Over the past few days, Nay had been reading about a terrible and gruesome massacre which happened near Springsure in 1861.  As we were very intrigued to find out more about this event, we pulled up just north of town to stay at a rotary park.  From here we had a great view of a sheer mountain cliff and reading further we discovered it was named Virgin Rock.  The rock had been given this title because if one were to look closely, carved by the wind and water over time, is Mary nurturing baby Jesus.

Heading west from Springsure approximately 13km we stumbled across a small sign that pointed out “Wills Graves”.  Due to lack of tourist information, we only knew this would lead us to the massacre site from our prior research.  A further 21km down a dirt track, which farmers frowned upon tourists entering as it unsettled their cattle, we made it to the carpark.  With another 1km walk, we finally came face to face with the graves which held a very haunting past. 

The fascinating back story of these murders was that a rich white man (Horatio Wills) had taken a hefty amount of land to run cattle.  Due to another recent killing of many Aboriginals on a nearby station and their dispair of more land being stolen, they decided to take action and retaliate.  Under the cover of darkness they snuck into the Wills camp near the homestead where they murdered 19 members of the Wills party.  This Springsure Massacre was the highest number of white people murdered by Aboriginals in history.  In a total uproar from this deliberate attack, the whites went on a rampage and slaughtered over 250 Aborigines.  To date the numbers are still unknown of how many died but we quickly discovered there is minimal information on this disgusting period in the Australian Frontier Wars.

After this history lesson we had lunch in the national park where the Virgin Rock was hidden.  Looking at breath taking views, we found ourselves high up over the town centre and its vast surrounds.  We left the memories of Springsure in the rear vision mirror to make a v-line to Lake Nuga Nuga (we even bumped into farmer George on the way with his 15 dogs in tow!).  As beautiful as Lake Nuga Nuga was, it appeared to be like Lake Eildon during a drought and we wished we could of seen it at full capacity.  It had fantastic surrounds, amazing camp spots with fire pits and many varieties of birds which were calling throughout the day, making it a magical time.  With Mark feeling a little sick we camped here a couple of nights and Nay even spoilt the crew with a mouth watering rum-raisin damper loaf! Delicious!

These few days were very restful and did wonders for Marks illness.  Both fighting fit we were ready for the challanging 20km+ walk that Carnarvon Gorge had to offer us the next day…