* * * *
From Kelly's Well the 32 miles to Tennant's Creek provided the best stretch of cycling ground for many a day. The soil was of a firm loamy nature, covered in places with gravelly quartz and ironstone.
The first part was over level ground timbered with mulga and box, and with not a hill in sight anywhere to east or west; but at about 20 miles some low flat-topped scattered rises appear, and then, at 26 miles, the McDonnell Ranges. Here ironstone and quartz veins outcrop, and colors of gold are found in many of the gullies.
An excellent track continues on and over the range (which is not a high one) and then level country again spreads out.
* * * *
I had eaten breakfast at Kelly's well; but one meal, or a second does not long suffice, for a man who has been for days hungry. Tissues get eaten away, and it takes days—nay, perhaps weeks—of substantial feeding before the loss can be made up and the used tissues replaced or replenished. At Tennant's Creek, during the many days I remained at the telegraph station, I could eat almost continuously. My happiest thoughts were centered around the dinner table, and there was a savage delight in the partaking of every meal.
At many of those stations I was ashamed of my appetite. Everywhere I was apologising (needlessly of course) because of this unnatural-seeming craving for food which for days possessed me. And it appeared so extraordinary to see people sit down to a viand-loaded table and eat only a little. And that, too, without much apparent enjoyment! When a fellow finds he has eaten much more than two others together, at the same table, he is apt to be backward in asking for more; and, perhaps, therefore it was that often when the time had arrived to get up from a meal I felt reluctant to leave without taking what remained of the joint with me.
* * * *
The telegraph station at Tennant's Creek is, in outward appearance, like a substantial stone farmhouse, and is situated out on the plains 3 or 4 miles past the foot of the McDonnell Range. There is a main building, three-roomed. One of these is used as a harness room; there are several small cottages and sheds; and a large stockyard is at no great distance away.