In the Creek, about a quarter of a mile from the station there are some nearly permanent waterholes, and a freshwater well is sunk on its nearer bank. Close by this well is a bath-house, and a vegetable garden—adjuncts, these latter, of all the telegraph stations. As at the other stations also, cattle and sheep, horses and milch cows are kept and attended to or shepherded by blackfellows.
Located here was, in addition to the officer in charge (whom I had often heard spoken of, always in terms of high praise and respect, down Alice Springs way), an assistant (operator), a white man cook, and one other white employee, this last generally useful hand.
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As I have already stated, I had very often straightened out the rat-trap pedal cross-bars of the bicycle. The unavoidable stumps, small ant-hills and prostrate telegraph-pole ends, et hoc, had bent them inwards frequently; and as one of the four exhibited signs of the very rough usage to which it had by this time been subjected, the handy man obliged me by taking it out altogether and replacing it with an exact counterpart of one of the less marked ones—a substitution effected as neatly as if one of the most expert of cycle-repairing shop hands had been the craftsman.
Of this trifling alteration, which was in no way necessary, I have paused to write, for the triple purpose of giving acknowledgment to the ability of the workman, and of remarking that after all the rough usage to which it had been subjected, the bicycle still continued to look almost as if just from the shop window (in reality it was better than new, since it had been tested and proven), and, thirdly, of making for myself opportunity to say that, notwithstanding the many haul knocks it received after leaving Tennant's Creek, it yet kept in that excellent condition which was my pride to the very last moment I had use for it.
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Having no wish for a recurrence of those hungering qualms which had been felt before arriving there, I departed from Tennant's Creek loaded up with all the provisions I could conveniently or otherwise stow away inside and out, and proceeded for 33 miles over ground which in places was fair, but which for its greater part was rather sandy for cycling over, to water and a camp, at one of the Hayward Creek branches, of which there were three to be crossed. The route was waterless between Tennant's and this creek, although Phillip's Creek was met with at 21 miles, and the Gibson at 27; also several low hill-ranges were passed through.
An excellent sketch plan of the route had been made out for me at the telegraph station by the exceedingly obliging officer in charge there and his assistant; nevertheless, there were so many creeks to be crossed and, as it seemed to me re-crossed, that almost before the first day was over I continually doubted which of them was the particular one I was next coming to or had last left behind.
This doubt, however, did not exist on arriving the following day at Attack Creek, some 12 miles on from the Hayward, because of the beautiful sheet of clear fresh water which existed in it. This Attack Creek is deep, and its sides are fringed with giant gum trees. It is not wide; but the nearly permanent sheet of water when I passed there, was fully a quarter of a mile in length between the banks.