Walter Smith (bushman)

Smith spent his childhood in the small mining community, primarily in the company of other Aboriginal children; it was here he learnt to gather bush foods and honed his tracking and direction-finding skills.

[2] He recalled the first arrival of rabblits in the region which he, and the other Aboriginal children called 'Arintja' or 'Devil'; they were initially afraid of the unfamiliar creatures but soon started catching them to eat.

Smith, devastated by the loss of his father, wanted to stay with his mother and family and attend school with his siblings, but Robert Stott said he was a young man and it was better for his to get a job and he began working as an off-sider to Charlie Sadadeen.

Together they would meet the train at the railhead at Oodnadatta in South Australia, and take a load to Alice Springs with a camel team under the employ of Wallis and Co. [Company].

While he was away on a prospecting journey to the western deserts, government officials removed Millie to Nepabunna Mission in the Flinders Ranges.

[5][6][7] He also collected meteorites and fossils from the Simpson Desert for museums who would pay for them; in this role he was known as ‘Sandhill Bob’; this was a name 'borrowed' from Alurrpa Pananga.