Not long after we set up camp near a crossing on the Collingwood River, my elder brother Robert suffered horrible burns on his legs when he attempted to lift a can of boiling water from the fire.  He was placed in hospital in Queenstown, a rip-roaring copper mining town which was set in what looked like a lunar landscape, caused by the fumes from the copper smelter burning all the vegetation for miles around.

    We were now down one helper, which made me the next in line to be father's assistant, so he introduced me to the wilderness country.  We tramped through button grass swamps which hid wet flats and peat bogs on the lower areas; the button grass and peat stained the creek and river water almost the colour of weak tea or coffee.  Jagged mountains, usually lost in swathes of cloud, reared snow-clad heads and the swift-running, icy mountain streams were difficult to cross.  They seemed too wide to jump, and one had to be very skillful or risk a very cold dunking.  The horizontal scrub was dense, borne down by its own constantly damp weight, and often we had to cross it by jumping onto the top and floundering across the mass of growth.
 

The constantly wet forests were a dark, dripping tangle of scrub; mossy Beech trees, King William, Huon and Celery Pines.  Beautiful crimson Waratahs bloomed profusely and the moist, green, mossy-covered banks glimmered beautifully at night with the luminous phosphorescent "fairy lights" of a myriad of tiny glow worms.  We were indeed fortunate to witness that spectacular wonder of the southern skies, the Aurora Australis which burst across the night sky like a brilliant fluctuating curtain of rainbow lights, reminding us that the Antarctic continent was not very far south of us.

. Peaks of the King William Range.  Sigrid Fleay with children Rosemary, Robert and Stephen accompany prospector Jack Daley across the button grass plains.

    Younger brother Stephen became the man about the camp helping mother with the many chores while I assisted father in laying the bait trails and setting up the bulky "catch-em'-alivo" traps; a much more exciting task as far as I was concerned.

    The bulky chain wire traps carried on the expedition unfolded to form a large rectangle with a hinged front door that dropped, locked, and trapped an animal unharmed after it had entered and tugged at the bacon bait on the hook.  Salted, cured bacon was used in preference to fresh meat because old bushmen had told father that the thylacine had sought it out in bush camps, and even licked frying pans used for frying bacon, presumably seeking the salt content.  Fly strike was an ever-present problem with fresh meat, while bacon was less likely to be attacked by the numerous blow flies in the South-West area.

    Father and his previous helpers, the Davie brothers, Roy Alderson, Gavan and Betty Crowl and Jack Daley had erected heavy wooden palisades behind these chain wire traps and live decoys such as sheep or Bennett's wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus) were contained there out of harm's way.  We were always picking grass at our roadside camp to feed these decoy animals to supplement their rations of grain.
 

. Rosemary Fleay inspects a chain wire, box-type trap set on a dry knoll in south-west Tasmania.  Miles of scent trails were laid to the trap in the hope of attracting a thylacine.

It was my task to lay miles of bait trails using meat singed over the camp fire then laced with the irresistible smelling oil of aniseed, which attracts most animals like 'bees to a honey pot'.  I dragged my lures on strings in every direction to and from the traps, and certainly covered miles each day.      It was always exciting to leave home base very early each morning to inspect the traps; we always had high hopes that a thylacine just may be awaiting us in one of them, but we found that the little spotted Native Cats (or Quolls as the animals are now known by my father's popularisation of this more suitable Aboriginal name) practically queued up to sample the bacon and this meant that they set the traps off early in the night.