Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  But ’e gets off at Nimitybell

  Blowin’ like Bluey, freezin’ like ’ell

  At Nimitybell on Monaro.

  ‘The drinks was froze, o’ course, in the bar;

  They breaks a bottle of old Three Star,

  An’ the barman sez, “Now, there y’ are,

  You can’t beat that for Monaro!”

  The stranger bloke, ’e was tall an’ thin,

  Sez, “Strike me blue, but I think you win;

  We’ll ’ave another an’ I’ll turn in—

  It’s blitherin’ cold on Monaro.”

  ‘ ’E borrowed a book an’ went to bed

  To read awhile, so the missus said,

  By the candle-light. ’E must ha’ read

  (These nights is long on Monaro)

  Past closin’ time, Then ’e starts an’ blows

  The candle out but the wick ’ad froze!

  Leastways, that’s what folks round ’ere suppose,

  Old hands as lived on Monaro.

  ‘So bein’ tired, an’ a stranger, new

  To these mountain ways, they think he threw

  ’Is coat on the wick, an’ maybe, too,

  Any old clothes ’e’d to spare. Oh,

  This ain’t no fairy, an’ don’t you fret!

  Next day came warmer an’ set in wet,

  There’s some out ’ere as can mind it yet,

  The real old ’ands on Monaro.

  ‘The wick must ha’ thawed. The fire began

  At breakfast time. The neighbours all ran

  To save the pub—an’ forgot the man

  (Stiddy, go stiddy there, mare-oh).

  The pub was burned to the blanky ground;

  ’Is buttons was all they ever found.

  The blinkin’ cow ’e owed me a pound—

  From Cooma his blinkin’ fare, oh!

  ‘That ain’t no fairy, not what I’ve told;

  I’m gettin’ shaky an’ growing old,

  An’ I hope I never again see cold,

  Like that down ’ere on Monaro!’—

  He drives his horses, he drives them well,

  And this is the tale he loves to tell

  Nearing the town of Nimitybell,

  Nimitybell on Monaro.

  THE FLOOD

  TRADITIONAL/JENKYN THOMAS

  In the Dreamtime, a terrible drought swept across the land. The leaves of the trees turned brown and fell from the branches, the flowers drooped their heads and died, and the green grass withered as though the spirit from the barren mountain had breathed upon it with a breath of fire. When the hot wind blew, the dead reeds rattled in the riverbed, and the burning sands shimmered like a silver lagoon.

  All the water had left the rippling creeks and deep, still water-holes. In the clear blue sky, the sun was a mass of molten gold; the clouds no longer drifted across the hills, and the only darkness that fell across the land was the shadow of night and death.

  After many had died of thirst, all the animals in the land met together in a great council to discover the cause of the drought. They travelled many miles. Some came from the bush, and others from the distant mountains.

  The sea birds left their homes in the cliffs where the white surf thundered, and flew without resting many days and nights. When they all arrived at the chosen meeting place in Central Australia, they discovered that a frog of enormous size had swallowed all the water in the land, and thus caused the drought. After much serious discussion, it was decided that the only way to obtain the water again was to make the frog laugh. The question now arose as to which animal should begin the performance, and, after a heated argument, the pride of place was given to the kookaburra.

  The animals then formed themselves into a huge circle with the frog in the centre. Red kangaroos, grey wallaroos, rock and swamp wallabies, kangaroo rats, bandicoots, koalas and ring-tailed possums all sat together. The emu and the native companion forgot their quarrel and the bellbird his chimes. Even a butcherbird looked pleasantly at a brown snake, and the echidna forgot to bristle. A truce had been called in the war of the bush.

  Now, the kookaburra seated himself on the limb of a tree, and, with a wicked twinkle in his eye, looked straight at the big, bloated frog, ruffled his brown feathers, and began to laugh. At first, he made a low gurgling sound deep in his throat, as though he was smiling to himself, but gradually he raised his voice and laughed louder and louder until the bush re-echoed with the sound of his merriment. The other animals looked on with very serious faces, but the frog gave no sign. He just blinked his eyes and looked as stupid as only a frog can look.

  The kookaburra continued to laugh until he nearly choked and fell off the tree, but all without success. The next competitor was a frill-necked lizard. It extended the frill around its throat, and, puffing out its jaws, capered up and down. But there was no humour in the frog; he did not even look at the lizard, and laughter was out of the question.

  It was then suggested that the dancing of the native companion might tickle the fancy of the frog. So the native companion danced until she was tired, but all her graceful and grotesque figures failed to arouse the interest of the frog.

  The position was very serious, and the council of animals was at its wits’ end for a reasonable suggestion. In their anxiety to solve the difficulty, they all spoke at once, and the din was indescribable. Above the noise could be heard a frantic cry of distress. A carpet snake was endeavouring to swallow a echidna. The bristles had stuck in his throat, and a kookaburra, who had a firm grip of his tail, was making an effort to fly away with him.

  Close by, two bandicoots were fighting over the possession of a sweet root, but, while they were busily engaged in scratching each other, a possum stole it. They then forgot their quarrel and chased the possum, who escaped danger by climbing a tree and swinging from a branch by his tail. In this peculiar position he ate the root at his leisure, much to the disgust of the bandicoots below.

  After peace and quiet had been restored, the question of the drought was again considered. A big eel, who lived in a deep waterhole in the river, suggested that he should be given an opportunity to make the frog laugh. Many of the animals laughed at the idea, but, in despair, they agreed to give him a trial. The eel then began to wriggle in front of the frog. At first he wriggled slowly, then faster and faster until his head and tail met. Then he slowed down and wriggled like a snake with the shivers. After a few minutes, he changed his position, and flopped about like a well-bitten grub on an ant bed.

  The frog opened his sleepy eyes, his big body quivered, his face relaxed, and, at last, he burst into a laugh that sounded like rolling thunder. The water poured from his mouth in a flood. It filled the deepest rivers and covered the land. Only the highest mountain peaks were visible, like islands in the sea. Many men and animals were drowned.

  I’M THE MAN

  FRANK DANIEL

  My mate Frank Daniel never told a lie, so it was with some surprise that I learned he was actually the original Man From Snowy River . . . amazing!

  I’m the one they talk about, the ‘Man from Snowy River’.

  The one who did those daring deeds that made old Clancy shiver.

  It’s true, I had a skinny horse, he wasn’t all that hot,

  In days gone by one had to do his best with what he’d got.

  I came from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko’s side.

  As a lad I had no saddle and bareback learnt to ride.

  I heard about the escapee, the ‘colt from old Regret’,

  And always one for a bit of fun, I joined up for a bet.

  I turned up at the Homestead with that wild and woolly lot,

  And the old man said I’d never do, ‘wouldn’t keep up at a trot’.

  But then my good friend Clancy stood up for me with a grin,

  And the old man never argued, ’cause he knew he couldn’t win.

  We galloped off into the hills; my horse was pulling badly,

  Whenever we had
company, that horse would go so madly.

  We found a mob of brumbies and the colt was with them, too,

  And the old man gave his orders as into the scrub they flew.

  The stockmen rode to wheel them, Clancy raced along their wing,

  And my young heart beat so rapidly as I heard his stockwhip ring.

  When we reached the mountain’s summit, even Clancy pulled his steed,

  But the yang that I was riding had no mouth and would not heed.

  They say I swung my stockwhip round, they say I gave a cheer,

  But I was struggling with my nag; those cheers were yells of fear.

  It was only fear that saved me; fear had glued me to my seat,

  And I never ever dared deny my confidence in that feat.

  When I finally reached the bottom of that terrible descent,

  I saw a wisp of dust to tell which way the brumbies went.

  I found them in a dead-ender, in a gully walled with stone,

  That’s how I came to turn ’em back, and how I did it on my own.

  Now I know I haven’t got the right to stake my claim to fame,

  So, having set the story straight, I’ll just leave out my name.

  THE MYSTERY OF THE MAHOGANY SHIP

  The riddle of the mahogany ship and the possible Portuguese discovery of eastern Australia will remain unsolved until the long-lost wreck is rediscovered. The ‘Portuguese discovery’ theory goes like this.

  From 1511 till 1595, the Portuguese were the only European power in what is today Malaysia and Indonesia. According to historian João de Barros, Cristóvão de Mendonça set out on a planned expedition with three large caravels from Malacca. He explored and charted the coast of what was called ‘Java La Grande’ and what we call Australia.

  Near Warrnambool, one of the caravels was either wrecked, careened for repairs, ran aground accidentally or was abandoned at sea and washed ashore. It is still there.

  Mendonça returned to the Moluccas where he later became the commander of the Portuguese fleet and, later still, a governor of one of the provinces of the Spice Islands. Mendonça’s original maps were kept hidden from other foreign powers and were probably lost in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, but copies had been made and they came into the hands of the French and British. Joseph Banks certainly owned one of them, which is now in the British Museum.

  Here’s the yarn.

  In January 1836, three men left Port Fairy on a seal-hunting expedition in a small sailing boat, which overturned near the mouth of the Hopkins River. One man, Captain Smith, drowned and the other two, Joseph Wilson and William Gibbs, walked back to Port Fairy along the beach and discovered a wrecked ship in the sand dunes.

  On their arrival back at Port Fairy, they reported their find to Captain John Mills who had established a base there for whaling in 1826. Mills ran the port and whaling station and later became the official port master.

  According to tales related later, Wilson told Mills that the wreck had good ‘squared timber for the taking’ and, having a need for timber at the settlement, Mills and Wilson took two whaleboats to investigate the wreck.

  According to accounts given by ‘Curly’ Donnelly, many years later, they estimated the wreck as being about 100 feet (30.5 metres) long and 40 feet (12.2 metres) wide and half a mile (800 metres) from the low-water mark. It was made of very ‘hard dark timber—like mahogany’.

  A large group of Aborigines appeared and threatened them as they inspected the wreck. Shots were fired and, after some parlay and reconciliation, the men from Port Fairy left.

  Donnelly gave over forty anecdotal accounts concerning the mahogany ship and claimed to have been in the original party led by John Mills to investigate the wreck.

  There is indisputable evidence, however, that Donnelly arrived in Victoria with his wife and son as assisted migrants in 1841 and all his stories about the first sightings of the wreck were passed on to him by a lifelong friend, Tasmanian-born Jimmy Clarke, who was in Port Fairy in 1836.

  In spite of this, there are almost a hundred references to the wreck in letters and writings throughout the nineteenth century, indicating that it was a common landmark and well-known to locals.

  One of the most detailed accounts was given in 1876 by Captain John Mason:

  Riding along the beach from Port Fairy to Warrnambool in the summer of 1846, my attention was attracted to the hull of a vessel embedded high and dry in the Hummocks, far above the reach of any tide. It appeared to have been that of a vessel about 100 tons burden, and from its bleached and weather-beaten appearance, must have remained there many years. The spars and deck were gone, and the hull was full of drift sand. The timber of which she was built had the appearance of cedar or mahogany. The fact of the vessel being in that position was well known to the whalers in 1836 when the first whaling station was formed in that neighbourhood, and the oldest natives, when questioned, stated their knowledge of it extended from their earliest recollections.

  . . . The wreck lies about midway between Belfast and Warrnambool, and is probably by this time entirely covered with drift sand, as during a search made for it within the last few months it was not to be seen. [Port Fairy was known as Belfast from 1843 to 1887, it then reverted to its original European name.]

  The Warrnambool Standard carried several articles on the wreck in June and July 1890. Alexander Rollo remembered it as being ‘far above high water mark, her stern pointed towards Port Fairy and only her timbers were standing about three or four feet [about a metre] above the sand.’

  In recent times, three symposia have been held to investigate the evidence: in 1980, 1987 and 2005. Many books have been written on the subject and, in 1992, the Victorian government offered a reward of $250,000 to anyone who could locate the wreck. Official searches using drilling equipment, in 1999 and 2004, found only small, unidentified fragments of timber.

  Local historian Jim Henry spoke to elderly local residents who remembered the ship being seen on picnics to the beach.

  Mrs Daisy Smith remembered her mother telling her she saw the ship in 1876:

  Mother told us the timbers were very solid and smooth, and polished (she supposed) with the drift sand. The ship was well in the sand hills. It was seen a year or two later but only the top timbers, then it disappeared and has never been seen since.

  Rob Simpson, author of Warrnambool Shipwrecks, used evidence gathered by Jim Henry, and aerial photography from Google Earth, and claimed to have located the wreck site, in 2010.

  Even better, my friend Dennis O’Keeffe knows where the mahogany ship is, he even showed me!

  Dennis lives on the outskirts of Warrnambool. He is the world’s leading authority on the history of the song ‘Waltzing Matilda’; he wrote a book about it.

  I’d called in for a visit as I was passing through Warrnambool and happened to mention my interest in the sixteenth-century Portuguese exploration of Australia’s coast.

  ‘Oh,’ said Dennis casually, ‘I can show you where the mahogany ship is.’

  I was stunned into silence for a full thirty seconds and sat, trying to consider the relevance of the statement. Why hadn’t he claimed the reward offered by the Victorian government? Was he part of some secret local group intent on keeping the knowledge hidden?

  ‘I’ll show you where it is,’ he added casually, standing up and heading into the kitchen.

  I followed.

  We stopped at the large picture window and gazed out across the miles of windswept dunes, along the coast to where Port Fairy sits at the end of the bay. Dennis waved his hand grandly across the horizon framed by the window . . . sweeping it slowly left to right over the coastal vista spread before us.

  ‘It’s out there . . . somewhere,’ he said.

  I should have known.

  Maybe he’s right. Is any of this true? We will never know unless the mystery ship appears again from below the sand.

  Perhaps some things are better left a mystery.

  JH

>   THE YOWIE

  Anecdotal evidence for the existence of the yowie goes back to Aboriginal folklore, where it is referred to variously in different areas as yowie, yahoo-yahoo, doolagarl and goolagard.

  In 1795, a group of European settlers on a hunting trip at what became Yowie Bay, near Sydney, reported sighting a man-sized hairy beast dashing away from them through the scrub. Places such as Yahoo Peak in Victoria and Yahoo Valley in New South Wales are in areas named because they were places where yowies were said to exist.

  Their average height is estimated at 2.3 metres and they are brown or black in colour, thickset and powerfully built. Their heads are small in proportion to their bodies and they have no neck. Their ears are not visible and their noses are flat. Yowie arms are very long and hang down to knee level. They have long fingernails and their little fingers act like a second thumb. Normally bipedal, yowies may sometimes drop to all fours and juveniles may climb trees.

  Apparently they are omnivorous, as reports talk of them enjoying kangaroo meat but also raiding vegetable patches and stripping bark in search of grubs. Mostly solitary and nocturnal by nature, they sometimes exude a foul odour and howl. They also growl and occasionally beat their chests.

  The strongest tradition is in the mountainous, forested areas of the east coast, from south-east Queensland to north-east Victoria. This is also supported by patterns of modern day sightings. Sightings of the creature have been reported by hundreds of Europeans since the 1840s, especially in the 1970s, in Queensland around Kilcoy and Springbrook, and Woodenbong in northern New South Wales.

  Prehistoric humans lived in Australia. Skeletons resembling those of the species Homo erectus were found at Kow Swamp in Victoria in 1967. During the digging of irrigation canals, about forty very unusual skeletons were unearthed. The skeletons, between 9000 and 14,000 years old, were robust, large-toothed and radically different from modern Aborigines. Their jaws were among the largest human jaws ever found.

  Reported sightings of the yowie are almost identical to those of the ‘bigfoot’ or ‘sasquwatch’ of northern America. If they are related, however, it’s unlikely that they have had a family reunion for quite some time.