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Updated: June 9, 2025
The road from Cue was as uninteresting as all others on the goldfields miles of flat, sandy soil covered with dense scrub, an occasional open plain of grass and saltbush round the foot of the breakaways, and cliffs that are pretty frequently met with.
In 1862, Goyder paid a visit to the much-abused region north of Fowler's Bay, but found nothing to reward him but mallee scrub and spinifex. In this year Delisser and Hardwicke went over the same country, but on a much more attractive route, as they came upon a large, limitless plain, covered with grass and saltbush.
Mosquitoes are very rarely found in the interior, but on this little creek they swarmed, and could only be kept away by fires of sticks and grass, in the smoke of which we slept. From the granite hills a fine view to the eastward was obtained, across a rich little plain of saltbush and grass, and dotted here and there over it was a native peach tree, or "quondong," a species of sandalwood.
In southern California and Arizona the sage-brush gives place to smaller forms like the saltbush, and the desert assumes a sterner aspect. Next comes the cactus desert extending from Arizona far south into Mexico. One of the notable features of the desert is the extreme heat of certain portions.
I listened with interest to stories of weeks and weeks spent beneath the sun and stars while crossing widths of saltbush country, mulga and myall scrubs, of encounters with blacks in Queensland, and was favoured with a graphic description of a big strike among the shearers when the narrator had been boss-of-the-board out beyond Bourke.
The second night we had a visit from a native gentleman, and by his tracks in the morning we saw that he had been quite close to our heads at one time. Following along the wall we came upon a gap, and, entering, reached a nice little plain of saltbush, surrounded by rocks and cliffs.
Perhaps I ought to have mentioned before that Billy was just nine years old. I had come a long journey across country with Glenn, the squatter, and now we were entering the homestead paddock of his sheep-station, Winnanbar. Afar to the left was a stone building, solitary in a waste of saltbush and dead-finish scrub. I asked Glenn what it was. He answered, smilingly: "The Strangers' Hut.
The wind catches the quivering crimson streak, and for awhile the flames race, as I have seen wild horses, neck to neck, rush through the saltbush plains at the sound of the stockman's whip. Then, as the wind drops, the flames curl caressingly around the wealth of growing fodder, biting the grass low down, and wrapping it in a mantle of black and red, as flame and smoke commingle.
It had been the Judge's original intention to have nothing but native trees and shrubs and flowers on this summer estate, and a well-clipped hedge of saltbush at present flanked the drive, and a breakwind plantation of Tasmanian blue gum, alternated with silver wattle, ran for several hundred feet where the westerly winds had at first caught one side of the house.
Occasional pines find a footing on the face of the rocks how they manage to grow or get moisture is hard to tell showing up fresh and green against the dull grey background of rock. Round the foot of the cliffs a small plain of saltbush is usually found, through which numerous small creeks and watercourses wind their way into the scrub beyond.
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