Tracing the route of John McDouall Stuart

This presentation, based on a book by author-journalist Rosemary Cadden, will ask you to relive the pioneering spirit of John McDouall Stuart as Rosemary retraces his footsteps across 6000 kilometres of rugged outback. From the sandy deserts to the tropical north, this is a journey of discovery, both personal and historical. Discover the challenges faced by early settlers, confront the complexities of Indigenous history, and share the laughter and hardships of a modern-day adventurer. Don't miss this unique opportunity to explore the soul of Australia.

McDouall Stuart hitches a ride is part rollicking road trip, part migrant memoir, with a strong historical theme centred around the settler-colonial beginnings of South Australia and the Northern Territory to more recent events in our history.

Rosemary Cadden, writer-journalist and Scottish Australian of nearly 50 years, spent a month driving 6000 kilometres through the centre of the continent up to the Top End, following the tracks of fellow Scot, explorer John McDouall Stuart. He was the first European to reach the centre of the continent in the 1860s, planting a flag on the closest mountain – a sign to the natives, or so he thought, of the dawn of civil liberty.

As Rosemary tackles sand dunes, dingoes, leeches and storms, readers get a front seat view in her 4WD, Bad-ass Betsie, as she journeys from the Mediterranean south, through extreme environments of the outback and up to the tropics.

Using McDouall Stuart’s journals and maps to compare their very different experiences and to help her find her way, Rosemary chats with people she met on her road trip – tourism guides, pastoralists, remote nurses and First Nations people – about life in the outback. She also brings McDouall Stuart’s journals to life through conversations she has with the explorer, who decided to come along for the ride.

As she faces the legacy of settler colonialism on the landscape and the lives of First Nations peoples of the country she now calls home, she also learns more than she bargained about herself.

The adventure becomes physically hairy when Rosemary chooses to follow a more accurate but more difficult route than originally planned. And a protest over a statue of McDouall Stuart in Alice Springs and accusations that he committed massacres tests Rosemary’s commitment to finish the trip. Meeting a Warumungu elder in Tennant Creek who gives his perspective on a hostile encounter involving his ancestors and McDouall Stuart, has her back on track.

Finally, Rosemary, in a stroke of luck, is taken to the remote McDouall Stuart Memorial on the shores of the Indian Ocean. This cairn commemorates the moment he splashed his face in the sea as he’d promised the Governor of South Australia he’d do.

With a cage nearby for catching crocodiles, Rosemary is satisfied with taking photos to mark the occasion.