Muir’s Reef
The Original Pine Creek Hotel, 1960-04. Photo: Copyright of Library & Archives NT (CC BY 4.0).By John Wade
As novelist Joseph Conrad wrote: “There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man’s mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still persevere, and will curse the day he heard of it, and will let his last hours come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget it until he is dead and there is no way of getting away from a treasure once it fastens itself upon your mind.”
The notion of a ‘lost reef’ is something that, to my way of thinking, falls into the same category as a treasure, as described. Muir’s Reef was often mentioned to me by Darkie Dempsey who lived in Pine Creek, a small town south of Darwin, and I got to know him in 1990 after our first meeting (see story Darkie Dempsey’s Office).
Darkie was an absolute walking encyclopedia of information about the mining boom in Pine Creek – the only original Top End mining town still surviving from the gold rush era of the 1870s.
On two or three occasions, I stayed overnight with Darkie and his wife, Sylvia, at their home in Pine Creek, usually on a Friday night after leaving Darwin after work or sometimes on a Saturday morning. We would head ‘out bush’ in my four-wheel drive Toyota HiLux.
September was a good month, when the long grass after the wet season had dried and been burnt and it was possible to drive over the bare country reasonably easily and safely. Darkie would navigate and although he was ‘blind in one eye and couldn’t see out the other’ he was mostly able to direct me accurately to wherever and whatever he planned to show me.
“Turn off here mate and stop for a minute. See that pine tree? When I first came here it was about 3 feet high and now look at the size of it! Now, go along the creek and we can get across a bit further along.”
Then we would cross over and take a right turn and go over a hill and sure enough, there would be the remnants of a major mine, such as Driffield, complete with the rusted battery (ore stamping machine), steam boilers and other derelict equipment.
I regarded our trips as part of a ‘getting to know each other’ exercise and I fully expected that at some stage Darkie would surprise me and we would arrive at the location of Muir’s Reef. We had drawn up and signed an agreement which covered Darkie in the event we found a project to develop, such as Muir’s Reef. Our agreement gave him an undiluted 50 percent share in any development I was able to promote.
One Sunday we were out in some ‘tiger country’ – full of rocks and sharp stumps in a patch of unburnt land – and I was having a tough time driving. I’d already changed one wheel, the tyre completely ruined.
Darkie was becoming ‘prickly’ and would keep saying, “Mate, keep the hills on your right and keep going.” This was all very well and he started getting even more irascible, in spite of steadily sucking on his VB stubby as we were slowly ‘grinding’ along the path of the blind leading the blind. “Mate, I keep telling you, for Christ’s sake, keep the hills on your right!”
I responded, “Darkie, the line of hills is still on our right and all I can do is make sure I keep going like that.”
Next thing I stopped the 4WD and got out. “What the hell are you stopping for now?” he asked.
“Darkie,” I said as I looked at tracks in front of us, “you are not going to believe this, but there are some other silly buggers out here today driving around in a four-wheel drive. So, we’re not the only ones looking for your next mine site!”
The penny dropped for him. “Do you mean to tell me we are following our own tracks?”
“No doubt about it!” I replied.
The sky was overcast and not being able to use the sun to assist our navigation it became difficult to accurately maintain our bearings. After Darkie had finished ‘spitting the dummy’, we continued on another course. Next thing, ‘bang’ went another tyre, shredded like the last flat.
Eventually we found the place we’d been looking for and kept going on to the next location. By this time, the sky was very dark and menacing with heavy clouds and we were in a pocket of wild country: we ended up getting quite ‘bushed’.
I stopped the engine and we had a bit of a rest in the hope we would get back on track once we set off again. At one stage I had visions of not turning up at home in Darwin on Sunday night and then Margaret starting to worry on Monday as to where we were.
“Darkie, I am completely bushed right at this point in time. Do you have any idea which way we should try now?”
He responded, “Mate, my eyesight is so bad, I can’t see a thing!”
That was a bit unnerving, to say the least.
So off we went again and eventually we found our way out of the tight gully and our dilemma, crossed a creek and picked up some wheel tracks and then some other landmarks. To celebrate the end of our ordeal and our ‘salvation’ I opened one of the VB stubbies I had bought for the navigator, which by now was very warm.
We arrived back in Pine Creek before dark. What a relief! On the way back to Darwin, I developed the most monumental thirst after the ordeal and stopped at every roadside shop to buy a chocolate milk drink. By the time I got home, I was absolutely ‘done in’.
The point of the story is this – Darkie was always talking about Muir’s Reef and that he was the only surviving person who knew its location. One day I came to the realisation that finding Muir’s Reef was never going to be on our itinerary.
I thought about this from time to time in subsequent years and eventually came to the following conclusion – Darkie was initially inspired in his earlier years by the thought of a treasure trove such a prospect might produce if it could be developed as a mine. As he got older, I am certain he became ‘comfortable’ in the knowledge he never had to prove the existence of Muir’s Reef to anyone. Nor was he going to expose himself to the risk of possible fraudulent behaviour by others, such as a partner or partners, if it was decided to develop his project.
It seemed to me, at the same time, he enjoyed (in fact it seemed he may have relished, and even depended on) the kudos of his drinking mates at the Pine Creek pub, who acknowledged both privately and in discussions amongst themselves in the bar that Darkie was the sole keeper of ‘the secret of the treasure’ known as Muir’s Reef, the only man alive who knew its location. Subconsciously, I feel sure he would have thought about the concept that whether there was an ore body there or not, he would make certain the story or the myth and mystery about the location of Muir’s Reef would go with him to the grave.
I consider this may have been enough for him. If Muir’s Reef was actually located and found to be deficient in mineral expectations, and therefore not viable as a mining operation, then the whole concept built up in his own mind over many years would obviously have been a major personal disappointment. It would also have dislodged him from his social pedestal in Pine Creek as the ‘keeper of a most valuable secret’.
He had thus been able to maintain his reputation, having a diminishing need, as he aged, to put the concept to the test.
The mystique which developed, as a result, had elevated his stature and was never challenged. As such, it was comfortably enshrined in local lore in the small community of Pine Creek.
The Original Pine Creek Hotel, 1960-04. Photo: Copyright of Library & Archives NT (CC BY 4.0).
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