Caiguna - Places to See

Memorial to John Baxter
The main interest in the Caiguna area is the memorial to John Baxter which is located 10 km south of the roadhouse. Baxter, an Aborigine known as Wylie and two unnamed Aborigines, accompanied Edward John Eyre on his epic journey across the Nullabor. They left Fowlers Bay in South Australia on 25 February 1841 and reached the site of modern day Eucla on 12 March. On 29 April the two Aborigines killed Baxter and, taking most of the party's provisions, fled into the desert.

In his book Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the years 1840-41 Eyre recalls the incident with chilling power: 'At the dead hour of night, in the wildest and most inhospitable wastes of Australia, with the fierce wind raging in unison with the scene of violence before me, I was left, with a single native, whose fidelity I could not rely upon, and who for aught I knew might be in league with the other two, who perhaps were even now, lurking about with the view of taking away my life as they had done that of the overseer'. Eyre was wrong. Wylie was remarkably faithful and the two men continued walking for another month eventually reaching Thistle Cove where they were sighted by a French whaler and rescued.