As grey nomads travel through remote Australia, one of the highlights for most is simply gaining a greater appreciation of this country’s often harsh history and learning the stories of the people who help build it.
Whether it is reading about the personal hardships of individuals at attractions like Port Arthur or the Stockman’s Hall of Fame or studying the plaques at less publicised historic sites in more remote areas, there is no better way of understating Australia than to be where it happened and to truly imagine the difficulties that early settlers faced.
One of the most memorable and moving of these sites is near the Western Australian ghost town of Siberia. For many years, grey nomads and others have been heading out to basically the middle of nowhere in search of a largely unremarkable bush. However, the bougainvillea was planted in 1902 as a memorial to an infant boy who died soon after birth and has become part of Outback legend.
“This bush shall never die for my heart lies beneath it,” the unnamed boy’s mother, Mabel Kirkham, reportedly said at the time.
The ABC reports that, for more than a century, strangers moved by the tragic story have come from far and wide to water it and to keep it alive
At the bush’s base is a makeshift shrine of recycled bottles and a metal case containing a guestbook, a handwritten brochure and black biro.
“The little bub’s memory will linger on,” reads a message scrawled in the guestbook from 2004.
Another reads: “Sleep well little baby”.
The ABC reports that little remains of the town of Siberia today other than a track, a cemetery and the remnants of the pub that once stood near where the bush now grows.
It was the site of an ill-fated gold rush in 1893, where an unknown number of prospectors perished in the heat without adequate water.
Only a short drive from the bush is another historical gold mining town, Ora Banda, where today only a handful of residents and a pub remain.
Publican Kiri Pomery, who took over the pub a few years ago, told the ABC she often points curious patrons towards Mabel Kirkham’s bush.
“I find it’s a beautiful story,” Ms Pomery said. “I will direct everyone out there to have a look at least once.”
