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walk cattle from the Alice Springs and Arltunga country to Oodnadatta, but he appreciated most the work with
camels—on occasion up the Birdsville Track, once to Innamincka in South Australia, and for a time in the early
years of the opal discovery at Coober Pedy, South Australia, but mostly north of Oodnadatta or west on a dogging
trip.
When extension of the railway line north of Oodnadatta commenced, he and his brother Jim worked their
camels, carrying water to the various camps. However, in the South Australia and Northern Territory border
region, in 1928, they decided to go prospecting; their brother in law, Arthur Pope, joined them as they travelled and
prospected the western and north western parts of the Simpson Desert through to the Hale River country. The next
year saw Smith on extensive Simpson Desert travels with Sandhill Bob as guide. When the drought in summer
came he helped his brother Willie save a mob of cattle by digging Little Well—an exhausting day and night task.
A little over a year later found him as part of a ‘Lasseter’s gold’ expedition, from Oodnadatta to the Peterman
Range, then in 1932 he was 500 to 1 000 crow fly kilometres north west of the Alice in the Granites gold rush and
through to Halls Creek in Western Australia.
He had married Millie Carnegie (Kaniki) in the 1920s, but they were never to have children. For a considerable
time their home base was Oodnadatta, then in the early 1930s Alice Springs. However the long separations and
various problems meant that they drifted apart: for a time Millie lived at Jay Creek, west of the Alice, but in the
mid 1930s travelled south to live with her own direct family.
The mid 1930s saw the gold rush to Tennant Creek. By now, Smith had as a mate Frank Sprigg, a mechanical
engineer whom he had met in 1926 at Oodnadatta, during the early days of the railway line extension. They had
acquired a light truck, but Smith retained his camels too. Clarrie, Smith’s younger brother, joined them as they tried
their luck at the Tennant and out west.
Prospecting for gold, carrying water on his camel team to the mica miners of Harts Range in the 1940s and
also carrying the mica, prospecting for gemstones in the same area and for copper in the Jervois Range, these and
other bush work such as yard building occupied Smith for the next decade. Now, instead of criss-crossing the great
deserts of Australia, he was more and more settling back into Central Australia. A second wife, Mabel, of Eastern
Aranda descent, gave his life stability.
In his early 60s, still an alert and active man, he had taken up a block of land, which he called Plenty River
Downs Station. His partner in this venture was Frank Sprigg, and it was country he had extensively travelled over
with Sandhill Bob. Aboriginal adults (one a pensioner), in addition to Walter, Mabel Smith and Sprigg, and four
children who lived on the block, contributed to the enterprise. It was very much a fringe pastoral property, and
they worked it by shifting their camels, goats and cattle from soakage to soakage, without establishing a permanent
homestead. By the late 1950s, though, Smith was proud of the fact that some of his cattle topped the market
price. And yet, at the same time government officialdom had started to intrude, so the partners sold their stock to
long-term friends on Mount Riddock Station. This was most fortuitous, as the ‘Great Drought’ of 1958 to 1965 set
in almost at the time of the sale.
Tourism, with gemstone prospecting a significant hobby for many, had been increasing and, although not being
interested in tourism itself, Smith’s vast experience in the Arltunga and Harts Range country meant that he was
often called upon for a yarn and advice. He, Mabel and other Aborigines still used the camel team, right through
into the 1970s, for their own gemstone prospecting. In his old age, it allowed him the open-air living and the
independence he desired.
Eighty years of hard work and hard living eventually came to take its toll on his health and mobility, though,
and he was obliged to move into Alice Springs. Here, as they had on the many other occasions he had spent in
the town, his sisters, Ada and Jean, and other relations, had welcomed him. Old Frank Sprigg, Paddy Tucker
and other old mates had independent camps or homes, but they caught up with one another every week. Younger
people, from close family members to distant Aboriginal relations, and complete strangers, yarned with Smith
or sought his advice. At times he journeyed widely in his old camel travel and Aboriginal travel country with
them—to the country south of Oodnadatta, to Dalhousie Springs and Ayers Rock (Uluru), to the Finke River and
the north western portions of the Simpson Desert. Everywhere he went the Aboriginal people came to meet him,
for he was legendary even to the oldest of them, and the oldest wanted their children to their great grandchildren
to meet him.
In 1983, he suffered a stroke, which necessitated him being moved to the Old Timer’s Home, four kilometres
south of the Alice, for care. He died in 1990, almost 97 years of age. One can always make a case for others, but in
many ways he was the last of the legendary old time prospectors and miners of Arltunga, the last extensive traveller
of the Simpson Desert, the last of the old time cameleers, and one of the last of the legendary old time bushmen.
He was survived by his second wife, Mabel, who lived with her own direct extended family, by scores of
his own extended family stretching over at least six generations, and by innumerable friends who knew him as
‘Uncle Walter’.
R G Kimber, ‘Journey to Dalhousie Springs’, in This Australia, vol 5, no 1, 1980, Man from Arltunga, 1986, ‘Mulunga Old Mulunga’, in
P Austin, R M W Dixon, T Dutton & I White (eds), Language and History, 1990, ‘Wati Juritja’, in P Smith (ed), A Ton of Spirit, 1990; various
other articles and 81 tape recordings.
R G KIMBER, Vol 2.
SNELL, (ORMOND) HAROLD EDWARD GEORGE (1892–1949), primary producer, carpenter, miner,
soldier, builder and businessman, was born at Glenisla, Victoria, on 31 January 1892, the son of Harold Snell,
a grazier of Mooralla in the Western District, Victoria. His grandfather, Richard Snell, arrived in Australia in 1865
as an unassisted immigrant and took up sheep country at Mooralla. Harold Snell Junior assisted his father on his