Outback Family History

This website is dedicated to the memory of my two dear friends Sandy Duncan and Shyama Peebles who both passed away in 2012.

Cue > Milly Soak

Milly Soak Sign - Photo Prue and Colin Kerr

From the pen of "Clay-Pan Joe"

Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette 23 February 1923, page 3

Milly Soak - An Oasis.

Travelling through any part of the Murchison at the present time, one becomes obsessed with gloomy feelings — the state of gloom being accentuated by the temperature, and sights of stock showing the effects of the dry season. There is very little in the way of scenery (some will say there is none), and the bumping and lurching of the car—-not necessarily a Ford— tends to make the traveller feel fed up. Having covered many miles of track, through almost endless, dull, dust-laden scrub, feelings of relief come when green trees appear ahead. These feelings are followed by others of great pleasure if a stop may be indulged in when the spot is reached There are a good many breaks of green trees dotted here and there through the length and breadth of this vast district. Unfortunately through the vastness of the district the breaks are far apart.

One of the breaks, in an almost endless expanse of mulga, is Milly Soak, situated some 10 or 11 miles from Cue on the stock route, one end of which is at Cue and the other in far off Kimberley. The limestone basin, within the limits of which are green leafed, white boled gum trees, the roots of which run an unfailing supply of water but a few feet beneath the surface, is not of large extent, yet large enough to create within the weary, dusty, and possibly thirsty traveller, feelings of thankfulness and great satisfaction. Almost beneath the branches of one of the largest trees there is a well, from which clear water, cool and refreshing, may be obtained by means of a bucket attached to a "whip-pole." At this spot, although not from the same well, tired and thirsty prospectors, filled their water bags and tins whilst proceeding to the rush at Cue back in '92. Here also for a time the hospital tent was pitched when typhoid fever broke out at Tom Cue's "patch." Three graves on the limestone ridge, which marks the basins run, remain as evidence of the fact. Milly Soak is part of the peoples' heritage—being reserved for purposes of recreation chiefly. It is also a water reserve and halting place for travelling stock. Some time ago a number of the trees were cut down for mining firewood. From the stumps left standing several feet above the ground, bright green - leafed suckers, tinted with brown, have made rapid growth. Soon a thicket will occupy that part of the area devasted by the axe, and its second state will be as good, if not better, than its first. Distance from the towns of Cue and Day Dawn prevents the pleasant spot from becoming more frequently visited.

Milly Soak Well tank.

Western Mail - Perth - 14 October 1926, page 41

MILLY SOAK. By M. L. Skinner

The geological features of the country surrounding Cue and Day Dawn are remarkable for the frequent occurrence of quartz-bearing gold, iron, azurite, oxide of copper, graphite, malachite, opal, jasper, beryl, and silver. But these old rocks, though so rich in minerals, hold them tight, and though the whole earth floor is sprinkled, over and above with the finest alluvial gold, the place is verily and indeed not heaven. Nor do men look upon it as such—rather the contrary. Even in the earliest 'eighties, when gold was first discovered in the district, men did not "rush" it, nor did they in the early 'nineties. There was very little water, you see. 'Very little water. The only certain thing about the water supply was that wells ran dry, that the rainfall was uncertain, and that droughts were sure to happen.

But there was always Milly Soak.

Long before Jack's Deep Well, and underground tanks, and dams, and other means of securing supply were found, or thought of, there was Milly Soak. Perhaps Milly Soak is older than the hills, yet it has a homely name and is a homely place, a sweet place, a dear place, an oasis in the desert of gold-bearing reefs and ironstone formations, of saltbush country, and sorrow and sin, and too much sun.

Milly Soak is eight to a dozen miles from Cue and Day Dawn, and it is said that the old diggers used to walk out there in the cool of the evening with their buckets to fetch in the water. Gruelling that, twice twelve miles over the rough and red hot country after a hard day's work to fetch in the water!

An old identity in the car said "There was a hospital there, too, at Milly Soak, 12 miles from anywhere, when I was a boy in '91." "A hospital - Why!" "Water!," he replied.

Main Street, Cue with Marshalls Hotel in the background, and well in street, c1892 - Photo SLWA