INITIAL PUZZLE

The origin of the name Pee Dee is a mystery. It originated before the O’Sullivans took over Pee Dee Station in 1878. One story is that a girl named Pearl Dufty got lost in the bush and was taken in by a local Aboriginal group. As the group moved through the landscape, Pearl carved her initials in tree trunks. She eventually returned home safely. Another story is that a stray steer was found to have the initials PD branded on it.

Andrew O’Sullivan has a third theory that has its roots rather further away: “There’s another region in the world called Pee Dee. It’s in South Carolina, in North America, and it’s spelt in the same way. There’s a Pee Dee River there too. I think that’s where it came from.”

That river’s name is thought to derive from the name of a local Indigenous American tribe.