Lauri Sheard, Mountford's young companion on the 1940 expedition, recounts what happened at the rockhole in his diary, An Australian Youth among Desert Aborigines, published in 1964. In his entry for 1 October, he describes in detail how Mountford took photographs 'of a man and his wife getting water from one of the bigger of the higher rockholes .... They walked up to the rockhole, the man with his spears, and the woman with her dishes, and grinding stones, etc., which she carries in the big mempu on her head. They lay down their things, had a drink, then filled up the mempu with the smaller vessel, the wira, then picked up their gear and walked off again. How typical a scene, and with a delightful setting'.