Ernest Giles

In 1865, he explored north-west of the Darling River in the Yancannia Range looking for pastoral country and land capable of cultivating hemp, as it was valuable for rope at the time.

Giles did not attempt an organised expedition until 22 August 1872, when he left Chambers Pillar with two other men and traversed much uncharted country to the north-west and west.

Finding their way barred by Lake Amadeus and that their horses were getting very weak, a return was made to the Finke River and then to Charlotte Waters and Adelaide, where Giles arrived in January 1873.

A month later in the Musgrave Ranges a fine running river was found and named the Ferdinand and by 3 October 1873 the party was approaching longitude 128 East.

Giles made his way back to their depot on foot in eight days, almost completely exhausted, to find that Gibson had not reached the camp.

Early in 1875 Giles prepared his diaries for publication under the title Geographic Travels in Central Australia, and on 13 March 1875, with the generous help of Sir Thomas Elder, he began his third expedition.

Retracing his steps Giles turned east, and eventually going round the north side of Lake Torrens, reached Elder's station at Beltana.

Towards the end of September, over 323 miles (520 km) had been covered in 17 days without finding water, when on 25 September one of the Aboriginal guides in the expedition party, Tommy Oldham, found an abundant supply in a small hollow between sand dunes at a location which Giles subsequently named Queen Victoria Spring, and the party was saved.

He made a number of other minor journeys and his last years were spent as a clerk in the Inspector of Mines' office at Coolgardie, where his great knowledge of the interior was always available for prospectors.

[1] Despite his explorations, the various Australian governments at the time turned their respective backs on his achievements once they had been completed, and refused to patronise any further exploits or give him much in the way of financial reward.

It was reported at the time: He has left behind a name that will be long remembered and held in honor as one who had devoted the best years of his life to one of the noblest causes that man can engage".[17]H.

H. Finlayson in The Red Centre: man and beast in the heart of Australia (1935) said of Giles: All who have worked in that country since Giles's time have felt both admiration and astonishment at the splendid horsecraft, the endurance, and the unwavering determination with which these explorations were carried through ... To read Giles's simple account of those terrible rides into the unknown on dying horses with an unrelieved diet of dried horse for weeks at a time, with the waters behind dried out and those ahead still to find, is to marvel at the character and strength of the motive which could hold a man constant in such a course.In 1976 he was honoured on a postage stamp bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post.