On the stroke of noon, we dismounted in Penwortham, walked up a grassy path past the little church, and found ourselves standing before the grave of John Horrocks, who set forth from these parts in July 1846 to find good pastoral land. From the very start, his expedition was prescient proof of W.C. Fields' later adage that you should never work with children or animals. Particularly animals: first the goats took great delight in leaping on the tent and eating it. Then Harry, a psychotic camel who was the first of his species to be used on an Australian expedition, tried to eat one of the goats, bit Garlick the tent-keeper, who was presumably wandering around redundant since he had no tent to keep, and chewed to bits the precious bags of flour.
As if that wasn't enough, one evening as Horrocks was unpacking, Harry lurched to one side and discharged Horrocks' gun, which was rather unfortunately pointing at Horrocks at the time. Harry was subsequently shot, although it took two bullets to kill him and he bit a stockman on the head before succumbing, Horrocks died of his wounds two weeks later, and 164 years later, we stood in mute homage before the plain grey cross and matching slab which marks the last resting place of the only explorer in history to be shot by his own camel.
Oz around Australia on a Triumph Geoff Hill & Colin O’Carroll p216
