| Approximately
seven gates (from memory) down the Aramac road from Torrens Creek
(mid-west Qld) and about ten klicks from the turnoff to “Wowra Park”
station, that then ran sheep and Angora goats, there is, or rather
there was, a turn off to the right at the dog netting fence. It is now
almost 35 years since I spent a few weeks working on mills and pumps on
“Bindi” station (pronounced bin-dye). I dare say access roads have
changed somewhat in that time. I hope for the cockies’ sake that is the
case. They were bloody terrible ! The road, or I should say track, as it was just a fire plough down the side of the dog netting, led finally after a creek crossing that threatened to dry bog, to the homestead itself. Bindi has dog netting as three of its boundaries and consists of thick gidyea scrub and black soil plains. Ideal cattle country if the seasons are kind. This particular visit of mine coincided with the worst drought the locals had experienced in thirty years. It was pathetic to watch the stock eat emu apple bush and gidyea leaves, but there was no other feed at all. To add to the problem there were thirty ‘roos to each beast, which made hand feeding impossible and economically unviable, plague proportions to say the least. The fire ploughed track had taken toll of two tyres on the truck through gidyea stakes and I pulled into what appeared to be a ringers camp cut into the scrub to carry out some tyre repairs. There was a government issue tarp with a faded Queensland Railways insignia just barely visible and a canvas fly strung between two trees, a well-used fire place, a tripod and a set of camp ovens. At a guess there were ten to twelve dingo scalps hanging from a wire hook fastened to a low branch and a heap of dried ‘roo hides stacked alongside a well used and neglected swag cover under the fly. I approached the camp and called out the appropriate salutation, “G’day. Anyone about?” “Billy’s still hot, help yaself. Ain’t got no sugar. There’s a tin a bog in the tuckerbox” came a reply from behind a battered old ex-army Willys jeep. I took him up on the offer and helped myself to a “cuppa” out of the most battered and weathered quart pot I have ever seen. I had to use it as it was the only one. The syrup made the thick, stewed tea drinkable. I hunkered down in the shade and drank the tea, expecting whoever the voice belonged to would emerge to quench his own curiosity. Ten minutes went by and time was running out if I was to get to the homestead by dark so I stood up and edged over to the jeep. As I reached the rear of the vehicle I could see this figure sitting on the ground with a piece of a log between his legs with a wad punch in one hand and a hammer in the other. At one side was an Arnott’s assorted biscuit tin half full of dried apricots. A piece of #9 fencing wire angled down from a low branch of bush to the side of the block. Threaded on the wire by one of two holes punched in them were at least fifty or sixty dried apricots. The ones further up the wire towards the bush looked as if they had been there for quite some time as they had turned black and had started to shrivel up. Now, I suppose I’m just your average guy and my knowledge of bushcraft was restricted to making an edible damper and cooking in a camp oven the necessities of life, so it was with no attempt to hide my ignorance that I inquired of him what the need was to string the apricots on the wire. He turned his head to face me for the first time and in so doing his battered hat fell back on his head revealing the most weather-beaten face I had seen before.. When he spoke I could see he only had two visible teeth, which were not uniformly placed in his mouth and both were almost the same colour as the sun blackened apricots. He needed a shave months before and I am sure the aroma that was present since I arrived was not attributed to the dingo scalps alone. “Can see ya neva had it tough, sonny, “he drawled in disgust. “two shillin and six pence each in Hughenden.” Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Pig snouts…Two holes and the sun dries and shrivels them black. Who could tell the difference and with a couple of real ones thrown in for aroma? I made my farewell to whoever he was, as he never volunteered a name in response to my introduction and in those days it was deemed ignorant if you asked. To this day I still don’t know if he was tall or short or had any other distinguishing features. However, I did find out his name some weeks later. It took another hour or so to pick my way along the fire plough until I reached the track that linked Wowra Park and Bindi and then on to the homestead. As I approached, a figure dressed in faded and patched jeans, a torn shirt hanging loose and with toes protruding from a pair of over worked R.M’s walked from the larger of the two buildings and leant against the gate to the house yard. Introductions were exchanged and he turned out to be the ringer, the only person on the place at the time. “Boy, am I glad to see you. Did you bring any tucker with you? The mill on the house turkey nest is stuffed. I’ve been doin’ nuthin else but pullin’ half-starved steers out of the bog. They walk in to get a drink, bog, and are too weak to get out. What do you know about windmills? The radio don’t work. The batteries are all flat. I’m down to me last tin of bully. I hope you aint here for a bludge. Can you cook? How are ya off for makein’s?” All this in one breath. After I had found where to bunk down we went and had a look at the mill. Some mill. A 28foot blade on a 68foot four poster! He told me he thought there were 21 lengths of casing down the hole. Turned out he was right and you can guess where the hole was! Three days later and a whole lot of unprintable adjectives down the track, the turkey nest was looking a lot better. On to a boundary bore where we rigged up a Southern Cross diesel to drive an old push and pull lifter which we took turn about to keep fuelled for close on a week. Then the rain came. Ron, the ringer, had said the morning it started that if I wanted to get home before the end of the wet to take my vehicle across the creek so as not to be stranded for the duration. Good sound advice it was. It rained for seven days straight. I have no idea how much rain we had, suffice to say it bucketed down. That black soil country has no bottom to it when wet and it sure was wet! We bogged every vehicle on the place including a Fordson major tractor fitted with half-tracks which was left with only the top of the gearbox and the front axle above ground. Our saviour was an old Ford Marmon that had balloon tyres that had the canvas showing on all four tyres and had a tomato case for a seat and no brakes. It finally got us to the creek where I said my goodbyes and swam the creek to my vehicle. It is only 18 mile across to Wowra Park and it took me two and a half DAYS to make the house yard at Wowra Park. I am glad I took the all weather road. I can assure you every bloodwood was ringbarked along that track from as high as I could swing the axe to ground level. It was the only way I could make any headway at all. Corduroy the jack, lift the ute, slip the lengths of bark under both back and front wheels and drive twelve feet and do it all over again and again from daylight till dark. All this is pouring rain to boot. Trying to sleep, ringing wet on the front seat of the ute is not conducive to a good temperament. I finally arrived at Wowra Park at 1.30 am to be met by Mrs.Bode with a larrikin lamp and hundreds of angora goats. She reckoned the clip from the goats was worth more than wool. It took a lot of convincing that I had actually come from Bindi. She was adamant that it couldn’t be done in the wet. She had a heart of gold and insisted I shower and clean up and sleep in a caravan of hers. I must have looked like something the cat had dragged in. She gave me half an hour to clean up and appeared out of the rain with clean, white sheets to sleep on! She had prepared a meal and insisted I go up to the house and eat. It was over that meal I found out the identity of the joker camped on the netting fence making pig snouts. “Is that where that bastard is camped?” she said, “When I catch up with him he’ll be two stone lighter! Not only has the bastard cut holes in the dog fence but he uses my bloody trace chains off me mills to fasten his dog traps with!” I don’t know if she ever caught up with him. If she did, it never made the papers. It turned out he was one of four brothers that lived feral and earnt enough from the bush to get by on. The next day one of her daughters towed me out to the Aramac road with an old Canadian Blitz and I headed off towards Charters Towers. Everything went well until I hit Warrigal Creek. There were seven vehicles on one side and ten on the other. After a few hours waiting for the water to subside a few of us decided to spanish windlass as many vehicles across as we could. We had just got the last across when this little Volkswagon beetle with Victorian plates pulled up on the Charters Towers side. Out gets a chap with a map in his hand and says, “How far to the flinders Highway, mate?” Someone answered with, “You aint got far to go mate, that’s it across the other side too, and it finishes at the Isa.” “No, no, that can’t be right,” says the bloke, “It shows a highway in a big black line on my map, this is a dirt track !” “This is the highway mate, the dirt track is further on to wards the Isa,” said another local. He and his mate jumped in the beetle, reversed up the bank, give it full throttle and headed straight at the creek. Now the water’s at least three foot deep and has a nasty drop off at the far bank but I reckoned as there were enough of us there we could pick it up and carry it across when it stopped in the middle. To our amazement it surfed across the creek without a splutter and scrabbled up the far bank and the last we saw was two arms waving as it disappeared towards the Isa. I suppose I had a holiday of sorts and saw a lot of country from grass roots up, but I really didn’t need the experience. I could have done without it. Country folk experience this all the time and accept it as part of living in the bush. Just a part of life. |
