by A B Facey
Two days later Bob’s place became a hive of activity. The four white drovers turned up: Arthur Rose – the cook, Stan Smith, George Pogson and George Morgan (they called him Darkey because of the other George). Then later that evening the coloured men arrived – six part-blooded Aboriginals and two full-bloods.
The next day was a day of getting ready. Bob went up to the store for supplies for the trip and he told Stan and Darkey to bring the horses into the stable. I asked Darkey why Bob wanted the horses in, and he said, ‘This is what he always does a day or so before starting the drive. We’ll feed the horses on chaff and oats. It hardens them up a little. When we go, some extra feed will be strapped onto the spare horses and pack mules, so that we can give all the animals one feed a day of hard dry food. This stops them from getting gripe and stomach pains. After a few days of travelling they will be all right, but at first we have to go steady.’
That night, when we were having our evening meal, Bob announced that we would be leaving the following afternoon. He said that we would be travelling as much as possible in the evening, night and early morning while the weather was so hot; and resting up during the day. He said, ‘Tomorrow morning, finish your packing, strap your bed-roll onto your horse, then rest up for the rest of the day. We will have a meal about four thirty and be ready to leave at five.’
We all went to bed early that evening. I felt very excited. While Arthur and I were getting into bed, Arthur said, ‘Bert, tomorrow and the next few weeks will be bad for you. It takes about two weeks to get over saddle soreness if you’re not used to riding. Us others take only two days after we have been away for a few weeks. It’s six weeks since I rode a horse so I expect a little trouble. Ask Bob for some of his ointment tomorrow. Rub it on your bottom and the back of your legs from the knees up in the early forenoon and again just before midday. Then keep the treatment going every day, it will help a lot.’ Next morning I didn’t have to ask Bob. He came to me with a four-ounce bottle of ointment and gave me the same instructions. He said, ‘This is going to be your biggest worry for awhile, Bert. Saddle soreness is very trying, so you will have to overcome it. After that you will be okay, so good luck.’
31
THE RIDE NORTH
So, on the tenth day of January 1909, at almost five o’clock in the afternoon, we set off on the long trip to a place unknown to me, some six hundred miles away. As well as our own saddle horses, we had five mules loaded with food, pots and pans, and a camp oven. Five spare saddle horses were carrying feed, nose-bags, ropes, hobbles and other gear. The five pack mules were hitched together by a lead, and led by Arthur, all travelling in Indian file. Stan led the spare horses the same way. He, George and Darkey agreed to handle the spares until I got over the expected saddle soreness. We were all in Indian file, our boss taking the lead, and the black men at the rear. We made quite a long line, twenty-four horses in all.
We started off with the sun behind us. The horses were very fresh and walked at a fast gait. Bob didn’t follow a track of any sort during the day, but as darkness came we came across an unused track and followed this until well into the night. There had been heavy rain the second week in December up where we were going and down to Mullewa. The small water holes had plenty of water in them and Bob remarked that the early rains had given the natural grass a good start.
Finally the Boss said, ‘We’ll camp now for a few hours, then get going about three o’clock in the morning.’ We all unsaddled our horses, and hobbled them or let them go to graze. The spares and mules were hitched to long ropes so that they could graze. One of the men took the first turn looking after the horses and mules and the rest of us had a mug of tea and a meal that Arthur had made. Then we slept until about three o’clock in the morning, and were on our way again soon after.
This was the procedure for the first four days. We travelled from five to ten thirty in the evening, then from four to nine in the morning. This made our travelling time about ten hours each day, and we covered roughly thirty miles a day.
On the morning of the fifth day we came to a water hole in a creek. The grass was extra well grown so Bob gave the horses a whole day’s rest. We had passed through the first rabbit-proof fence about an hour before. The next day was overcast – heavy black cloud covered the whole sky and the weather became cooler. Just after daylight we loaded up and set off again. The day’s rest had done my sore bottom and legs good. I never let on to any of the men, but I had suffered hell for two days before we had a break. I rubbed on the ointment several times while we were resting.
Our food was mostly tinned food – tins of meat, jam, tinned milk – and Arthur used to make a baking-powder loaf in the camp oven. When he took the loaf out of the oven it looked like a grindstone and this was what Arthur called it. When we stopped for a few hours, or for the night, Arthur would leave his horses and mules for us to look after and say, ‘I’ll have to make another grindstone.’ These loaves Arthur made were lovely. We never had any butter because of the heat, but we had plenty of golden syrup, tinned jam and cheese. Our boss used to take two of the horses and go into the station houses we passed to fetch back some home-made bread and fresh meat.
The camp oven was made of cast iron, round, and was twenty inches across and five inches deep. Arthur used to hang it on one of the pack mules where it was always handy to use. He had various billy cans of all sizes hanging on the same mule and used to make about two gallons of tea at a time.
Late in the afternoon of the sixth day, when we had been travelling for about three hours, it started to rain. The Boss came back from the lead and said that we were in for a downpour. He told us to make the horses hurry along because it was only a few miles to Lake Austin where we would camp the night. So we hurried the horses along, trotting them on the downhill stretches. We had put on our capes, and the food and rugs were covered with waterproof sheets.
Finally we arrived at Lake Austin. There was a large shed there that had been built many years before for boundary riders. We had room enough to stack all our saddles and gear, and still shelter in it ourselves. All the horses except one were hobbled out to graze. (We always kept one horse on a lead near our camp to round up the others the next morning. This horse would graze around as far as the lead would reach, then one of the men would get up during the night and shift it so it could reach more grass.) Next morning, it was still raining. We were lucky because the old shed had a fireplace in one end and we managed to find enough dry firewood to have a nice big fire.
The rain stopped early in the afternoon, and it was late in the evening when we moved off. We followed the bush track north-east. Stan said that this track was the Central Stock Route. The sky was cloudless and we kept going for about six hours. Well into the night we came to a valley; both sides towered hundreds of feet into the sky with large granite boulders showing like big monuments on top. We camped at this spot. A creek ran through the valley and there was plenty of grass for the horses to eat. We had a quick cold meal of tinned meat and damper owing to not being able to get enough dry wood or sticks to light a fire. There were many large overhanging boulders and we camped under these. In spite of the heavy rain the ground there was dry.
I was still very saddle-sore. When we were travelling after dark, I was able to take the weight off the sore parts by leaning and putting most of my weight on the bedroll strapped to the front of the saddle. I tried to hide my soreness because the men were all so sure that I would have to get off my pony and walk. So in the daytime I would grin and bear it, but under the cover of darkness I did all kinds of things to keep myself going and show them I could stand it.
The next few days were very hot, so we returned to our pattern of resting during the hottest part of the day and around midnight. Time lost importance to us as the days came and went. The Boss kept records of the days and the weeks. He and Darkey were the only ones who had reliable watches. Two of the black men had watches but they had to correct them each day with the Boss or Darkey, as one would alway
s be fast and the other kept stopping.
We had no water problems as the creeks still had plenty of water. The country and scenery changed from day to day. The timber was only in the valleys and it was small; large trees were few and far between with none whatsoever on the hills or high ground. We saw thousands of anthills – some standing as high as fifteen feet – all over the low level ground, thousands of blackboys, and patches of mallee. The hills looked bald. Most were covered with granite boulders or scrub, and some were covered with a reddish soil which looked very pretty at sunrise and sunset.
The track we were following wound around the high hills and over the smaller ones. We came near to some homesteads, but although the Boss called into some of them with two of the pack mules, the rest of us never went near them. The names of the stations are hard to remember as most of them were names used by the blacks before white men came. With my limited schooling, I couldn’t pronounce them properly, so was unable to remember them.
During the middle of the third week out from Mullewa we had to have all the horses and mules shod. Stan, Darkey, George and the Boss did the shoeing. We stopped at a boundary rider’s hut that had a small forge.
My soreness had almost gone and I was feeling much better. Arthur told me that we were east of the Robinson Range, or Peak Hill as some called it. He said that we were nearly halfway from where we had started and that we had done well, but from here on the going would be harder and we would have to rest the horses every two or three days. The shoeing was completed in almost four hours, and we all had a good rest before starting out again.
I remember the names of some of the places Arthur told me as we passed through them: names such as Lake Austin, Day Dawn, Meekatharra. Arthur said that one of the waterways we crossed was the commencement of the Murchison River. He said, ‘Down near the coast it is very wide and hard to cross at this time of the year with cattle, but by the time we get down there on the way back, we will be well into the dry season.’
The travelling became harder, the country more rugged, and by the end of the third week the Boss decided to give the horses a day’s rest. We came to a large valley the blacks called Wonging Valley. (I was told that Wonging means ‘noises’ in the blacks’ language.) Arthur said the whites called it Echo Valley. It did return the sound to anyone calling out.
This valley was beautiful. A small water stream was running along it, and the water was clear, fresh and tasted beautiful. To the north was a large granite outcrop, some two hundred feet high, overlooking the valley. This outcrop looked like it had been part of a large range of hills that had been washed away, leaving only the granite rocks. In between the boulders and under the parts overhanging the valley provided shade and shelter. The water came from under the boulders running down the valley, and there was an abundance of beautiful feed for the horses.
We camped there and rested the horses, intending to move on the next day. But next morning the sky was overcast, lightning could be seen in the distance and we could hear thunder. The Boss said we were in for heavy rain. We remained where we were as the shelter was good. About midday it started to rain, and didn’t it come down – I hadn’t seen rain like that before. We were high and dry and well sheltered, and the men brought the horses in under the boulders. The rain was so heavy that the valley had about three feet of water in it within an hour. It rained all that afternoon and well into the night, and the thunder and lightning were terrific. I had never liked lightning and this storm didn’t help me to like it any better. I was scared stiff.
The next morning was fine and the clouds were lighter, although the sky was still overcast. At daylight the men turned the horses out to feed. They had been tied under shelter all that night and were very hungry. After the midday meal we packed up and got on our way again. The weather was cooler and travelling pleasant.
During our stay at Echo Valley, the Boss had asked me how I was liking the trip. I told him that my soreness was gone and I felt fine. He asked me how I liked my pony and I said that she was lovely. He then told me how he came by her. Four years ago, while on a drive, they came across a mare. She appeared to be very sick, and looked as if she had been lying in the position they found her in for two or three days. She had lain down to give birth to a foal and was then too weak to get up. As they approached the mare, the foal whinnied and staggered towards them. It was a filly and very pretty. The mother was almost dead and beyond help, so the Boss shot her to end her suffering. He was about to shoot the foal when one of the young black boys begged him not to – he suggested that, as they had a cow in the herd that had had a calf the day before (they had to kill the calf as that was the usual thing when a calf was born on the drive), they teach the foal to suckle from the cow. The black said he would look after the foal, and make a cradle out of bags to carry her on one of the pack horses for a few days, until she was strong enough to keep up with the herd herself. The men appealed to the Boss and the prettiness of her markings made him spare her life. The black said that once the foal learned to suck the cow it would follow it. Everything the black said came true. The foal got a taste for the cow’s milk, and after a few days, the cow took complete charge of the foal. ‘Now Bert,’ the Boss said, ‘that’s the pony you have on this drive. I broke her in last year. We named her Dinnertime. She got the name on account of always knowing when it was meal time while she was little on that drive four years ago.’
After we left Echo Valley the whole country changed. On the level and flat country there were thousands of anthills, some huge and some small, and the trees were all butt. Some of the tree butts were three or four feet through at the base, with two or three small limbs growing out of them. They looked as if something had cut the limbs off when they got to be three to four inches thick. Arthur told me that storms were the cause of this, and also, that cyclones were the reason why there weren’t any large trees. He said that the cyclones flattened all the trees, and there was a cyclone every year or so in that part of the North.
Although the men used to tell some fantastic tales about the blacks, we didn’t come across any big tribes until four days out from Echo Valley – then we came to a very large tribe. There were hundreds of them. Their camp was at a place called Three Rivers near the Collier Range. The natives were of all ages and were dressed mostly with skins. The men wore kangaroo skin loin coverings, the women had most of their body covered. The little kids didn’t have any coverings at all. They were all bare-footed and didn’t wear any kind of head covering.
As we approached the camp they ran to meet us. I must have looked frightened because Darkey said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Bert, they won’t trouble us. They’re a friendly lot.’ I replied, ‘They might be a friendly lot, but I don’t like the looks of them. They look anything but friendly.’ Our horses didn’t like all the noise, especially the din the dogs made. They must have had fifty or sixty dogs, all shapes and sizes, and all barking.
We were travelling behind each other Indian file and we didn’t stop. Some two or three hours later we stopped and set up camp in a valley near the Collier Range. I had to believe what I was told about where we were because I didn’t have a clue to our true position. All I knew was where the sun came up and set. The Boss said that we would rest the horses for a whole day.
We were in our fifth week and had travelled approximately four hundred and fifty miles, and had some two hundred miles or more to go. We got going again the next afternoon. All the animals were fed and seemed to be anxious to be moving again. The country was very rugged and hilly, and the weather was again very hot. The only shade was in the valleys, under scrub and small trees.
Arthur said we would be passing through a large station in about three days. He said it was one of the biggest cattle stations and it was called Mundiwindi. We would be collecting quite a big mob of cattle from there on our way back. The station hands would bring them out to meet us near the commencement of the Ashburton River.
The next two days took us to Mundiwindi. We passed about t
wo miles east of the homestead. The Boss and one of the blacks took two mules and went into the homestead for supplies. The Boss gave Arthur instructions to continue to a watering place about three miles further on and camp.
We arrived at the watering place (a well) near midday. It had a windmill that pumped water into a large squatter’s tank and from that into several long water troughs for the cattle and horses. It was beautiful water.
The weather was cooler. We unpacked and had a mug of tea and a cold lunch of tinned meat and damper, then damper with jam. After that, we all – except one man who had to look after the horses – spread our bedrolls out on the ground and went to sleep.
One of our big troubles on the trip was wild horses, or brumbies. There were hundreds of them. That was one of the reasons why we always had to hobble the horses and mules when we turned them out to graze, and why we always kept a horse handy on tether. The wild stallions would try to entice our mares away, and would bite and kick the geldings, so one of us had to take turns in watching the horses all the time.
I didn’t wake until just after sundown, when the Boss returned from the homestead. He had managed to get a few loaves of home-made bread, a side of young beef and a large piece of bacon. Arthur didn’t take long getting some of the choice steaks fried, and we had the meal of the trip. We gave that home-made bread and steak the treatment that hungry people would be expected to give it.
Owing to the horses being leg weary, the Boss ordered us to rest till the next day. He said, ‘We have only about one hundred and sixty miles to go, so we can take the horses steady from now on. We take over the first lot of cattle on the first day of March, in fifteen days time, so we can take our time.’
