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  • Home
  • About
    • All Star Profile
    • Current Outlets
  • Stories
    • Tahitian Dreaming Paul Gauguin Cruises
    • Cruise Ship's Historic Return to SA's Copper Coast
    • MSC Grandiosa
    • Ruby Princess
    • Return to Sri Lanka
    • Bryce Canyon
    • Hunter Gatherings
    • Visit Planet Batuu on your next holiday
    • The Falkland Islands
    • Zagreb has just about everything!
    • Historic Train Journeys in Yorkshire
    • The Sunshine State
    • To The Top of Europe
    • The Kimberley and Mitchell Falls
    • Forget Bali - Go Bush
    • Ireland.. It’s just like the movies
    • Tap and Go Sydney
    • Milwaukee: Easy does it
    • PNG with P&O
    • Port Douglas
    • India's Golden Triangle
    • Guns Gods and Gin
    • Return to Paradise
    • The Outback and fascinating Lava Tubes at Undara.
    • SAILING MEKONG’s PAST IN THE PRESENT
    • Italian Treat
    • Jasper
    • The Ghan
    • Grand Old Ladies
    • Brisbane to Townsville
    • MSC Seaside
    • First to the Frozen Continent Antarctica
    • Cuba's New Revolution
    • THE travel destinations for 2018
    • British Columbia and Grizzly Bears
    • Samoa
    • Mudgee
    • SeaDream A Seven-Day Dream
    • Winnipeg Canada
    • City and beach options in Thailand
    • The Canadian
    • Lonna Island
    • Ancient encounters along the Kimberley Coast
    • Silja Line
    • Play and Stay in Uber Cool Brisbane
    • The Vasa Museum
    • Travel to Noosa - For Cooking Classes
    • Spirit House hits new high
    • Mudgee's Blue Wren Winery
    • Helsinki: Europe’s new cool
    • Doing the Locomotion on Grandma's Express
    • SWEPT AWAY BY BROOME
    • Madrid – Tapas on Offer All Day
    • The Southern Highlands - Bowral
    • A Day Trip to China
    • The Never Never
    • Alaska 101
    • The Hydro Majestic Hotel
    • When is a Legend Born?
    • Sun Princess
    • An Amazing Journey
    • Mandurah and Blue Swimmer's
    • A MILLION DANCING SMILES IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
    • See the historic wonders of Hội An, Vietnam
    • Holidays with Pets
    • YEPPOON – AN OASIS IN THE TROPICS
    • O'REILLY'S
    • Coober Pedy
    • Rum - Smuggler’s - Slavery
    • Sri Lanka
    • Secrets of the Great Ocean Road
    • Looking for Napoleon
    • Blue Lagoon
    • Where is Bowen?
    • The Central Coast of NSW
    • Lake Geneva
    • Mudgee NSW
    • Margaret River
    • Indian Pacific
    • Alsace
    • Cruising Asia
    • The Magnificent Murray
    • Lakes and Daffodils
    • Secret Places
    • Pencils
    • Pacific Jewel
    • Contact
    • Cruising with Holland America Line
    • Bewitching Mt Tamborine
    • Hill End NSW
    • The Heart of the Gold Coast
    • Outback Australia
    • Emerald Princess
    • Ottawow – Canada's exciting capital
    • Majorca
    • The Secret World of Pacific Palms
    • Escape the last of Winter
    • Sailing on Emerald Princess
    • Finding your own Oasis in Doha
    • Tokyo DisneySea
​INTO THE LAND OF THE NEVER NEVER
Dallas Sherringham really goes Outback
There is a legendary area south of Darwin known as the “Never Never” which is now lost in the ever changing mists of time.
In the early 1900s a lady wrote a book about life in this part of the Northern Territory and it went on to sell more than one million copies worldwide.
Such was the power of Jeannie Gunn’s “We of the Never Never” that it became standard reading for every young Australian. It was made into a movie in 1982 starring Angela Punch McGregor.

The Never Never was that region south of Katherine that contained just a handful of people and no white women.
It is still possible to walk in the footsteps of Ms Gunn, who lived to the ripe old age of 91 and became a champion of struggling returned servicemen from the Great War. She was no ordinary lady: she matriculated from Melbourne University and became a teacher before marrying Aeneas Gunn.
Aeneas, boss of the 5000 square kilometer Elsey Station was known as The Maluka by the Aboriginals who worked for him as stockmen and servants. The book is famous for its characterizations and its depiction of life in what was essentially a wilderness area.
Characters such as the Dandy, the Fizzer, the Quiet Stockman and Cheon the Chinese cook all leapt from the pages and were based on real people. The book later became controversial because of the depiction and treatment of Aboriginals.
Recently I went to the Never Never in search of remnants from the book and the extraordinary life of the only white women south of Katherine in 1900.
In the book, Ms Gunn describes the journey between Darwin and Pine Creek by train. The station where she was confronted by chauvinistic bushmen trying to talk her out of continuing her epic trip is still there and is now on the National Trust register.
From Pine Creek, she headed south on horseback to “the Katherine” which was tiny settlement of just four people. She eventually made it to the front gate of the station which was 70km from the homestead.
Today, the Elsey station still exists, in part. It is owned and managed by the Northern Land Council as a working cattle property and a tourist attraction.
We know the region more famously as Mataranka, a town that group up alongside the Northern Australia railway. The nearby hot springs draw thousands of visitors travelling along the Stuart Hwy.
In the centre of town are statues of Aeneas and Jeannie and some of the streets are named after characters from the book.
Travelling south from Mataranka there is a turnoff to Elsey Cemetery. I drove drive for several kilometers along a sealed road and eventually came to the impressive homestead burial ground.
Walking around the site, it is very moving to see the headstones of characters from We of the Never Never, including the Maluka,  and to realize that they never left this wild part of Australia.
Aeneas Gunn died of malarial dysentery after just a year at the Elsey and the broken hearted Ms Gunn returned south to live out her life in the suburbs of Melbourne, never to return to the Never Never and never to marry again.
A short drive from the cemetery is the original homestead site. A stone cairn and some old photos depict the site but there is no sign of the homestead. Built of wood, it would have been eaten out by termites many decades ago.
I have to admit it was a desolate, uninspiring place. How people made a life there is beyond comprehension in these days of air conditioners and refrigerators.
The old homestead comprised of several wooden shacks, a cookhouse and a storage shed. Once a year a wagon load of supplies was delivered at the homestead. Yet, people were happy in that wild, untamed place. And through the book they get to live on forever.
Today, the term Never Never has lost much of its meaning. The Stuart Hwy, once just a track through the bush beside the overland telegraph is now packed with huge three trailer road trains and thousands of caravans.
If you are travelling the North Country, please take the time to visit the Elsey. Standing there surrounded by giant termite mounds with only the sigh of the breeze in the stunted trees and shrubs and the water shimmering in the billabong, you will get a sense of what it was like to live in the Never Never.
(Note: A free copy of the book can be downloaded at www.gutenberg.org
Words and images: Dallas Sherringham
Feature supplied by: www.wtfmedia.com.au
Captions:
1. Historical photo of Elsey Station
2. Statue of the Gunns in Mataranka
3. Stone cairn on the site of Elsey homestead
4. The emotionally moving Elsey cemetery
5. Pine Creek railway station
6. Portrait of Jeannie Gunn
7. Portrait of Aeneas Gunn, the Maluka
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