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Edmund Albert Colson
Edmund Albert Colson (1881-1950), prospector, farmer, store keeper, miner, business man, cameleer, railway worker, explorer and bushman, was born on 3 June 1881 at Richmans Creek, near Quorn, South Australia. He was the first of eight children of Peter Errick Colson (Carlsen), a migrant farmer from Sweden, but at that time a lime burner of Quorn, who had married Ellen Amy, eldest daughter of John Lines. Nine months after their marriage, Edmund Albert, (Ted)) was born. Ted became an avid reader and developed a retentive memory. He received most of his education at the Yatina, public one-teacher school. Later he would name Mount Tamblyn (in the desert), in honour of his old school master, John Tamblyn, at Yatina in the 1880s. At the age of 15, in 1896, Ted and his father sailed for Western Australia and walked to the Norseman goldfields. The Chronicle newspaper later reported that they nearly perished of thirst many miles out east of Dundas. A month later Colson senior decided to go to Coolgardie, and, because transport was so expensive, they once again decided to build a wheelbarrow and walk. Father and son, and another young man (Paul) loaded 300 lb. of effects on the barrow. Ted became the water carrier, while the other two took turns to push the wheelbarrow. Sometimes they had dry stages of two days between waters. In six days, they covered 180 km comfortably, and on the way added to their load many articles discarded by swagmen along the track. For the next ten years Ted Colson was a timber worker, miner, and participant in several prospecting expeditions. He married Alice Jane Horne, a domestic servant, on 7 December 1904 at the Christian Chapel in Kalgoorlie. For some time he worked around Kalgoorlie as an engine driver and miner, with occasional prospecting included. This was followed by an unsuccessful attempt at farming, after which he went to Central Australia. For a number of years he prospected without tangible results between Wiluna and Oodnadatta. In 1917 he moved to Victoria, where he worked on the construction of the Maroondah Dam for the water supply of Melbourne. In 1926 he began a motor transport service between Healesville and Melbourne. This didn't last long as a year later he was employed on the extension of the railway north from Marree to Oodnadatta, in South Australia. In 1928 Colson had explored west of the Goyder River, some 500 km beyond Mount Irwin station. Familiar with the Musgrave Ranges, he opened up the route north from Moorilyanna Hill and Ernabella Creek to Kelly Hills and Opparinna Creek. He was cameleer and guide on Michael Terry's 1930 expeditions to the Petermann and Tomkinson Ranges, and assisted AP Elkin on his anthropological investigations west of Charlotte Waters. In 1931 he went out again with a couple of scientific expeditions but, tired of wandering, decided to take up country near Blood's Creek and settle down, of sorts. He leased Blood's Creek station at Abminga, north-west of Oodnadatta; where he ran sheep and cattle, tended the government bore and kept a store. Blood's Creek took its name from the nearby creek, named after John Henry Smyth Blood, a member of the Overland Telegraph Line construction party and later stationmaster at the Peake telegraph office in 1872 and Beltana in 1875. The property was also an important railhead on the Old Ghan railway for many years. The traditional owners of the area were the Arundta peoples. Colson understood their rites, customs and dialects and those of some other Aboriginal tribes. Over camp fires he sang, told yarns and indulged his talent for mimicry. Equally resourceful with camels and motorcars, he was a genius for mending and adapting equipment. Gentle, cheerful and unassuming, he was trusted both by Aborigines and by whites. He was a Freemason and a district master of the Loyal Orange Institute of South Australia. On 5 September 1935 the News reported that 'an attempt would be made to cross the Arunta desert, renamed Simpson Desert'. It reported that in 1936 one or two expeditions may attempt to cross the Simpson Desert, a belt of sand country more than 200 km wide lying to the north of Lake Eyre and stretching from the Macumba River to the junction of the Rankine and Georgina Rivers. The question of exploring this strip of particularly uninviting country was raised by Ion L Idriess, an Australian author. He asked his friend Percy Wood, of Finnis Creek Station, Marree, if he knew of any part of Australia which had never been crossed by man, because he had in mind an expedition to attempt the journey next year, provided the season was good. Wood volunteered to lend Idriess and his party the necessary equipment, including sufficient camels, the only animals which could stand the rigor of the journey. 'It is my opinion,' said Mr Wood, 'that somewhere in that strip will be found the bones of Dr Leichhardt, the Australian explorer, who disappeared about 1850.' A scientist who was also very interested in the project was Dr CT Madigan, lecturer in geology at the Adelaide University who had done a great deal of aerial survey work in Central Australia. Dr Madigan flew over this desert in 1929, and reported nothing but undulating sandhills, with spinifex grass as the only vegetation. The area was called Simpson's Desert after AA Simpson, of Adelaide, who was, at that time, president of the Geographical Society, and who sponsored the expedition. According to Madigan the land had no pastoral value, but there were possibilities of mineral wealth. This strip is in the centre of the opal belt, and it is quite possible that there are considerable opal deposits there. The greatest difficulty is the complete absence of water. 'I very much doubt the presence of gold reefs in this area,' said Madigan, 'although natives and prospectors have occasionally returned with tales of auriferous outcrops and a few samples. The locality of such gold bearing areas would be nearer the junction of the Todd and Hay Rivers, about latitude 25 degrees north. Several whites and many natives claim to have crossed the Simpson Desert, but I am convinced that no one has ever done it. They have probably been around the fringe of the belt, where there are strings of water holes, but only an exceedingly well-equipped expedition would ever get through.' This opinion was shared by a friend of Dr Madigan, Ted Colson, of Blood's Creek Station, with whom Madigan could make the trip in 1936. Such an expedition would mean a co-ordination between the newer and older methods, air and land, of geological survey about which Prof. Woolnough, Federal geologist, spoke so highly. According to the professor aerial investigation and photography were now so perfect that they can secure a mosaic of the country which can be studied in detail by geologists, but this must be backed by actual close investigation of the areas. After exceptional rains during the spring of 1936 Colson did it without the academic professors or doctors, assisted only by Eringa Peter, an Aborigine of the Antakurinya tribe and five camels. The Simpson Desert, had previously defeated Charles Sturt and David Lindsay. Colson set out from Blood's Creek on 26 May 1936, farewelled only by his wife. He led his camels eastward along the 26th parallel, clambering over a thousand steep, red sand-ridges, and named Alice Hills, Glen Joyce and Lake Tamblyn.
Navigating by compass, he reached his goal, Poeppel's Corner, the point where the Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australian borders met. Ted and Peter walked into the Birdsville pub, on 11 June. Three days later they headed back, nailing a tin plate, bearing the date and Colson's initials, to the peg at Poeppel's Corner. After making a detour southward, they arrived home on 29 June, having traversed more than 885 km in thirty-five days. In that exceptional season, the desert, said Colson, was 'one vast field of herbage, grass and shrubs'.
Naturally, his unbelievable feat was reported in most Australian newspapers. The Advertiser reported the story for its South Australian readers on 18 June 1936. Headed, WHITE MAN CROSSES SIMPSON DESERT. Mr. Colson's Adventure, Camels Sink to Knees in Sand. Mr EA (Ted) Colson, of Blood's Creek, 100 miles north of Oodnadatta, arrived at Birdsville on Thursday, having been the first white man to cross the vast stretch of country from there to Birdsville. Mr Colson says that he set out from Mount Etingambra, 53 miles north of Blood's Creek, with five camels and a native on May 27 to cross the Simpson Desert. He set his course by compass and hit within a quarter of a mile of Birdsville, and then found his way along the border fence. Mr. Colson said that he was surprised to find vast areas of green feed and the camels got fat on the trip. There was ample evidence, however, that the country had undergone a terrific drought in the last few years. There were vast stretches of sandhills which made travelling most arduous and from the remains of spinifex grass which he found, it seemed that they had extended extensively during the past few years. The sandhills, he said were uniform in a direction of about 20 degrees off north and south and averaged six to the mile, two of which were huge. Usually, they had a gentle slope from the west with a top of drift sand falling steeply on the eastern side in a slope of about three in one. The camels, which were lightly loaded, sank knee deep in the sand. 'The country has little of interest geologically'. Mr Colson said. 'There seems to be little possibility of settlement even in the best of seasons and it is doubtful if settlement of any sort is desirable as the eating of the vegetation would lead to further drift'. In August 1936 the Quorn newspaper wrote that Colson 'has just startled the continent by his crossing, with a blackboy, Peter, as sole companion, of the great Simpson Desert. The desert, which lies north of Lake Eyre and east of the Overland Telegraph Line to the Queensland border, has had many attempts to conquer it, but until Mr Colson's achievement had remained one of the myths of the inland, surrounded by native superstitions and legends. He found it to be mostly sandhill country, interspersed with flats, and on the eastern portion several large dry lakes. Fortunately, there had recently been good rains over some parts of the desert, and there was abundance of feed in these places for his camels (he carried sufficient water for himself and boy for some days), the luscious herbage rendering it unnecessary for them to drink. Other parts were dry and bare, but he was able to get through these until again coming to luxuriant growth. Eventually he came out near the boundary fence between the States, which was his objective when starting out. This man, who has placed his name indelibly on the map of Australia, is a practical, experienced bushman, having been in Central Australia for several years, and making a number of trips out west over the Western Australian border. His success is greatly contributed to by his ability to check off his position by compass bearings and methods of navigation. He was one of the first, some years ago, to explode the "Lasseter Reef" myth, going all through that country and finding no indications that would lead to such a reef being within the realms of possibility. The achievement of Mr Colson is of added interest to Quorn, inasmuch as he was born on the 3rd June, 1881, at the home of his grandfather, the late Mr John Lines, at Richman Greek. His father, Mr Peter Colson, came to Quorn in the seventies, and was engaged in contracting and lime burning for some time. His mother was the eldest daughter of the late Mr Lines, who took up a selection when land was first thrown open at Richman Creek. Mr Lines afterwards relinquished farming and opened a business as blacksmith at Quorn. The fact that he was one of the best blacksmiths north of Gawler enabled him to work up an extensive business and control a large establishment. Before going to Central Australia, Mr Colson spent some time in Victoria and on the goldfields in Western Australia, which enabled him to obtain a thorough working knowledge of mining and prospecting. Mr Colson will report on the class, condition, and capacity of the country he traversed in the desert to the proper authorities. It is hoped he will add to his laurels at a later date by some other unobtrusive and useful accomplishment.' Frank Layton of The Central Queensland Herald of 20 August 1936 wrote; AN UNSUNG HERO. Glancing idly at a map of Central and Northern Australia recently, my eye lit upon that spot in the south-eastern corner of the Northern Territory, of about 28,000 square miles, known as Simpson Desert, which in the past has turned back the most intrepid of our explorers. I thought of Sturt who glimpsed its eastern margin, of McDouall Stuart that prince of explorers, who traversed to the west of the area on his overland journey, and of how the unknown portion of the Continent was gradually pared down to the forbidding Simpson Desert itself. I wondered too, if there were not quite good reasons for the belief, common amongst the men of the Inland, that someday the vast Simpson Desert may tell the story of the disappearance of the ill-fated Leichhardt expedition. As my thoughts dwelt about Australia's explorers, a letter arrived from a friend at Blood's Creek, Central Australia, with this opening: 'You will be delighted to know that Simpson Desert has been crossed from west to east by Ted Colson of Blood's Creek'. The distance of over three hundred km, with camels, to Birdsville, was covered in three weeks. The fact of Mr Colson having made no discovery that is likely to be of material value, together with his being neither in danger of starvation nor from wild blacks, has probably contributed toward the lack of the usual publicity which attends explorers of modern times, and many people would be inclined to think of the trip in the light of a pleasure excursion. But when we consider that for a hundred long years this area thwarted all attempts to cross it, we feel that the undertaking was no such jaunt, but to the contrary needed just courage and sterling bushcraft, as is possessed by the man who attempted and successfully accomplished the conquering of this formidable piece of our Continent. 
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