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birth, Ross’ parents were at Stanley Flat; they were at Gawler when his brother was born and at Willowee in the
District of Frome when both the births were registered on 3 September 1860. John Ross’ occupation was given as
overseer.
In 1869, as an 11-year-old lad, his father initiated Ross into the skills of a bushman and explorer. Due to drought
in the Flinders Rangers, John Ross, who was then the manager of Thomas Elder’s Umberatana sheep station, set
out in April that year with 30 000 sheep to find good grazing along the Macumba River. Alex was included in the
party of eight white men and 10 Afghans using two wagons, 40 pack camels, 30 donkeys and 30 horses. That this
cavalcade carried the material to erect a station building indicates that Ross had already inspected the Macumba.
Ross Junior’s account, written in later life, not only records this historic fact but also demonstrates his keen
observation of significant events.
The sheep were cut out into several large mobs and shepherded by the Afghans. In October, they were inundated
for 13 days with an estimated 508 millimetres of torrential rain. The new homestead of ‘Manaria’ station was
completely washed away, although at the time of building Ross judged the site to be well above high water mark.
The stores were moved a quarter of a mile to a high sand hill. After a deluge on day nine only, the chimney was
above water. The country both east and west was a sea of water. Some of the Afghans had abandoned their flocks.
After days of hard work, the sheep were mustered with an estimated 3 000 missing. The Macumba Aborigines
gave assistance in rescuing sheep on small islands. While waiting for the flooding to subside, the elder Ross took
Alex and an Aborigine named Winkie to evaluate the country along John McDouall Stuart’s route to Mount
Humphries and the Finke River. Having followed it downstream to Crown Point and still unable to cross, they
returned southeasterly to Macumba and their camp on the high sandhill.
In 1870, John Ross was recalled to Adelaide. He left McGlip in charge of the contingent’s return with the
sheep to Beltana for shearing and arranged for his wife and children to move to Adelaide. For the next few years,
Alex and his brother John attended the Pulteney Street School conducted by the Reverend William Moore.
Towards the end of 1874, Alex returned north to join his father who had been engaged by Sir Thomas Elder
to explore the country west of Lake Eyre. This expedition was soon aborted due to the arid country and Ross’
‘distrust of camels’. Ernest Giles, the explorer, on his return from his March 1875 expedition to Fowlers Bay
noted: ‘At Finnis Springs I met young Alex Ross, the son of another explorer, who was going to join my party
for the new expedition to Perth’. Finnis Springs, south of Lake Eyre, would be the camping place where the two
parties met in April 1875 when each expedition was returning to report to Sir Thomas Elder at Beltana.
Ross having failed, Elder then engaged Ernest Giles to attempt the desert crossing to Perth ‘for which camels
were to be the only animals taken’. The party numbered six with Tietkins, who was Giles’ ‘second’ in his 1874
Centralian/Gibson Desert expedition, once more in that role. The others were, Jess Young, a friend of Elders,
Alexander Ross, Peter Nicholls as cook, Saleh the camel driver and Tommy Oldham, a young Aboriginal lad.
Giles noted that ‘Tommy was a great acquisition to the party, he was a very nice little chap, and soon became a
general favourite’.
On one of the early occasions when the party divided to search for water, Giles showed his growing confidence
in Ross by taking him as his only companion. One morning the camels were not to be found so Ross set out on
foot to track them. As the dreary day lengthened with no sign of Ross or the camels Giles recorded: ‘I was here
alone with the harrowing thought of the camels being lost... But Alex Ross is a right smart young bushman’. Yes,
17-year-old Ross returned with the camels. Giles’s warm approbation indicates he regarded him as a trustworthy
youth with an engaging charisma.
The whole party had continued their waterless journey for 520 kilometres before they discovered ‘Queen
Victoria’s Spring’ with the water that saved their lives. This interesting extract from Ross’ recollections illustrates
his education standard and descriptive writing: ‘On the fifteenth day of our long dry march, Mr. Giles in a joke told
Tommie that if he did not find water very soon we would all be dead. Tommie replied, “If we all die could I have
the bag of trinkets”. This shows that Tommie had no idea of perishing... In the morning of the seventeenth day out
from boundary dam we sighted a big depression a few miles to the south, and shortly after noting many native and
emu tracks all going in that direction, Tommie became quite excited and after a talk with Mr Tietkins he [Mr T]
dismounted from the only steering camel we had, and told the boy to have a look in the low valley and if he found
anything to fire two shots from the big snider rifle he was carrying. When Mr Giles discovered what had been done
he was annoyed and said that the boy would knock the camel up, and if we were going to find water we would
ride right onto it. Mr Tietkins was on foot steering and I was beside him, when to our delight we heard two distant
reports from Tommie’s rifle. Mr Giles called a halt... in less than half an hour we could hear Tommie coming and
shouting at the top of his voice, “Water, Water”. Mr Giles only said, “Thank God, water at last”’.
This was the only permanent water they found in this great desert and Giles, to use his own words, ‘dedicated
it to our most gracious Queen, calling it the Great Victoria Desert, and the spring, Queen Victoria’s Spring’.
After reaching Perth, Tietkins and Young returned to Melbourne. Giles continued the second stage of this epic
journey returning across the Great Sandy Desert with Ross as his ‘second’, Peter Nicholls the cook and Saleh as
camel driver. Ross proved to be a worthy successor to Tietkins and in the Opthalmia Ranges probably saved their
lives. He completed the journey in September 1876 as an 18-year-old mature bushman and explorer, honoured with
Giles for their epic crossing via the Gibson Desert and the Rawlinson Ranges.
Alex Ross remained in Central Australia. Undoolya history claims he was there with Benstead as manager
and later succeeded him. In an interview with the Adelaide Register on 7 February 1925, Ross stated that ‘I was
manager of Undoolya for the late Mr Andrew Tennant for six years’. He returned to South Australia for his
marriage at Norwood to Fanny Blackmore Wallis, daughter of Thomas Wallis, on 3 October 1885. Their first
child, Alexander, was born at Hermannsburg in 1886 while Ross was managing the Old Crown Point Station for