Donald George Mackay

[3] In July 1899 Mackay belatedly joined brothers Alex and Frank White to become the first men to travel around the continent of Australia on a bicycle.

[6] On 27 June, Mackay was given a silver presentation trophy valued at 26 guineas (£27 6s)[7] by the Dunlop Tyre Company "in recognition of his meritorious cycle ride around Australia.

During the first expedition, which utilized camel transport, Mackay accompanied anthropologist Dr Herbert Basedow to the Petermann Ranges.

The team employed Bob Buck, a well known bushman of Central Australia, to establish a base in the Ehrenberg Range west of Alice Springs.

Buck set out with a camel team two months prior to the survey party to take fuel and supplies to the base known as Ilbilba (also spelt Ilbpilla).

A backup aircraft was a Gipsy Moth piloted by Clive James Robertson with wireless operator Kingsley Love as crew.

In early July, there was great concern at the Docker Creek base when Mackay and Neale in the Percival Gull failed to return from a flight to Lake Anec.

The backup Gipsy Moth with Robertson and Bennett aboard began a search and discovered the missing aircraft bogged on the edge of the salt lake.

[12] As flights were completed, the main base was moved to Roy Hill then Fitzroy Crossing, enabling a larger area of Western Australia to be surveyed.

They departed Mascot aerodrome (Sydney) on 19 July 1937 and made their way via various stops en route to Hermannsburg to fill in some gaps in the earlier work of 1933 and 1935.

These surveys produced far more useful maps than had previously existed, and they were donated to the Commonwealth government and to the Mitchell Library in Sydney by Mackay.