The Barkly Highway.
I was on the way to the Brunette Downs races on the Barkly tableland in 2007 and had a few hours up my sleeve so I sloooow right down to have a good look around at the landscape along the Barkly Highway between the Three Ways Roadhouse and the Barkly Homestead, and found a really small cross with a sad story to tell.
Nina Smith was an English woman,far from home and she died in the desert about halfway across the Australian continent, the day before her 22nd birthday!
Nina Smith 04/03/81 to 03/03/03
Four years after her death the messages her friends left were still there , fading , crumbling in the desert, far from the gentle green land of her birth.
One friend left this from Lord Byron
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.”
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!