The object of the first stage of our short expedition was a disused copper mine – in a place so high and so remote that it was hard to imagine how anyone had ever found it let alone thought of scratching for precious metals in it. Not for the first time it was brought home to us how little there was, even in this vast scarcely populated country, that didn’t bear the marks of some earlier visitation. In this instance, although we weren’t aware of it while we were there, the visitation might have been particularly distinguished. It was Ros who came upon the information later, in a book on Albert Namatjira, that towards the end of his life the painter had discovered and pegged a copper deposit in this very area, subsequently abandoning it because, like everything else in his declining fortunes, it didn’t yield. So, it was not impossible that these rather beautiful empty caves we walked through, the habitation now only of bats, the signs of hope only a few blue-green chippings on the ground, had once been his.

It’s probably only supervenient fancy that makes me think that some thwarted spirit, an atmosphere of forfeiture or destitution, clung to the place; but I do recall that Neil and I fell into an unaccountable despondency up here, and stood together at the edge of the high plateau of white dust, Neil shaking his head – not violently but finally, as if there could be no gainsaying what he saw – and I absently trying to kick the entire hillside down, sending sand and pebbles flying into the vast imperturbability of bush below.

What I suspect we were both thinking was this: that in another million years or so a project might just take root here with some prospect of success; until then it was folly to think you’d even get as far as failure.