Ruth Sandow and the NSW tourist route Sturt’s Steps inspired by famous explorer

Almost 180 years after Charles Sturt’s expedition into NSW Corner Country, a tourist route tracing his steps is being developed to showcase the region. Meet the local pastoralist who has played a pivotal role in the project.

Ruth Sandow and her husband Jon. Picture: Supplied

IT’S the space that gets people, says Ruth Sandow.

For just over 40 years, Ruth has called northwest NSW, or Corner Country, home. It is a corner of Australia that has significance both geographically and historically, and which Ruth has spent years promoting.

Out here, Ruth says, the expanse really strikes people, especially those from cities. As for people from Melbourne who were cooped up for months of lockdown, “it’s like breaking loose”, she says.

“They come up and are just shell-shocked by the expanse of the country, by the diversity of the landscape and the animal and plant life,” says Ruth.

It was this part of the country that Charles Sturt explored in the 1840s, in his mission from Adelaide to try to find an inland sea. It was not an easy journey. The party spent several months stuck at Depot Glen, before pushing into Simpson Desert. Eventually, Sturt was forced to return to Adelaide, suffering scurvy and failing eyesight.

“A lot of (the visitors) are my age, born in the 50s, early 60s. A lot of people learnt a little bit about our exploration history at school, but suddenly they are immersed in this landscape and are just stunned to think this is where the development and settlement of inland Australia really began. I think they go away with a whole different view of this landscape,” Ruth says.

It was this part of Australian history that Ruth and her colleagues have seized on to promote the region and its stories.

It was about 15 years ago, during a meeting with people from Sturt National Park, Tibooburra Tourism and also the University of NSW that the “germ of the idea” was laid.

“We were talking about the things about the Corner Country that set it apart from everywhere else. That’s the key, you have to find that point of difference,” she recalls.

“I am not exactly sure now who made the comment, but the words ‘Sturt’s steps’ were definitely used, and ‘following Sturt’s steps’.”

Sturt's Steps touring map.

The result is a 1100km tourism loop of that name, which approximates the journey Sturt took, from Broken Hill trekking up to what is now Sturt National Park.

Ruth, who chairs Milparinka Heritage and Tourism Association, has been the driving force behind developing the project.

Along the way the trek takes visitors to towns including Milparinka and Tibooburra, and also Cameron Corner, the point where NSW, Queensland and South Australia connect.

And as well as the history of white exploration, Ruth says the aim for the trek is to also highlight other parts of the region’s history, including Indigenous history, white settlement, gold rush and mining, and pastoral aspects.

“They’re all remarkable stories, and they are stories that need to be told, and incredibly we are seeing more and more people interested in Australian history and landscape,” Ruth says.

“We realised early on there is no point trying to promote an isolated community on its own; it has to be part of the bigger picture, so that people travelling into the area have multiple opportunities to experience the land or heritage or whatever cultural things people in the district have to offer. It has to be a whole-of-region think.”

Two years ago Sturt’s Steps project was granted $5.2 million in state government funding. Those funds will be directed towards adding or renovating infrastructure for the trail, including preserving Sturt’s Cairn, interpretative shelters and information panels, new museum spaces in Tibooburra and Milparinka, camp kitchens and more.

There are also funds for the construction of several statues and artworks, including giant bilbies using wire from the feral animal exclusion fence, highlighting the work of University of NSW’s Wild Deserts Project, and a sculpture at Tibooburra, which Ruth says is likely to be Indigenous themed.

She hopes the project will be finished by June next year.

But Ruth and Jon have been involved in the preservation of local history almost as soon as their arrival in the area.

They came to the region from South Australia, buying their property, Pimpara Lake near Packsaddle, in 1980. (They later added a second, Theldarpa Station outside Milparinka. Combined, they reach nearly 100,000ha.)

That same decade they were part of the team that aided in the restoration project of the Milparinka Courthouse. Ruth identifies that as the beginning of the recognition of the tourism potential of the region’s heritage.

Ruth says the biggest challenge recently has been the drought “that really in many ways hasn’t finished … there are still very large areas in this far west NSW that have not received even average rainfall in the last 12 months, so there is still a lot of dry country”.

The family has responded by buying a property in the Riverina “to act as a back-up, if you like, to the pastoral country,” she says.

That is run by their son and his family, while the two stations are run with minimal numbers of Dorpers (Theldarpa) and Merino ewes and Hereford cattle (Pimpara Lake).

These were brought back from the Riverina and no more will be added until the season is adequate, she says.

Until recently Ruth was president of Royal Flying Doctor Service South Eastern Section, and also runs the Corner Country and Outback NSW Facebook page (which is followed by more than 24,000 people).

Ruth says the Facebook page receives queries from people unsure about driving on unsealed roads, and the Milparinka tourism group has been given funding to develop some road safety material targeting that area.

“It’s about educating people about safety and giving them the confidence to tackle the unsealed roads, because if they are able to, it opens up a whole world of experiences they won’t necessarily get if they follow the sealed roads,” she says.

And has Ruth travelled the Sturt’s Steps route herself?

“I’ve not set off deliberately to travel the route, as such, but I can hand on heart say I have driven every inch of those roads at some point in the last 40 years.”

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