Best Australian Yarns

by Haynes, Jim

  Not true.

  There were rabbits in Australia from the First Fleet onward. They were bred as food animals, mostly in cages. In the first decades of the colony’s existence, they do not appear to have been numerous, judging from their absence from archaeological collections of early colonial food remains.

  In Tasmania, however, a newspaper article of 1829 noted ‘. . . the common rabbit is becoming so numerous throughout the colony, that they are running about on some large estates by thousands. We understand, that there are no rabbits whatever in the elder colony [New South Wales]’.

  This was clearly untrue. The famous botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham came from England to live in Parramatta in 1818. Writing in the 1820s, he says ‘. . . rabbits are bred around houses, but we have yet no wild ones in enclosures . . .’

  What Cunningham meant was that rabbits were bred and kept in cages, rather than larger enclosures as they were in Britain.

  The Colonial Secretary, Alexander Macleay, built Elizabeth Bay House in the late 1830s and the extensive gardens included ‘a preserve or rabbit-warren, surrounded by a substantial stone wall, and well stocked with that choice game’.

  By the 1840s, court records show evidence of the theft of rabbits from houses around Sydney, and recipes from that time include quite a lot of rabbit.

  It is true, however, that the famous rabbit infestation appears to coincide with the release of twenty-four rabbits at Barwon Park, near Winchelsea, Victoria, in October 1859 by Thomas Austin.

  Austin had been an avid hunter back in the ‘Old Country’, regularly dedicating his weekends to rabbit shooting. Upon arriving in Australia, which had no native rabbit population, Austin asked his nephew William Austin, in England, to send him twenty-four grey rabbits, five hares, seventy-two partridges and some sparrows so that he could continue his hobby in Australia by creating a local population of the species. At the time he had stated, ‘The introduction of a few rabbits could do little harm and might provide a touch of home, in addition to a spot of hunting.’

  William could not source enough grey rabbits to meet his uncle’s order, however. So he topped it up by buying domestic rabbits. One theory as to why the Barwon Park rabbits adapted so well to Australia is that the hybrid rabbits that resulted from the interbreeding of the two distinct types, were particularly hardy and virile. Many other farms released their rabbits into the wild after Austin.

  The rabbits were extremely prolific breeders and spread rapidly across the southern parts of the country. Australian conditions were perfect for them; the climate allowed them to breed all year.

  The spread of farming and clearing of forests created ideal habitat for rabbits. It is said that they crossed the Murray River into western New South Wales from Victoria within two years of Austin’s infamous ‘first release’.

  By 1869, just ten years later, two million were being shot or trapped annually without any effect on the rabbit population. It was the fastest growth and infestation of a mammal population ever recorded.

  The rabbit caused more ecological damage to Australia than any other creature (including humans). Native species became extinct and massive erosion ruined farmland and destroyed the natural ecology.

  On the up side, rabbit became a staple food in two Depressions (during the 1890s and 1930s) and rabbit trapping was a great way for children on farms and properties to make pocket money.

  There were ‘chillers’ (refrigeration units) throughout the bush which were usually manned by a trapper who also bought rabbits from others.The fur was used to make the iconic Aussie hat, the Akubra, in an industry that kept the town of Kempsey prosperous for almost a century.

  In Western Australia, a rabbit-proof fence was built between Cape Keraudren and Esperance to stop the spread of the rabbit into Western Australian farming areas. It didn’t work.

  In 1950, myxomatosis was released and the rabbit population dropped from 600 million to 100 million. Genetic resistance to the virus saw the rabbit population recover to an estimated 200 to 300 million by 1995 when a new virus, the calici virus, was developed on Wardung Island off the coast of South Australia.

  When the virus somehow escaped from the island and began killing rabbits as far away as the northern areas of South Australia, a general release was put into operation and rabbit numbers quickly fell across eastern Australia.

  In 2012, the ABC reported that immunity to the calici virus was growing throughout the state of Victoria—and so was the rabbit population!

  Rabbit farming was banned for many years in Australia and these days most rabbit sold in Australia comes from New Zealand.

  JH

  RABBIT

  ANONYMOUS

  Rabbits big and rabbits small

  Rabbits short and rabbits tall

  Rabbits black and rabbits white

  Rabbits in the morning and rabbits at night

  Rabbits by the dozen and rabbits by the score

  Rabbits by the hundred knocking at the door.

  Rabbit hot and rabbit cold

  Rabbit young and rabbit old

  Rabbit fat and rabbit lean

  Rabbit dirty and rabbit clean

  Rabbit stewed and rabbit roast

  Rabbit in gravy and rabbit on toast

  Rabbit tender and rabbit tough

  Spare us from rabbit—Lord, we’ve had enough!

  AUSTRALIA’S BELFAST

  Port Fairy is a coastal town in western Victoria 28 kilometres west of ‘The Bool’ (Warrnambool) and 290 kilometres west of Melbourne on the Moyne River. The towns of Portland and Port Fairy were the first European settlements on the south coast of Australia.

  In the early nineteenth century, sealers and whalers came to this region. The bay was named by the crew of the whaler the Fairy in 1828. John Griffiths established a whaling station in 1835 and a store was opened in 1839.

  In August 1840, the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners of the British Government decided to allow the purchase of land anywhere in the ‘Port Phillip District of NSW’ by Special Surveys that could be requested to enable the purchase of 5120 acres (2070 hectares), or 8 square miles, for £1 per acre. This price was significantly below the value of the land at that time.

  Sydney solicitor James Atkinson purchased land in the town by special survey in 1843. He drained the swamps, subdivided and leased the land, and built a harbour on the Moyne River. He renamed the town Belfast on 1 January 1854.

  Agriculture developed quickly in the region, and Belfast became an important transport hub. By 1857, the town had a population of 2190. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, Belfast was one of Australia’s largest ports, catering to the whaling industry. In 1887, the town went back to the original name Port Fairy, as a result of an Act of Parliament.

  Port Fairy district was settled by Irish immigrants and later was the site of soldier settlements after World War I. The nearby town of Koroit calls itself ‘the most Irish town in Australia’.

  Today, Port Fairy has a population of 2500 and it is the home port for one of Victoria’s largest fishing fleets. Port Fairy contains fifty buildings protected by the National Trust. The Stag Inn, currently the Seacombe House hotel, was built in 1847 by Captain John Sanders.

  Nearby beaches, which are part of a national park, are home to an enormous breeding colony of mutton-birds and viewing platforms enable visitors to experience the mass return of the parent birds at dusk from fishing in the Great Southern Ocean. This occurs during the period when chicks are being raised and is a truly unique and unforgettable event.

  Port Fairy is also the home of Australia’s most successful annual folk music festival, which started there in 1977. The festival is a true community event and profits are used to provide the town with many excellent amenities.

  The Port Fairy community is a wonderful example of cooperation and community spirit being used to preserve our heritage in many ways. This book was inspired by the annual yarn-spinning and story-telling event held every year at the festiv
al—instituted by, and now held in memory of, Pat Glover, a great yarn-spinner and a beaut bloke, who passed away in 2005.

  JH

  THE FLYING CHINAMAN

  The story of the paddle-steamer Providence was told to me when I was a young schoolteacher living at Menindee, on the Darling River. I lived there for six years and had a great time working as an honorary ranger in Kinchega National Park in my spare time and visiting properties along the river.

  The version of the Providence story I was told as ‘gospel’ included the fact that the crew had all spent far too long at the famous Maiden’s Hotel before they set off down the river.

  Maiden’s Hotel was where the Burke and Wills expedition had base camp. I even know some people who claimed that the pub played a part in the disaster that befell those intrepid, if somewhat inept, explorers. If those left at Menindee had not enjoyed the hospitality at the pub, some people say, the search parties might have been sent earlier and been more successful.

  I myself have been waylaid at Maiden’s on more than one occasion

  But, back to the tragedy of the paddle-steamer Providence.

  Providence was built at Goolwa, South Australia, in 1865. She was 24 metres long and weighed 16 tons. Powered by a thirty horsepower steam engine, the vessel had a cast-iron roundish ‘scotch-type’ boiler, which was 2.4 metres long and 2.7 metres in diameter. The boiler was fed by two furnaces.

  The official report says that the Providence was ‘wrecked on account of explosion of boiler cause unknown, accident occurred about 1½ miles above Kinchega Station, River Darling NSW. 5 lives lost’.

  The Providence had been stranded near Kinchega Station for twelve months due to low river levels. When the river rose again, a crew was sent and the vessel and barge she was towing were loaded with wool from Kinchega Station.

  The laden boat was moored at Maiden’s Hotel wharf and the crew imbibed freely before setting out. Captain John Davis had steered the vessel some 14.5 kilometres downriver from Menindee when he noticed an engine problem, steered into the bank to investigate and stopped the steam. The vessel then blew up.

  Providence was split in two by the explosion and sank. The boiler flew out of the vessel ‘striking a tree on the side of the bank and then rolling into the river’. One large piece of the boiler, which was split off by the explosion, was found a hundred yards away deeply buried in the bank.

  The crew of another steamer working up the river visited the scene later and reported that:

  the banks were strewn with boards and debris of all kinds; while high up on neighbouring trees were lodged pieces of timber, bedding and rugs, firewood, etc. A bag of flour was thrown over the tops of the trees and landed about 70 yards from the banks of the river, while a sledge hammer and several heavy pieces of casting were carried an incredible distance.

  Thomas Gun, the vessel’s Chinese cook, was blown ‘thirty feet into a gum tree and had to be winched down. His injuries were treated but he died a short time later’.

  Various theories were put forward. The reporter for the Adelaide Observer thought low water levels in the boiler caused a build up of gasses that were ignited by the heat. The Pastoral Times attributed the accident to the engineer ‘putting cold water into the boiler while it was empty and much heated’.

  The story I was always told was that the crew members were all drunk and had forgotten to refill the boiler with water. Five men died, including Captain Davis, but the local story always ended with ‘they found the Chinese cook in the top of a gum tree’.

  Those killed were buried in the Kinchega Homestead cemetery.

  The boiler from the Providence sits on top of the bank of the Darling River in the Kinchega National Park; a plaque marks the site.

  The boat’s engine was salvaged and used to power a new paddle-steamer called the Queen.

  JH

  WHERE’S THE RIVER?

  A yarn you often hear out west is the one about the paddle-steamer sitting many miles from any river in the middle of the plain. The story usually goes that the greedy captain tried to get up a flooded creek to load wool from a station and was trapped when the water level suddenly fell.

  Guess what?

  It’s true . . . more or less.

  The 15-ton paddle-steamer Wave was built at Echuca in 1886 and operated on the Darling River as a general carrier between Bourke and Brewarrina. She was then used to carry wood and supplies to the Bourke pumping station.

  In 1921, there were very high water levels in the river and the Wave was using a short cut across flooded paddocks north of the town rather than traversing the many bends and meanders of the Darling River. One day she snagged and failed to make it back into the main river channel as the water level fell.

  Her owner, Lloyd Surrey of Bourke, decided to make the best of the situation and continued living in the stranded vessel until his death in 1926, aged seventy-seven years. Due to the large number of children and various animals that were always around the boat, the locals called it ‘Noah’s Ark’!

  The remains of the Wave are still there, in a paddock full of eucalypts, on the northern side of the Darling River, opposite the north-east end of the old Bourke wharf.

  JH

  A NAUTICAL YARN

  KEIGHLY GOODCHILD

  I sing of a captain who’s well-known to fame;

  A naval commander, Bill Jinks is his name.

  Who sailed where the Murray’s clear waters do flow,

  Did this freshwater shellback, with his ‘Yo heave a yo’.

  To the port of Wahgunyah his vessel was bound,

  When night came upon him and darkness around;

  Not a star on the waters its clear light did throw;

  But the vessel sped onward, with a ‘Yo heave a yo’.

  ‘Oh, captain! Oh, captain! Let’s make for the shore,

  For the winds they do rage and the waves they do roar!’

  ‘Nay, nay!’ said the captain, ‘though the fierce winds may blow,

  I will stick to my vessel, with a “Yo heave a yo”.’

  ‘Oh, captain! Oh, captain! The waves sweep the deck;

  Oh, captain! Oh, captain! We’ll soon be a wreck—

  To the river’s deep bosom each seaman will go!’

  But the captain laughed loudly, with his ‘Yo heave a yo’.

  ‘Farewell to the maiden—the girl I adore;

  Farewell to my friends—I shall see them no more!’

  The crew shrieked with terror, the captain he swore—

  They had stuck on a sandbank, so they all walked ashore.

  THE NIGHT THEY BURNT THE RODNEY

  The Rodney was built at Echuca in 1875 by Thomas McDonald and was owned by rural agents Permewan, Wright & Co. She was one of the most powerful steamers on the river.

  On Friday 26 August 1894, Captain Dickson was in command of the Rodney as she came upriver, carrying forty-five non-union labourers to work in the woolsheds at Tolarno Station.

  Although the 1894 strike was shorter and less hostile than the famous 1891 strike at Barcaldine, which led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party, it did result in the only recorded destruction of a riverboat, coastal or ocean-going vessel in the context of any industrial dispute in Australia.

  Captain Dickson had earlier been warned by the captain of the steamer Trafalgar to expect attacks by union shearers along the river, but he believed he was well prepared for such an event.

  On Sunday 28 August, the steamer reached a woodpile two miles above Moorara Station and it was there the attack occurred. Armed men crept aboard and the crew awoke too late. They tried to reverse away from the bank but they hadn’t unhitched the mooring rope.

  About 150 striking shearers took control. They moved the passengers ashore and used kerosene and set the boat alight. The Rodney was soon ablaze and was left to drift down the river as the triumphant shearers sang the latest popular tune of the day, ‘After the Ball Is Over’. Eventually, the vessel burnt to the water line and sank.
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  The incident was described in the Mildura Cultivator as ‘the very worst outrage that has yet been perpetrated by shearers in these colonies’ and a reward was offered for the capture of those involved—but no one was ever convicted.

  On 20 August 1994, a centenary re-enactment event was organised and more than 700 people came from far and wide to witness a replica being doused in kerosene and set alight, and to celebrate in song with a woolshed dance.

  My mate Dennis O’Keefe was there that night and he wrote a new set of lyrics to ‘After the Ball is Over’, in honour of the occasion.

  JH

  THE RODNEY

  DENNIS O’KEEFFE

  Once a young rouseabout, boiled a billy of tea,

  He asked an old shearer, a story tell me please,

  I’ll tell you a story, but you must tell no-one,

  Something my mates and I, in days gone by have done,

  Once there was a captain, of a river boat,

  With forty-five free labourers, on the Darling they did float,

  The year was 1894, the strikes had just begun,

  And shearers blood was being spilt, far worse than ’91.

  Chorus:

  After we burnt the Rodney, We danced on the river-bank,

  There we played an old tune, until the Rodney sank,

  Many a heart was happy, if you could only see,

  We had a bloody great bonfire,

  The night we burnt the Rodney.

  We did not like this captain, of him we had no fear,

  To stations he’d been taking scabs, upon the river for years,

  We’ll take his boat the men yelled, we’ll teach Captain Dickson,

  So, wire stretched across the river, to the trees we started fixing.

  But the Captain heard of our little game, and tied up miles below,

  Through the marshes on the river-bank, running we did go,