Our History

ADE supporter John Wilkinson and Istan

Our History

The Establishment of Australian Desert Expeditions

Australian Desert Expeditions has its origins in the commercial camel trekking business, Outback Camel Company.

For over thirty years, the Outback Camel Company has honoured not only the legacy and determination of Australia's great inland explorers from the late 19th Century - men such as Ernest Giles, Lawrence Wells, David Carnegie, William Tietkens and Peter Warburton - but also the pioneering character and fortitude of the 'Afghan' cameleers who played such a crucial role in the exploration, development and sustenance of inland Australia from the 1860s to the late 1920s.

OCC is also very conscious of another historical inheritance; their journeys continue to sustain the rich tradition of bushmanship that was forged on those demanding inland exploring expeditions. Distinctive skills, knowledge and resourcefulness that otherwise would be consigned to the history books and which share their origins with the development and maturity of the iconic Australian stockman, are alive and well, thriving in the desert. This bushmanship, this living Australian heritage, is a vital component of all their treks and expeditions.

For this reason, the Outback Camel Company is not purely a ‘tour’ company. Whilst their shorter ten day treks are indeed tailored for those seeking a taste of desert travel, the longer twenty-eight day expeditions represent the last bastion of genuine desert exploration in Australia. Consequently, the trips do not reflect a real desert experience - they are a real desert experience.

However, at the beginning of the 21^st Century, OCC found itself as almost the sole provider of authentic desert exploration in this country.

Vehicle Based Desert Exploration

The boom in recreational four wheel driving since the mid 1980s has led to a rediscovery of the inland. Places like the Canning Stock Route, for example, which had largely been forgotten by all those except the most dedicated adventurer, are now regular routes for the 4WD enthusiast. Similarly, the French Track and Rig Road across the Simpson Desert have become iconic 4WD trips. Thankfully, nearly all this desert traffic sticks to the tracks, as most drivers are either unwilling or unskilled to actually venture ‘off the beaten track’.

Despite the remoteness of these desert tracks, in many (but not all) instances there is actually very little ‘discovery’ going on as, in most cases, the focal point of the trip is based around the capacity and performance of the vehicle and its associated appeal - a marketing angle which is highly exploited and encouraged by the motor vehicle industry. From conversations with, and observations of, the average 4WD devotee, it is unusual for the desert environment to be the focus; rather it is something to look at whilst conquering the desert.

The Empty Inland

Apart from Antarctica, Australia is the driest continent in the world and has the largest desert region in the southern hemisphere. More than a third of the continent is effectively desert; over two thirds of the continent is classified as arid or semi-arid with the ten recognised deserts comprising 18% of the mainland.

It can be strongly argued that inland Australia is, on the whole, emptier now than it has been since human occupation. Thousands of years of indigenous nomadism has been replaced by the establishment of remote communities and extensive walkabouts have, for the most part, been replaced by limited driveabouts.

The Australian Deserts – The Outback - encompass a rich bio-diversity which is entwined through indigenous and European history and there is no doubt that modern Australia’s “connectedness” to the land is also rapidly disappearing.

I would suggest that since the middle of last century, many Australians have become disconnected from this land. With over 80% of Australians now living within 200km of the coast, and with the vast majority of those people having lost a direct family connection to the rural sector, ‘the bush’ (and the people who live and work in it) has become a place of mystery, an angle that has been well recognised by the advertising industry. Activities such as those performed by Outback Camel Company and Australian Desert Expeditions are largely no longer understood by Australia’s vast urban population.

The growing media and cultural interest in ‘The Outback’ is however vitally important for re-establishing this national connection. Projects such as Year Of The Outback in 2002 and 2006, for example, are to be commended, as ‘getting away’ from the increasingly cocooned and consumption-rich society in which many Australians now live, and discovering this great land is crucial if we, as a nation, are to understand how to manage this fragile and solitary resource.

The rapidly growing awareness of the serious environmental issues that are now part of our lives – particularly water management & wastage – have been a huge wake up call for Australia. In 2006, the OCC treks and expeditions in the Simpson Desert (the driest part of the Australian mainland) were a timely instructive reminder to trekkers of the need for Australia to embrace better water usage, management and recycling.

ADE supporter, Robyn Davidson, writes in No Fixed Address (Quarterly Essay, Issue 24, 2006),

‘Detachment from our surroundings is becoming increasingly ‘normal’. We move through the world faster and faster. Looking at it, but not being in it. And the more mobile we come, the less sense we have of being sensually enmeshed with our world and interdependent with others.

For us here in Australia, it has been easy to overlook ecological problems, protected as we are by our precarious good luck, but that is changing, and changing faster than predicted. We have managed in just 200 years to bugger up our country, to cut an ever-widening swathe through its natural resources. The famine, drought and political chaos that we hear of in places like Africa are not temporary aberrations, they are systemic. When the desertification and the salination and the loss of species and the lack of water can no longer be ignored, will such chaos extend out to us, the privileged?

Our aboriginal people are worried too, by droughts and decreasing bush tucker, but they see this as a natural consequence of being torn away form their ritual duties. Aboriginal people see their role as keeping country and its vitality in trust for all life to come. Other Australians might do well to find ways of sharing that role.’

The Historical Link

In Beyond Leichhardt, Glen McLaren states that ‘at the very time the research aspects of exploration were at last being recognised, the mobility of explorers was increasing at a rapid rate, exacerbating the longstanding antagonistic relationship between exploration on the one hand and patient sampling and research on the other. In the 1840s both Eyre and Leichhardt had remarked that the need to keep moving had precluded any meaningful field research.

During Augustus Gregory’s North Australia Expedition, attempts to accommodate his scientists were largely prevented by the need for them to help tend the large team of horses, stand watch, cook, wash and, above all, cover long distances each day. This situation developed despite the project initially being envisaged as involving the establishment of a series of depots to allow for comprehensive lateral reconnoitring and analysis.’

In the modern context of Outback Camel Company treks and expeditions, the above scenario is not quite as intense, though nevertheless, it certainly does exist. Whilst every OCC trek and expedition contains, by definition, strong elements of environmental field research and observation, there is a 'conflict' in the capacity of a trek/expedition to devote sufficient time to that research whilst fulfilling its commercial responsibility as a 'tour experience'.

Thus, Australian Desert Expeditions has been launched to conduct environmental filed research expeditions without the restrictions of commercial touring.

Summary

Some may argue that we have discovered all there is to know about inland Australia and that there is no longer any need to get out there and walk our great deserts. I believe that now, more than ever, it is fundamentally central to the further accumulation of desert knowledge and the physical harmony and spiritual balance of this great continent that we continue to walk and explore the Australian desert.

Andrew Harper, FRGS

ADE founder

Gibson Desert, WA

Camels in the Simpson Desert