A desert boundary, a flooded creek, and forty bullocks that won’t stop heading home—this is the uneasy start of a family’s 1852 push from Kooramoora to the Bendigo goldfields. We open with the puzzle of Goyder’s Line, the fenceless border where rainfall drops, Mallee yields to saltbush, and the dream of cropping often turns to stone ruins. Then we set our wheels on the Upper Murray track, chosen to dodge rutted southern routes and the bottleneck at the Wellington ferry, only to find the “dry” path drowned by a storm that swells Burra Creek and bogs every crossing.
Through first-hand diaries, we trace the rhythms and frictions of moving a small economy across harsh country: pre-dawn tea, yokes on, scouts probing unknown creeks with whip handles, and a relentless cycle of finding water and feed before dusk. Worlds End Gorge becomes both gateway and refuge—permanent waterholes under towering River Red gums, flanked by semi-arid flats that blur toward the Murray. When the livestock bolt, Joe rides through the night, reads tracks by first light, and turns the mobs fifteen miles from home. The camp adapts with bush yards, hobbled horses, and hard choices, inching toward the river’s North West Bend as cliffs rise and floodplains widen.
Along the way, we unpack the wider story: how Goyder’s 1865 survey codified climate reality, why “rain follows the plough” led settlers astray, and how old coach roads, squatter runs, and the modern Goyder Highway mirror each other across time. Route selection becomes a study in risk management—shorter isn’t safer if the sand is churned and the feed is gone, and “longer” may win when water, ground, and patience align. By the end, progress is slow but earned, the line on the map feels less abstract, and the lessons are plain: respect the country, move with its limits, and expect weather to rewrite plans.
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