In Search of ‘Our Waddi’ – Eureka! ‘We found it’

After months of research and planning we have just returned from our 5-week trek covering 8,000 km through some of the toughest roads (tracks) Australia has to offer. Hampered by floodwaters, rain events, bull dust, mud, potholes, sand and the worst corrugations imaginable we somehow found our way to the ‘Feehan Tree’. A Waddi Tree (Acacia Peuce) that was staked and labelled by John Feehan whilst on an Entomological expedition led by my father Murray Upton in 1972. This is believed to be the first time a Waddi Tree was staked and individually labelled to allow monitoring of its resilience and extremely slow growth. Over the years the unique, endangered species continues to be studied and protected to the credit of the NT dept. of Environment.

Over 30 Hectares of the Western Simpson Desert on ‘Old Andado Station’, including this Waddi Stand have been fenced off to protect the trees from predators. This has ensured a very good response with many smaller trees now growing.

The major challenge for our expedition was to actually find ‘that tree’. A search for the tree a couple of years ago was unsuccessful.

Since 1972 the tree has be found and measured on a few occasions.

28 September 1972 John Feehan (CSIRO) - 0.74m

1980 Ted Deveson – 2.85m

6 September 1986 Ralf Grandison – 3.7m

2013 Catherine Nano (N.T Dept. Environment) – 6.0m

22 May 2019 Jim Upton OverOz – 6.7m

This video shows some great footage of the territory we covered and the Eureka moment when we

found the tree.

Many Thanks to ‘Road Tech Marine’ (RTM) for making this adventure possible and Thanks to ‘HL

Landscapes’ for their valued assistance as well.