The David Carnegie Retracing Expedition

"A Modern Western Australian Outback Adventure"

David Wynford Carnegie was one of Western Australia’s great explorers.  A young Scotsman with a sense of adventure, he came to Western Australia during the goldrush of the 1890s.  He had some success with his mining endeavours but his interest widened beyond the surroundings of Coolgardie.  He wanted to discover what lay to the north, between the eastern goldfields and Halls Creek, another gold mining area in the north of the then colony of Western Australia.

 His was an epic journey.  He, and his companions, showed an intrepid and enterprising spirit in setting out into the unknown.   What lay ahead they knew not.

 One hundred and seven years later Alan McCall of Perth, having read about and researched this journey of discovery, set out with his father and younger brother to retrace as nearly as possible Carnegie’s route.

 The aim of this narrative is to inform any interested reader as to what this modern trio encountered and discovered, or more correctly rediscovered, whilst crossing three deserts en route from Doyles Well near Leonora in the Western Australian goldfields to Halls Creek (now Old Halls Creek) in the Kimberley region.  They followed as closely as they could Carnegie’s route more than 100 years after his epic journey.

 This is a story of a journey of over 2 000 kilometres through the Australian outback where the tracks are few and the people fewer.  An untouched landscape, where one can stare out and see desert and sparseness in every direction.  This is one of the few areas left on earth that in its vastness can still be called total wilderness.