Bottle Hill

John McDouall Stuart camped at Bottle Hill on the night of Wednesday 16 June 1858. I camped there for two nights in September 2007.

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Bottle Hill. John McDouall Stuart climbed the southern peak.

In this photo story I tell of some of my experiences and discoveries while at Bottle Hill.

From Stuart’s journal - Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 June 1858:

Started for Bottle Hill; arrived on the south side of the hill an hour and a half before sundown, found some water and plenty of grass; encamped for the night. Distance to-day, seventeen miles. The former part of the journey was over very stony country; the latter part very heavy sand hills.

Thursday, 17th June, Bottle Hill. Got on the top of Bottle Hill to take bearings, but was disappointed; could see no hill except one, which was either Mount Deception or Mount North-west; the bearing was 51 degrees 30 minutes. There is a small cone of stones on the top, and a flat stone on the top of it, with the names of Louden and Burtt. From here I saw the gum trees in the Elizabeth; course to them 325 degrees 30 minutes, seven miles to the creek. The country from the hill here is of the very worst description–nothing but sand and salt bush.

Well, I really enjoyed Bottle Hill. A great place to camp and a landscape photographer’s delight. My camp was in the sand hills, a kilometre or two back from the base of the hill at the eastern end, giving me a silhouetted view at sunset and a fully front lit view at sunrise.

Bottle Hill at sunrise, from the east.

From both the east and the west, Bottle Hill’s three peaks can be seen as three distinct forms in a row. The central peak is quite conical, with a stone cairn on top. It’s this peak, resembling an old whiskey jug, which gave the hill it’s name.

The northern and southern peaks are flat topped and about the same height. At the top, the northern peak is a cross between triangular and round. The southern peak runs east to west and would be a kilometre or so long by a hundred metres wide on top. It was the southern peak that caught my interest and on which I made the most exciting discovery as you will read presently.

I was up, out of bed, waiting for sufficient light to start photographing, as usual. Then, after breakfast, I got on the bike and started on the track which is shown on the map as circling Bottle Hill.

Behind the bike is the northern peak of Bottle Hill, obscuring the central peak. The southern peak is in the distance.

My research had indicated that the hill may have been a bit steep and that the best approach may have been the north west corner. I didn’t realize at that stage that the three peaks were so distinct. The north west corner of Bottle Hill turned out to be the north west corner of the southern peak.

When John McDouall Stuart said he “got on the top of Bottle Hill,” in such a laid back fashion, he was grossly understating the task.

At times in the early part of his trip, Stuart was very keen to get bearings on known landmarks, which explorers before him had accurately positioned with a sextant and an artificial horizon. But he couldn’t get such bearings every day for various reasons including cloud, other hills in the line of sight and the lack of hills to climb.

Looking east and north east from Bottle Hill, I was unable to see the peaks of the Flinders Ranges, over 100km away.

When searching for Stuart’s campsite on the Elizabeth, I took a compass bearing on Bottle hill from about ten or twelve kilometres away. I also set a GPS waypoint. On returning home to the computer, I found that my bearing was about five degrees out. No doubt Stuart had a better compass than mine, and better methods.

I reckon a bloke who could get more or less from Adelaide to Coober Peedy, then down to Ceduna and back to Adelaide, without getting lost, and live to tell the story, was a pretty good navigator and all round bushman.

After trying a couple of routes, I got about half way up Bottle hill on the bike. The hill was getting steeper and rougher as I went so I parked the bike on a less steep, less rough and less rocky spot and walked. On returning, I rocked up the bottom side before turning the bike around, to avoid a roll over.

All that remains of the small cone of stones left by Louden and Burtt.

Well, you wouldn’t believe my luck! Just where I came onto the summit of Bottle Hill, at the western end of the southern peak, I found a small, tumbled down pile of rocks, less than a wheelbarrow full, I guess, and few of them bigger than a house brick. Laying on one side of the pile of rocks was a flat rock about 300mm by half a metre and say 40mm thick.

In the absence of conflicting evidence, I reckon I found the remains of the same small cone of rocks that Stuart found, left by Louden and Burtt. Louden was the manager of Mr. Thompson’s station, Mount Arden.

There was no sign of writing on the flat stone. Around the area there are lots of slate scraps. If the writing was in slate, then 150 years of weathering could have removed it.

Camping pretty rough under a blue tarp at Gum Creek while searching for Stuart’s Elizabeth Creek camp. Dawn under a threatening sky.

Such a discovery makes all the hardship of the trip worthwhile. I felt so honoured to be looking at an artifact that goes right back to the first white men to see the interrior of this vast country. I doubt that many people would have seen this seemingly insignificant pile of stones, over the past 150 years, and even less would have recognised it for what it is. I felt a great sense of affinity with John McDouall Stuart as I stood there in the wind on top of Bottle Hill, gazing at a tumbled down a pile of stones.

The walk along the top of the southern peak of Bottle Hill was no stroll. With loose rocks underfoot everywhere, the wind blowing and gusting strongly, the flies as bad as ever and the weather changing from warm to cold and threatening rain, some aspects of my time spent up there were most unpleasant. In order to hold still enough to take photographs and look through the binoculars I had to sit on a rock with my elbows on my knees, and still it was near on impossible.

Looking south over Luna Dam to the salt flats of Pernatty Lagoon.

From various vantage points along the hill top I got a feel for the country below. At the eastern end I could pick out my camp. Way to the south there was the salt of Pernatty Lagoon. To the west could be seen Lake Windabout.

And sure enough, at a bearing around 325 degrees 30 minutes, roughly north west, and a distance of about 10 kilometres, I could see the gum trees, river redgums, of the Elizabeth. I don’t think this spot is where Stuart camped on the night of Thursday 17 June 1858 as I shall explain in another post.

So, just where was Stuart’s camp at Bottle Hill on the night of Wednesday 16 June 1858? I doubt that we’ll ever be sure, but here’s my best judgment based on a combination of Stuart’s journal and my observations.

Map of Bottle Hill. © Geoscience Australia.

From the top of Bottle Hill can be seen two creek systems, which between them drain Bottle Hill and the surrounding slopes and sand hills.

These dry creek beds follow a gentle curve that marks the delineation between the gibber plain country that falls away from Bottle Hill and the sand hill country that rises, still further away. The creeks are more or less a kilometre back from the base of the hill.

The creek at the eastern end of Bottle Hill flows north into Yeltacowie Bed Lake, which is a salt lagoon, maybe up to two kilometres across, and a couple of kilometres north east of Bottle Hill. On this creek is a swamp. In the swamp, two dams are built. There’s another dam about half a killometre up stream. My camp for two nights was back in the sand hills, not far from this.

Although this is at the east side of Bottle Hill and not the south, it’s a possible spot for John McDouall Stuart’s camp on the night of Wednesday 16 June 1858. He had an hour and a half in which to find water and grass, between arriving at the south side of Bottle Hill, and sundown.

The other creek system heads west and flows into the Elizabeth Creek.

Bracing myself against the wind, about half way along the south peak and facing south, I found myself looking straight at a dam on the creek. It’s Luna Dam, built about the time of the first manned landing on the Moon.

Luna Dam is built on the edge of a large clay pan which is a part of the dry creek bed. The old time dam sinkers built dams where they would fill with water when the creeks flood, and hold the water. Thus it is likely that the creek, at this point, has a clay bottom and that a whole in the creek bed would hold water.

From Luna Dam, there’s a clear view and reasonable passage to the west end of the south peak of Bottle Hill. The obvious place to climb Bottle Hill when seen from this angle is only just around the corner from where I climbed the hill and would lead to the same spot where I came onto the hilltop, the spot where I found the small pile of stones.

Wherever the exact spot of Stuart’s camp at Bottle Hill, there’s one thing for sure: I’ve looked down upon the spot from the hilltop.