Gidgee and Grit: a History of Love's Creek Station Central Australia

The pioneer settlers of Australia, like the explorers who preceded them, possessed an indomitable spirit to challenge the unknown. Along with the indigenous Aborigines, they are Australia's heritage; they who dared to defy the harsh and inhospitable wilderness of Central Australia, traversing the arid semi-desert terrain, baked hard in the searing summer heat, without communication and with only horses, bullocks or camels for transport, to eke out a living, and raise families, in this so-called 'dead heart'.

The title Gidgee and Grit is derived from the life-sustaining cattle feed, and the fortitude and determination of those early settlers to the inland. One such man was Lewis Bloomfield, pioneer settler on Loves Creek Station, one of the earliest pastoral leases in Central Australia.

The station's boundaries at the time of the first settlement extended almost to the Alice Spring campsite near the waterhole of the same name, and covered about 400,000 hectares. Gidgee and Grit traces the history of the region from its geological beginnings and Aboriginal culture to the early explorers like John McDouall Stuart, and construction of the Overland Telegraph line. It encompasses the transition from horses and camels to motor vehicles and helicopters, from cattle breeding to tourism and, after 100 years of cattle grazing, eventually returning the land to its indigenous owners.