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clear the landing ground and establish the camp. He had ‘orders to keep smoke signals going on May 26 and the
following days until we arrive’.
On completion of the survey, Bob Buck was hired by the failed Central Australian Gold Exploration Company
to find Harold Lasseter ‘dead or alive’. Leaving Hermannsburg Mission with his camel team on 24 February 1931
Bob and his faithful Aboriginal retainers tracked Lasseter’s lone traverse for many weeks. Eventually the remains
of Harold Lasseter were found at Winters Glen, on the eastern extreme of the Petermann Ranges. A quote from
the Sydney Mirror newspaper of 29 April states, ‘Lasseter’s body was found on March 29 by Mr Robert Buck...
Beside the body were a broken and empty revolver, a set of false teeth, a broken camera, a tattered groundsheet and
some papers. Mr Buck dug a grave, buried Lasseter, and returned to Alice Springs with the items he found’.
Bob had only just returned from finding the remains of Lasseter when an adventurer named Walter Gill hired
him for a trip back into the same Petermann country. This camel mounted trip, extended from early May to late
June 1931. Walter Gill wrote a book about his trip, which he named Petermann Journey. The author considers this
book to be a classic pen portrait of Bob Buck, Middleton Ponds of the day and of the tribal Aboriginal people of
the Petermann Ranges. The photographs are brilliant, and a record of a piece of history long past but which should
be remembered.
From early September to 25 November 1931, Bob was again hired by the Central Australian Gold Exploration
Company to lead their final Expedition in search of Lasseter’s lost reef. This expedition faithfully tracked Lasseter’s
lone traverse of the Petermann country as far west as the Rawlinson Range in Western Australia. Apart from
making a motion film of the country and general prospecting, nothing of value was found to exist.
To further extend his 1930 aerial survey, Donald MacKay financed a second survey in 1933. Being most
impressed with Bob’s reliability, he again contracted him to transport stores, camp gear, wireless equipment and
aircraft fuel, as well as to establish a landing ground at the Docker River. This expedition extended from April to
mid July.
The Foy expedition of 1936 hired Kurt Johannsen with his truck as transport and Bob Buck as bushman/guide,
for their expedition to the Petermann Range. Mrs Foy and son accompanied her husband on the trip. The route
taken followed the track out to Middleton Ponds, from where new motor tracks were blazed to Ayers Rock.
This was the second vehicle to be driven to this now great Centralian landmark. (The first vehicle was driven by
Michael Terry in 1930.) A motion film was made of the trip, and no problems were encountered.
Early July 1937 Donald MacKay again hired Bob Buck with his camel team to transport five ton of stores,
equipment and fuel, also to establish a base camp and landing ground at Tanami, 750 kilometres northwest of
Alice Springs. Bob’s reliability again assisted in making this aerial survey a success and on 15 August the Tanami
camp was vacated. ‘Buck Hills’ in Western Australia and ‘Lake Buck’ in the Northern Territory commemorate his
name and association with the survey.
In March 1938 a terrible tragedy occurred at Andaloo, which at this time was a neighbouring station to Bob.
Maisie Parker (nee Andrew/Arbon) was found dead one morning. The Andrew family were battling to build up this
property and had a rough camp at ‘Yowa’ water hole. Bob Buck and Ben Nicker came over from Middleton Ponds
to assist this family in time of need and consolation. After the burial, Bob took them home to Middleton Ponds to
recover from their great sorrow and distress. Such was his compassion for his ‘bush brethren’.
In 1939 Bob and Alf Butler dissolved their partnership and the Middleton Ponds property was sold to Tempe
Downs. Alf Butler then lived at Mount Quinn until 1948, when he moved over to Titra Well. Bob relocated to
Renners Rock station, which he purchased from Walter Gill in 1939 and sold in 1953. This is the same Walter Gill
whom Bob had taken out to the Petermanns in 1931.
After selling the station property, Bob spent his remaining years in Alice Springs telling his own brand of
Territory tales to tourists, drinking rum and playing crib. ‘Playing crib and drinking rum are two of the best
things in life and you can do ‘em together’, he would say. When not at home Bob could always be found at the
Stuart Arms Hotel, which had been his town home in earlier years.
Bob Buck had his own brand of philosophy towards life. He was not argumentative and had no enemies,
was generous to all men and feared nothing, not even death. He was renowned for his bush hospitality, was a
great conversationalist and notorious as a yarn spinner, all with a foundation of truth. Bob had maintained an
extraordinary relationship with Aborigines and they trusted him implicitly. He was a man who left us with many
monuments of his long Northern Territory life and achievements.
Bob Buck died in the Alice Springs hospital on Tuesday 2 August 1960 in his 80th year. A large sandstone
boulder now marks his final resting place in the Memorial Avenue cemetery in Alice Springs. A simple brass
plaque states ‘Robert Buck, Bushman, 1880–1960’. Bob rests in the Catholic section of the cemetery, while Harold
Lasseter rests nearby in the Church of England section. They are forever linked by circumstance. Bob was the man
who ‘found Lasseter’.
B M Andrew, diary, 1952; D W Carnegie, Spinifex and Sand, 1982; M Cartwright, Ayers Rock To The Petermanns, 1982; Centralian Advocate,
5 August 1960; F Clune, Last of the Australian Explorers, 1942; W Gill, Petermann Journey, 1968; Geographical Journal, December 1934;
Sydney Mirror, 29 April 1931; T G H Strehlow, Journey To Horseshoe Bend, 1978.
MAX CARTWRIGHT, Vol 3.
BUCKNALL, (JOHN) GRAEME (1909–1995), Presbyterian, United and Uniting Church Minister and historian,
was born at Portland, Victoria, on 2 May 1909, the son of Chester Clissold Bucknall and his wife Rachel Agnes,
nee Holmes. He was educated at the Drik Drik state school from 1916 to 1923 and Ballarat College from 1924
to 1925. After employment with a forestry company in Victoria and Tasmania, he decided in 1932 to become a
Presbyterian minister, subsequently matriculating and studying theology in Melbourne and Arts at the University