Bush Yarns

By R.F Giles

There are 49 yarns in my book starting with The Discovery of Australia then a few taken from my life experiences in the bush and at sea drifting into occasional brief yarns sparked by our history and through the second World War with a few Aboriginal yarns for good measure. In some, the names have been replaced to avoid embarrassment, but all are basically true.
My life has been a kaleidoscope of experiences. I became first a beekeeper, then a drover leading to stock dealing and then into cattle and sheep stations in various partnerships. I was a stock and station agent and auctioneer for about 40 years in my own right while running the properties and charter boats, and twice owned motion picture theatres.
I reckon I must have married too often to accumulate, as each wife now has at least one house, and or farm while I live in a rental?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493135738

R.F Giles

Basically the writer was raised during WW2 in Kingston SE, a small South Australian coastal town. As he grew up he tells of his experiences helping his Stock Agent father droving sheep for clients, watering them, walking them up to 20 kilometers a day, learning to ride a one pedal bike, graduating to driving as he grew older and had an apprenticeship as a bee keeper, then moved trainloads of sheep from Broken Hill down to Kingston. Some war time experiences crept in before the family moved to Queensland where the author joined his father, at first droving and shearing sheep for him, branching into timber cutting before taking on droving from New South Wales up through the sparsely settled Carnarvon Ranges the Emerald district where he joined his father buying into a much larger property.

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Copyright © 2014 by R.F Giles.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014903862

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4931-3575-2

                   Softcover            978-1-4931-3574-5

                   eBook                  978-1-4931-3573-8

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 05/21/2014

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Contents

DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA

AN UNLIKELY DOGGER

THE DROVER’S MATE

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

THE BARRIER

BORROLOOLA, BARRA & BULLDUST

OUR ONLY QUEENSLAND BUSH RANGER

STORIES FROM A TRUE AUSSIE BUSH PUB

BALLY

THE MASSACRE AT CULLIN LA RINGO

THE SWAGGIE’S LAST RIDE

THE RINGIN

THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE

TOM COOLON

A LAWYERS GIFT

AN INCH OF RAIN

THE QUEENSLAND BRITISH FOOD CORPORATION

A WOMAN SCORNED

DOWN A LAZY RIVER

—THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM—LES’ NEMESIS

UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE

SAVAGE RECKONING

A LITTLE BIT OF POWER

YOU BLACK BASTARD

—IN SAFE HANDS—

A CLEAN ALIMENTARY TRACT

MOSSIE

BIGGER THAN THE MIN MIN LIGHTS

WHAT LURKS IN THE BRISBANE RIVER

DECLARE IT FOR AUSTRALIA

THE RIVER RUNS DEEP

THE EMIGRANT

GROWING UP DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

LEARNING TO DRIVE

TALKI

FIRE, THE TOWN’S ON FIRE

PETROL RATIONING DAYS

DEMISE OF THE NEW SLOW COMBUSTION STOVE!

HORNETS

DAMPER-WELL NAMED

A SIX MONTH DROVE

POLITICS JUST FROTH AND BUBBLES

BEER WITH BODY

DID HE QUALIFY FOR THE PENSION?

THE GUILTY ONE

FRESH WATER MUD CRABS

A SELF EDUCATED MAN

A LITTLE BIT OF POWER

BUMS UP

A DARK SIDE TO TRAVEL

DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA

I always thought Captain Cook discovered Australia, however while caravanning in WA, we discovered the story of an even earlier explorer’s adventures for you to consider for that honour, and here is his story.

On the morning of the fourth of June 1629, the Dutch ship Batavia was wrecked on one of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, off the coast of Western Australia and that shipwreck was a prelude to an extraordinary tragedy.

Commander Francisco Pelsaert, all the senior officers, some crew and passengers, 48 in all, deserted 268 people, on the wreck on two waterless islands, whilst they went in search of water. Abandoning the search on the mainland coast, they made their way to Batavia (modern day Jakarta), to obtain help; the journey took 33 days.

On arrival, the high boatswain was executed on Pelsaerts’ indictment, for outrageous behaviour before the loss of the ship, and too, the Skipper was arrested for negligence. Batavia’s Governor General despatched Pelsaert in the yacht Sardam to rescue the survivors, but he had extraordinary bad luck when he took 63 days to find the wreck site, almost double the time it took the party to get to Batavia!

Finally landing at the Abrolhos Islands, Pelsaert discovered that a small group of mutineers had massacred 125 men, women, and children of those he had left there, so he executed the leaders.

When the yacht Sardam returned to Batavia, some of the lesser offenders, who had been flogged, keelhauled and dropped from the yard arm as punishment during the voyage, then were also executed for good measure! Out of 316 people aboard the Batavia, only 116 survived, while Pelsaert himself died the following year.

For the Dutch Company owners of the Batavia, it was a political and financial disaster, however the events were not forgotten, as a book was published, and it was by studying this and Pelsaert’s Journal, that the wreck was finally rediscovered.

In 1840, two men named Stokes and Wickham visited the Abrolhos Islands in HMS Beagle, as part of an early survey of the Western Australian coast, when they erroneously identified the very southern end of the Abrolhos islands, as the site where the Batavia was lost.

For many years the shipwreck was thought to lie in the Pelsaert Group, however in the 1950s, historian Henrietta Drake-Brockman published the book, Voyage to Disaster that included a translation of Pelsaert’s Journal. Henrietta suggested that the wreck site could be to the north in the Wallabi Island Group west of Geraldton Township? Subsequently, journalist Hugh Edwards searched unsuccessfully for the site, then in 1963, a crayfish man, Dave Johnson, took three Geraldton divers, to the wreck site, and these men were the first people to dive there.

Following the discovery of the wreck site, an expedition was made down to the Batavia’s remains. Many items were recovered and Edwards published an account of this in Islands of Angry Ghosts. In 1964, the State Government enacted legislation to protect this and other historic wrecks. In 1972, the Netherlands Government transferred their rights to the Dutch shipwrecks on the Western Australian coast to the Australian Government. Finally, in 1976 the Commonwealth government enacted Federal legislation to protect the Batavia’s resting place, and as well all other shipwreck sites for the Australian community.

The public are encouraged to explore and enjoy these sites, either in the water or in the museums and all that is asked is that the wreck sites not be disturbed so that they may be available for future generations. Information sheets about the different wreck sites in Western Australia are available from the Fremantle Maritime Museum. Between 1972 and 1976 the Department of Maritime Archaeology conducted a series of excavations of the Batavia. The artefacts from these excavations were treated by the Museum Conservation Laboratory, and may now be seen in the Maritime Museum in Fremantle and too, in the Geraldton Regional Museum. During the excavation, a part of the hull of the vessel was uncovered, carefully recorded and then raised. After a number of years of treatment by the Conservation Laboratory, the remains were rebuilt in the Freemantle Maritime Museum and this is now the centrepiece for the Museum. The section on display is the stern quarter of the port (left) side of the ship, up to the top of the first gun-deck and includes the transom and stern-post. The author’s sketch of this is in this book.

The vessel was built in an unusual manner with a double layer of planking and constructed by building the vessel up from the keel with planks, then later adding the ribs. Many unusual and interesting artefacts were recovered from the site. These included a prefabricated stone portico, ornate silverware, ceramics and bricks, all of which were part of the ‘paying’ ballast of the vessel. The silver coins were the main cargo, which coins were used by the Company to pay for their trade in the East Indies. The coins from the Batavia were mainly Rijksdaalders from the Netherlands together with German Thalers. The word Thaler is the origin of the modern word ‘dollar’. Some of the German coins were quite old, with the oldest dated 1542, suggesting that the coins were collected as bullion. It is known that Pelsaert recovered eight of the ten chests that the Batavia carried, while the Museum has recovered about 7700 coins, 80% of which were in poor condition and represent the main contents of the missing two chests.

During the excavation of the site, 137 shaped sandstone blocks were raised from the wreck site. On return to Fremantle and after conservation, work started on identification of their significance on board the ship, it became obvious that the blocks made up a portal. Research in the archives identified it as having been destined for the water port of the Castle at Batavia. An engraving by Pieter van den Broecke in 1629 at Batavia shows the Castle, with scaffolding in place and the water port unfinished.

Many people wonder why there are 17th century European shipwrecks on the Western Australian coast, and the answer is spice. In the 16th and 17th century, Europe had an almost insatiable need for spice. Large quantities were brought to Europe by sea in the 16th century by the Portuguese. By the early 17th century, companies formed by the English and the Dutch were trading in competition with each other, and with the Portuguese. The route the Dutch Company took to the East Indies across the Indian Ocean was long, unhealthy and slow. In 1611, the Company pioneered a new route by sailing south from the Cape of Good Hope, then east and finally turned north to Batavia.

This route was much faster and healthier, but passed close to the mythical and undiscovered Terra Australis Incognita, which was finally sighted in 1616, and disasters soon followed. Ironically it was an English ship in 1622, following the Dutch route that was first to be wrecked. The Batavia met the same fate in 1629, then the Vergulde Draeck (1656), Zuytdorp (1712) and Zeewijk (1727). Surprisingly, out of 8190 outward and homeward voyages by the Dutch Company, only 305 ended in disaster, with one English and four VOC ships known to have been wrecked on the Western Australian coast, and they have all been found.

Batavia is Australia’s second oldest known shipwreck; the oldest is the English East India Company ship Trial, lost off the north-west of Western Australia in 1622. So, contrary to popular opinion it was the Dutch in 1606 that discovered Australia, not Captain Cook!

In 1616, Dirk Hartog left a plate on Dirk Hartog Island, in the Shark Bay area of West Australia, commemorating his landfall. This is the earliest European artefact and is at present in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Vlamingh Plate, replaced this in 1697, and may be seen in the Fremantle Maritime Museum.

AN UNLIKELY DOGGER

E merald Downs just out of Emerald, once owned by Fred Gowland, and Lara Station then leased by my father, Tom Giles, had a dingo problem. They had jointly employed George Callaghan the local dogger, who had caught all bar one elusive Dingo, however this last one was really cunning.

It walked around gun traps (then legal to use) and peed on the guns themselves to show its contempt, and just scratched more soil over the dog trap tongues that George set, just to show it knew they were there. It totally ignored George’s secret ingredient with which he had lured many a wild dog to his traps, being well matured bitch urine. George tried baiting using raw meat, and corned meat, with all baits scent obscured by smoking, all of which still proved failures, if you discounted our dogs, poisoned by baits dropped to them while on their chains by crows. The baits certainly worked on them.

Dad and Fred were at their wits end, for this particular dingo had killed and maimed some hundreds of sheep, biting their anuses out and usually leaving most of the poor bitten animals to die from fly strike, if not found in time in the yellow wood scrub. Early one morning Dad called on Fred to hatch out a new strategy, which was to mount as many armed horsemen as possible and have them ride through the scrub in sight of one another. They planned to drive the dingo out of the scrub to where George the dog catcher and a crack shot, could safely shoot it.

The plan was set in motion, and the only man not in the horseback line-up was Fred’s handyman cum gardener, Freddie Blackburn. Freddie was not considered to be much of a rider, so it was thought best to leave him back home at the Emerald Downs homestead, in case he shot his own foot.

Men rode along, some letting out a cooee, some cracking whips, with all making a tremendous racket to drive the dingo ahead of them toward George. In the meantime, Freddie back at the homestead decided it was time to get the cows in for milking, so saddled up a big awkward looking but quiet clumper mare, often used by children to ride, when not getting the cows in, and rode quietly out.

Freddie had not gone far, when to his surprise out from the scrub trotted a dingo, obviously having eluded the riders looking for it, and headed the opposite direction while looking back over its shoulder now and then. Freddie gave chase on his unwieldy mount, and since he had no gun, he reached down to unhook a stirrup iron and leather, no easy task for him. He had just got the leather off and had actually overtaken the dingo, while clinging to the saddle pommel for dear life, when a fallen log tripped the horse, flinging poor Freddie off. As luck would have it, Freddie’s somersault landed him on top of the dingo and killed it on the spot.

Later that day, the disappointed riders came straggling back for lunch to find Freddie with a jubilant smirk on his face, pegging out the dingo’s skin.

THE DROVER’S MATE

R usty came to me when I was a young drover down near Dirranbandi, in exchange for a ten-pound note. A lot of money for me then, however I was desperate for a dog and Rusty was recommended to me—by the bloke who sold me my horses the day before. Not that that was any real assurance I thought, after sighting the scruffy grey coated bag of bones, wobbly legged from starvation. I started to turn away.

Best dog I ever ‘ad, slurred the be whiskered drover sporting an obvious hangover. I still said nothing.

Tell yer what. I’ll toss that there pup Nigger in with Rusty.

The drover nodded at a small black scruff of a pup, then looked back at me, hopefully.

Is it a deal?

I looked at the two starving animals and my heart went out to them, over ruling my common sense.

Okay—but their chains come with them, and we shook hands on the deal.

I drove back to my mob of six thousand sheep camped at a coolabah shaded waterhole on the Balonne River. In my absence my offsiders had slaughtered a sheep, and the two new dogs fell on the discarded head and hide eating everything, even the short wool.

That night I found Rusty was wary of campfires, as his previous master must have thrown burning sticks at him when he fossicked for scraps near campfires. I cut some meat from the freshly killed sheep carcass hanging from a tree to set, then took this well away from the campfire to tempt the dogs. Rusty timidly came close to the offered food, but would not come close enough to catch and retie him. Nigger was not as wary.

That night a sheep escaped the netting fence put around the flock each evening, but we knew nothing of this until we awoke to find the escapee pinned against the break yard, Rusty grinning at it, tail wagging.

Gradually Rusty gained confidence in me, and his coat became a sleek grey almost like fur, rather than hair. He would sit contentedly on my horses’ wither keeping a careful eye on the flock as they fed. Now and then, unbidden, he would jump down and trot away right ahead of the grazing animals, planting himself in a patch of tall grass. At first I wondered what he was up to, until I noticed when the sheep reached the place he was hidden, they’d veer toward him. They would walk into a suddenly quite obvious Rusty, who would have raised himself to a sitting position, grinning at the startled leader.

I soon realised Rusty needed no supervision, and chaining was unnecessary. In fact I came to the conclusion Rusty only tolerated me along to open and close gates!

Nigger however needed training. Here again Rusty came to the fore letting the pup tag along. Together they would chase strays back, but if the pup became too boisterous, Rusty would growl and knock him off his feet.

Evenings, Nigger was tied to a wheel of our truck to prevent him enjoying puppy games, which could disturb the sheep. One night a drunken station hand driving too fast swerved toward the truck, leaving a broken bundle of black fur in his wake. We splinted Nigger’s hind leg and that frosty night he slept wrapped in one of my blankets. Next day he would not keep the splint on, as he followed Rusty everywhere, licking at the broken leg now and then. Unable to keep up with a running sheep, Nigger just wore it down, always returning the escapee to the mob. The leg never did repair, so Nigger mostly rode behind me draped over my mounts’ rump, leading the quiet life, save when he fell asleep and slipped off.

Rusty mated up with a pretty brown and white sheepdog bitch we called Judy, and they made a magic team. One night we camped in an open scrubby paddock, with one side of the break tied to a railway fence. Nigger slept near the fire, creeping closer to the embers as the fire died down, until he was almost on top of the remnants of the fire.

Rusty and Judy were on guard and we men had all fallen asleep, when out of the black night thundered a train from Roma headed for Charleville, its brilliant light cutting a bright swathe far ahead. The driver must have seen the sheep’s eyes glowing ahead, so blew the whistle long, loud and continuously. Panicked sheep pressed hard against our makeshift fence until six thousand terrified animals rolled over the top of the netting, flattening everything they came to under their sharp little hooves. We only had time to get behind gum trees, and watch as our swags and camp gear was trampled and dragged everywhere. If we’d not wakened in time, we may not have lived through that maelstrom of cloven hooves.

Nigger didn’t.

Unable to move quickly enough he was pounded to a bloody mass of black hair, so we decided to bury him under the fire’s ashes, which we all reckoned would be a nice warm spot the pup would like to be near.

We were awakened at piccaninny dawn by the murmur of grazing sheep, and into the breath of morning light came Judy at the lead, Rusty at the tail, bringing in a tightly circling mob. I counted the sheep finding none missing, nor a stray among them! The two dogs must have gone with the lead of the rushing sheep, turning them, and brought the entire flock back intact.

Three months later we counted our flock through the boundary gates into m home, Lara Station on Theresa Creek between Emerald and Canella, where I’d barely become used to an ordinary bed again, when a phone message came telling me that Theresa Creek was coming down a banker. About five thousand hectares of our property was flood plain, with several anabranches that would be flooded. I saddled up and rode out to open gates so trapped animals could escape. Rusty trotted along behind my horse, but was sent home, as our cattle were not worked with dogs, so didn’t take kindly to a dog’s attention, especially one that did not bite.

I rode out, head bent into the rain, opening the paddock gate without dismounting, and kept on to the first anabranch, which was just starting to run. I crossed the next stream running just that little bit deeper, and came upon about two hundred sheep huddled miserably together, heads down. Cattle could be heard lowing further out, but I knew these sheep had no chance in a flood—the cattle being bigger, might.

I pushed those sulky wet sheep toward safety, trying to drive them through the shallow water. They balked at the water’s edge, stubbornly refusing to enter the rising waters, despite my frenzied shouts and the nudges on their backsides from my horse. Dismounting, I threw a sheep across the rising trickle, but it immediately returned to its mates. I continued throwing sheep after stinking wet sheep into that water with the same result. The stream had risen to be six inches deep and was rising fast. If I didn’t succeed in moving those sheep in minutes my own life was in danger, but remembering all we’d been through getting those stubborn woolly animals to the station, spurred my efforts to desperation level.

Suddenly, ‘Yap, Yap,’ and there was Rusty urging and pushing from behind. I threw another sheep in and then another, then wonder of wonders, they started to move forward and over.

We reached the next anabranch, which was now almost a swim for the sheep, but Rusty rushed them in a tight mob straight into the muddy waters, not giving them time to stop, then on and through the open gate to safety.

I heard a roar and looking back where only moments before we had been saw a wall of water two meters high sweeping everything away in a raging maelstrom of foam and debris. The cattle had to take their chance with the flood, and we later received calls from twenty miles away, to come and pick our stragglers up, however a few were not so fortunate and perished hanging from tree branches thirty feet from the ground.

Rusty was never far from me from then on and never again told to go home, which was finally his downfall. We two firm mates were out felling trees for yard posts in a thick patch of scrub, with old Rusty dozing unseen in the shade, while I did the active part of our work. I concentrated on felling a particularly tall ironbark tree, which commenced its almost silent arc to the ground. Rusty, now grey haired, deaf, and asleep in the cool shade, just didn’t know what hit him, and I didn’t know he was dead until I cut the head off the tree, finding him there still seemingly asleep.

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

G randad Dave Forrest better known as Pop and Grandma Alice moved into Fairfield, with Pop often helping me bring sheep through that property for sale or to shear at Evandale.

Pop was a tall blue eyed man, well over six feet, given to repeating every sentence he made, which at first was most annoying but as time passed no one seemed to notice any more. Grandma Alice was small—in stature that is. Otherwise she was tall—from side to side, jolly in her outlook and cooked huge meals for everyone, and often. Mums brother, Ken, lived with his parents because he was retarded at birth when his umbilical cord nearly choked him, and about all he could reliably achieve was make and drink copious quantities of tea while discussing his current medication pill colours! That sort of conversation and nothing else usually saw poor Ken left at the table alone drinking his tea and muttering to himself. He did chop wood for the fire but could do little else.

Pop no longer rode a horse so a big old half draught mare was found that would fit inside the shafts of an old sun bleached sulky that had lain abandoned under a tree at Fairfield for years, and in this we carried food and camping gear for any overnight droving. He kept the tail of the sheep going while I moved about on a horse using dogs to keep the mob on track or to get sheep back that crawled under fences.

One very wet year Pop and I were to pick up a mob west of Tara. Arriving at the boundary gate I opened this for Pop to clip clop through on his way up to the shearing yards and our waiting sheep.

It just happened that the old mare was in season and as his rig entered the paddock, up raced a tiny chestnut pony stallion, to sniff things out for himself.

I hurriedly swung the gate shut but there was no thought of escape on that small stallion’s mind. His was the impossible dream. He just pranced straight up to old Bess in her blinkers, and her fat sides barely contained between the sulky shafts and then he whinnied.

Bess’ sides swelled with desire at that sound, and the old shafts creaked and cracked as she restlessly swung her head from side to side trying to see past her blinkers.

The stallion raced round and round the rig with old Pop ineffectually swinging his whip and the mare becoming more and more excited. The tiny stallion tried to mount her sideways in the shafts and Bess reared up, tipping Pop, who was standing at the time trying to control