporal Sambo. Sambo - sometimes 'Quambo' - was the oldest and as a younger man had been a 'notorious rascal who had committed every sort of crime, including being a bushranger.' Johnny, considered by some to be insane, was the best tracker O'Connor had met. A year earlier he had been accused of killing an Aboriginal woman in Charters Towers. Gary Owens had the tribal name Werannallee but police called him Barney. The final two trackers were known only as Jimmy and Hero. The trackers were paid three shillings a day, half what their white counterparts earnt. When the trackers arrived in Benalla on March 10 they got haircuts and went shopping. They were seen playing cricket with local children and quickly became popular. 'They'd give boomerang throwing demonstrations, all that sort of stuff,' Kieza says. 'They were seen as real curiosities.' They were treated with a measure of respect by the police at the time but often it was very patronising,' Kieza says. 'They'd be given a little bit of money to go and buy lollies and things, like they were small children or even pets.' The trackers soon got to work and had success in curtailing the Kelly Gang's activities. 'They could pick up their tracks in all sorts of places,' Kieza says. 'Their tracking abilities were incredible.' The trackers, who could spot a drop of blood on a blade of grass, could tell what sort of horse had gone by - and whether it had a rider - by the imprint of its hoofs. 'They could distinguish even between the sort of boot heels the gang were wearing,' Kieza says. 'There's talk of them having found a sweat smudge from someone who had put their hand on a branch hours before. Uncanny kind of tracking abilities.' The trackers wore blue uniforms with caps and carried the latest Snider-Enfield rifles. 'They had the best weapons and they knew how to use them as well,' Kieza says. 'Certainly Ned Kelly feared what they could do. 'It's significant that as soon as they arrived he never did another bank robbery. He didn't really show himself publicly anywhere until the siege of Glenrowan. Kelly, who reportedly called the trackers 'those six little demons' and was 'astounded and terrified of them' was increasingly forced to engage in guerrilla warfare. Kelly kept largely to the high country in the Strathbogie, Warby and Wombat Ranges because he did not believe the trackers would want to go above the snowline to look for him. 'They really suffered as a result of trying to catch Ned Kelly,' Kieza says. 'They had to camp out in the mountains for sometime weeks at a time in freezing conditions. 'All the police put up with all sorts of privations but it was especially hard on the Aboriginal trackers who weren't used to that sort of weather, they were from sunny Queensland.' Within weeks of arriving Corporal Sambo was dead and buried at Benalla. When the Victorians began breaking up O'Connor's trackers to go on separate search parties he resigned and took his troopers to Melbourne. They were ready to head back to Queensland when on June 26, 1880, Joe Byrne murdered his lifelong friend and police informer, Aaron Sherritt. O'Connor then agreed to commissioner Standish's plea to stay and accompany his officers on a train which Kelly planned to derail by tearing up the tracks near Glenrowan. The gang had rounded up the town's residents at gunpoint and held them at the Glenrowan Inn but Kelly allowed school teacher Tom Curnow to leave the hotel and he flagged down the locomotive. When police including O'Connor and his five trackers arrived the gang donned their suits of armour and stepped out of the pub to face a barrage of gunfire. During the gun battle a bullet grazed tracker Jimmy's head. 'He's supposed to have jumped up and fired shots at the Glenrowan Inn and said, "Take that, Ned Kelly",' Kieza says. Byrne, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart were killed in the siege and Ned was captured at dawn on June 28 after being shot in his unprotected legs. Kelly was charged with the murders of the three police at Stringybark Creek and was convicted of murdering one of them. He was hanged in Melbourne Gaol on October 11, 1880, aged 25. 'For the trackers it was a pay day,' Kieza says. 'And perhaps there was also a degree of being coerced and forced into it. 'You can't say that they were slaves but they were often pressed into service and they were doing stuff against their wishes. 'In the case of Ned Kelly, I think part of it with the trackers is that it was a massive hunt for them and they could see some recognition for themselves.' Most of the trackers were denied their share of the reward because authorities deemed they would not know what to do with all of that money.