Tribute to Tragedy on the Cooper Lake Eyre

by Graham Wilson
(Sydney, NSW Australia)

We are four old mates from Uni days and now more than 30 years on went on our own outback trip in 2 4wds, first as four blokes, then with 3 female partners joining us at Yulara,with the flash night out before back to outback travel and camping.

We travelled from Sydney via Camerons Corner, Innamincka, Birdsville and on to Alice around the north of the Simpson and back around through Coober Pedy, William Creek, Marree and up to the Cooper crossing on the Birdsville Track. There were many highlights to our trip but visit to Burkes Dig tree on the Cooper and Birdsville were memorable

We ended up going on the boat trip on the Cooper on the Thursday morning just before the ABC film crew arrived to go on their own boat tour with Peter, the guide. This was the highlight of our trip with the wealth of birdlife and Peter's fantastic description of the area and the Cooper system. Peter was in a rush that morning to fit in filming with the ABC film crew and other visitor trips. I am sure that the ABC crew had a fantastic trip with him as they would have seen the same sights and heard the same stories we did.

Sadly when we made it to Broken Hill the next night we heard that the helicopter had crashed that previous night with the death of the whole ABC crew.

We have written our own blog of this trip and also a special tribute to the ABC people, legends of their own time. For those who want to read this here is our blog.
Our full blog is also on the site under the 4 men behaving badly tab.

Thank you to others on this blog as I have also enjoyed reading your stories.

Graham Wilson
Sydney