by Stuart Kells
I greatly enjoyed the voyage. There was a steward to call and bring you tea and fruit, he also cleaned the boots and shoes – a cabin steward, I suppose – then a bathroom steward, a table steward, a deck steward, and a smoke room steward, and they were all very decent. The passengers were also very sociable. In fact, I felt quite sad when the time came for us to leave. I felt really lonely. I picked up and walked towards the tram feeling very much alone in the great city. It’s a rotten feeling. To my knowledge, in the whole of Sydney, whose population is about a million, there was not a soul I had ever seen before. I longed to be on a boat again, a boat bound for home.
Sydney Harbour is wonderful. Through the narrow passage between the North and South Heads you emerge into one of the most, if not the most, beautiful natural harbours in the world. There are bays everywhere and a deep passage of wonderfully clean water for miles; you could place thousands of the largest vessels in the world there and pass by the ‘Heads’ without seeing a sign of one. All over the harbour hundreds of large ferry boats ply. Ferry boats leave from everywhere and go to anywhere. From Sydney, a ferry boat leaves for Manly, a half hours run, every fifteen minutes and each boat is capable of carrying 1,200 passengers. Nowhere is the land flat or uninteresting, from the water’s edge the land rises quickly. Each bay is surrounded by hills, most of them covered with trees. As the boat passes around small headlands, fresh and more beautiful bays come into view until the traveller is fairly dazed by this wonderful display laid out by nature. How glorious it must have been to have sailed around the harbour before it was inhabited. One passes by Botany Bay, found by Cook, before reaching the ‘Heads’.
How wonderful it must have been to discover what is now Sydney Harbour.
I have not touched any intoxicating liquor since before I left Renmark, yet I assure you that this room is not keeping still. Also the pavements of Sydney suffer from the same complaint. Even now, eight hours since I left the boat, I allow for the roll. There is one bad effect the Dimboola has had on me, it has made me feel more homesick than I have been for many a long month. I could almost say many a long year.
When I arrived at the Hotel Sydney this morning, I found that Mr Rowlands was still staying here. He was out, but when he came in we introduced ourselves. He has had an attack of flu, but is now right again and is making up for lost time. He could only spare about five minutes to talk to me, as he was already overdue at some appointment. He will be going back to Mandurama on Wednesday, but is afraid he will be unable to take me in his car as he is taking back several people. So I shall most likely have to go by train. This afternoon I went to Taronga Park Zoological Gardens. Taronga Park is a wonderful place but more of it anon. I am writing this during dinner time. I do not feel I can afford dinner here. Bed and breakfast is 11/6, dinner is 5/6. So I am doing without. Mr Rowlands said he would see me this evening. Now it is 7.30pm, so I had better get along.
MANDURAMA
Saturday, 20 June 1925
This is being written in the billiard room of Mr Rowland’s house, ‘Millamolong’. I am sitting in a comfortable armchair in front of the fire and this book is resting on a table, almost an unknown circumstance in the annals of my diary writing. My thoughts are slightly interrupted by the fact that there are three children here, one of whom seems very keen on sitting on the aforementioned table. However, they are slowing down a bit so I think I can manage to do some writing. I left Sydney and its wonderful harbour on Wednesday and travelled by train as far as Katoomba. The country all the way was very different from that of South Australia, especially the Paringa district. I was surprised how suddenly we entered the hills. The train was travelling over a plain one minute and the next we were in the hills. We climbed until we reached Katoomba, which is about 3,300 feet above sea level. Here, I alighted and booked a room at the Railway Hotel. Then I spied Mr Rowlands and his Lancia. I walked up and found that he was having trouble with his battery; neither the lights nor self-starter working. I helped to give him a send-off (as bad as our Lizzie, having to push it to start it) and then strolled down to one of the sights – The Three Sisters and Echo Point. Here I got my first real close view of the Blue Mountains. From the train I had several glimpses of them.
Friday, 26 June 1925
I have been having such a fine time here that I have not been able to do any writing. Now I have such a lot to write about I don’t know where to start. I have not told you of my last trip down from Renmark to Adelaide when we pushed the car, an Oakland Six, from the garage to the bridge over the irrigation channel, the boss and I pulling on the wheels and Mrs Withers blocking-up the wheel with a stone every time we managed to move it. How we, by strenuous efforts, eventually reached the crest, then I got into the driver’s seat, put the car in gear while the boss gave the car a push, and how then it failed to go. We started to push it back again, when we saw Archie Braund coming along with a load of oranges on this Bettendorf. He gave us a tow, which soon had the desired effect of starting the engine. I have not told you of all the trouble we had going down. We had to fill the radiator every ten miles and oil every twenty and we had two or three punctures. We started to start the car soon after 6am and reached Adelaide at 9.45pm. I drove the whole way, the last sixty miles with the lights on which gave a two-candle power light all through the Gorge when I could not see more than twenty feet in front of me. And didn’t I put the wind-up the boss. He had never been through the Gorge before and he did not like to go over twenty miles an hour when he could not see where he was going. He wanted to get out and walk and had there been a station near where he could have caught a train to Adelaide I am sure he would have. He said he thought we must be travelling nearly sixty m.p.h. We reached Richmond after the Lows had retired for the night, and all we found to eat was bread and butter.
I have not even told you about my last trip up, when we had to stop at Morgan when we broke the petrol pipe on each of the cars. To get back to the trip down, the morning after, I rose early, had a bath, shaved and started to pack. I could not close the case and had to call in assistance. I was lucky in being able to secure the services of the boss; as I believe I have mentioned before, he is a man of substance. He also phoned up Wills for me to find out what time the boat-train left Adelaide. He told me it was about half an hour before the boat was due to sail. Then we filled the radiator of the car, blew up one tyre and started off for Mitchell’s, where the car was to be left. The boss had never driven the car and thought he might get muddled with the controls, which were different from the Moon and Hupmobile. Halfway there, the tyre blew off; not a blow out, but the tyre parted from the rim. As time was scarce, I drove the car the rest of the way on the rim.
Mr Mitchell is a good fellow, for when I asked him, half-jokingly, to drive me to the station he agreed. I arrived at the station soon after 11pm (11.17pm to be precise) and could just see the train leaving the platform. I would have sprinted after it but for my bag. On leaving the station, I saw two females and a child who had also missed the train so I offered to go halves in the car fare. They agreed and it cost me 10/- to get to the boat. I have written something about life on the boat. I was really sorry to leave her. In Sydney, I had dinner one night with Mr Harding and his son. I found out where Mr Ransford’s office was and called on him. He is an old Renmarkian and I had been told to go and see him by Mr Woods. He is the agent for the Commonwealth for Phillips rubber soles and heels. He invited me out to afternoon tea at Farmers. I was surprised to find out that he was born in Bristol and that his parents still lived there. He has lately built a new house and is contemplating calling it ‘Coombe Dingle’ after the spot where he spent many happy days. Curious isn’t it? He expects to be going to the Old Country in about a month and, if so, he will visit Coombe Dingle.
Perhaps by the time you read this he will have called on you and told you how well I was looking and have come back to Sydney and will have told me how well you were all looking.
Taronga Park is a most wonderful Zoo. Here you see
the animals in their native state. By the entrance are the bears. An illusion is adopted here which is most effective. Walking along the path, the pit cannot be seen. It looks as if there was nothing at all to stop the bears from walking wherever they wished. Everything is very natural; there are nearly a hundred monkeys all together with a small hill for them to run about on. The various views one can obtain of Sydney from here are fine. In Sydney one has to go everywhere by ferry and a fine sight the harbour looks with dozens of ferry boats hurrying in all directions.
The Hotel Sydney is a fine place, very comfortable, telephone in every room, and fairly moderate, but quite expensive enough for me. A paper is pushed under the door of your room every morning ‘with the Manager’s compliments’.
After Sydney came Katoomba, that beauty spot in the heart of the Blue Mountains. I would have stopped there for several days, but the grandeur of the scenery made me feel very lonely, sad and homesick. Had only you, to whom this diary is written, been with me I could have spent many days, perhaps weeks. But by myself it was impossible. Also I had not too much money and, as yet, I am still unemployed. Had Allen been there we would have wandered far and wide.
You do not look up to the Blue Mountains from Katoomba but gaze down into blue valleys. From Echo Point you look right down into a huge basin, from the centre of which a mountain rises. Everywhere are trees, all shades of green. In front of you this mountain rises, its base is right down in the misty blue valleys and sometimes cannot be seen. In the distance, the reflection of the sun can be seen on some portion of the mountains or valleys that are stony and not covered with trees, while the sun shining on the trees in the distance more clearly defines and shows to greater advantage the undulations of the country. Faintly can be heard the tinklings of the numerous waterfalls whose presence one suspects without seeing. The scene is totally different in the morning when the basin is full of pure, white mist, when all that can be seen is the mountain in the centre and the sides of the basin. Instead of a blue valley it is then a white valley.
After seeing Echo Point, I ventured further on to The Three Sisters, which are the rocks jutting up whose base (for they appear to share one base) is halfway up the side of the basin. There are some steps not far from here which lead down to the base of The Three Sisters. I crawled halfway down, but as the sun had set before I started I thought it best to get back to the hotel again. I said I crawled down and that just about describes the way I did descend, for the steps are very steep. They were fairly slippery and there were no railings to catch hold of. These steps are very different from the ones which lead to Laura Falls.
The next morning, after purchasing a book of views and dispatching it and sending a telegram to Mr Rowlands, I found I had nearly two hours to wait for my train so I again set out for a walk. This time I journeyed in the direction of Laura Falls. These falls must be right down in the valley. I walked down a long way and, as I could not see them, I changed my direction at a branch in the path and headed for Linda Falls. The path I speak of is composed chiefly of steps with an occasional bridge, one of which was one log to walk on and one rail to hang on to. I reached Linda Falls, which must be a fine sight when there is much water falling. The water appears from the midst of the thick green undergrowth and falls twenty or thirty feet into a small pond like any ordinary waterfall. I had not time to enjoy it, as I had forgotten to tell the stationmaster to hold the train for me. Coming down was easy, but going up – quite a different matter. I started off two steps at a time, but only for a few steps. I counted the steps: 920-odd. And I descended, saw the falls and ascended in less than forty minutes. Something like an American tourist, but I assure you that had I had a companion it would have taken us longer, perhaps a day to do the trip. It would all depend on who the companion was!
I caught the train, changed at Mount Victoria where I had dinner, changed again at Blayney – a very cold place where the wind is very fierce – and at Mandurama a small Fiat car arrived just as the train was leaving. This was from ‘Millamolong’. When I arrived at the homestead, which is about ten miles from Mandurama, there was a meal awaiting me, after which a quiet smoke, then to bed.
I have been here over a week now and I don’t seem to have done anything. I have been for three or four rides over the station, have pruned one short row of vines and have been for a day’s trip in the car. All the land around here is very hilly – steep hills, too. There is not enough level ground on the property to make a cricket pitch and this property consists of roughly 7,000 acres. Mr Rowlands has three other properties: a half share in ‘Avalon’, a station fifty miles away and about the same size as ‘Millamolong’; a half of another property of 15,000 acres; and a third of a property of only a few thousand acres. All this land is worth about £10 an acre and nearly all of it carries one sheep to the acre. It would carry a lot more, but one sheep per acre is not too bad. All the station owners around here seem fairly well off.
There is one man, Mr R.J. Fagan, who owns about 50,000 acres, who spent £1,000 on wireless alone last year. He has a fine transmitting set and frequently sends messages over to America. He has a Ford lorry, an Oldsmobile Six and one of the finest Rolls Royces I have ever seen. He has also just ordered another £1,000 American car. He has had his chauffeur nine years and during that time has had twenty-three cars. At one time he had two Vauxhalls. He was very fond of driving in reliability trials; one of his Vauxhalls did ninety-two m.p.h. on a racing track. Needless to say, he has a fine house. I heard that he was recently left £250,000.
It started to rain just as I arrived here and during the night we had forty-two points of rain. The next day we had 232 points and the next day 235 points. The best rain they have had for years up here. All the creeks were flooded and everywhere fences have been washed away. One creek rose from three or four feet to forty-two in a few hours. Floods everywhere, quite a number of people and cattle drowned, football matches, races and even funerals have been postponed.
Yesterday, Mr Rowlands, another visitor who is staying here – a Mrs Babercar – and myself went to Avalon. The roads were very bad. Three miles from here a portion of a bridge had been washed away and we only had a couple of inches to spare; the next creek there was no sign of a bridge at all. We drove through some private property until we came to a place where we could get down to the water. We crossed the water, but stuck on the mud the other side. A horse was waiting for us and he soon pulled us out. Going up the bank, however, the car very nearly toppled over. I forgot to mention that Mrs Babercar’s son, aged about four, accompanied us. Then through miles of mud. The next bad, really bad I mean, place we came to we put on our chains and just managed to crawl through, in low gear, with the engine racing. We stopped at Canowindra for a cup of tea and sandwiches, and proceeded to the creek near Avalon without anything of note happening. Here there was between four and five feet of water. Mr Rowlands crossed by a wire bridge, borrowed a horse from someone the other side and rode up to the homestead about a mile away. When he came back it was in company with a Ford and a sulky. The sulky crossed the creek and picked us up and took us over one at a time. The water was well over the floor of the sulky, only just below the seat; the horse’s legs could not be seen. When I was going across, the horse stopped in mid-stream and was there nearly five minutes before he could be persuaded to move on. It was just beginning to get exciting when he moved on. It was not the depth of the water that mattered but the strength of the current. Nineteen men have been drowned at this creek. Mrs Babercar was very anxious not to be the first woman.
Safely the other side, we entered the Ford and were soon having dinner at the homestead. We could not stop here long as it was getting late. The country Avalon way is very fine. I crossed the creek the second time by way of the bridge, which consisted of three strands of wire for your feet and two to hold on to. When you were halfway across and looked down into the swirling waters underneath you, the bridge seemed very frail. We hadn’t proceeded far in the Fiat before we had a puncture;
we changed the wheel and were soon on our way again.
We took a different track back as far as Canowindra, and the further we proceeded on this track the worse the road became. At last we were ‘bogged’ up to the axle in soft mud. I removed my shoes and socks, tucked up my trousers and put on the chains. The mud was cold and it was raining. In fact, it was not an ideal moment for paddling. Having got the chains on, we started to go back. I had to push for all I was worth. We managed it and, by keeping well to one side, we pulled through. I paddled in a puddle to wash my feet, then off we went again. We hadn’t proceeded more than a couple of hundred yards before we skidded around and faced the direction from whence we had just come. We skidded in an awkward place and when we came to a standstill were just on the edge of a gutter, a little further and it might have been serious. At Canowindra Mr Rowlands had the puncture mended and we set out on the last lap of the journey. About two miles out the road is banked up and on the somewhat narrow crown of the road we saw a sulky approaching. We pulled on to the left and had just passed it when a horse suddenly appeared from behind the sulky and stood right in our way. Mr Rowlands swerved to the left and we went down the embankment. At the same time, the horse turned around, kicked the tyre of the car and galloped off. Luckily we did not topple over when we went down the embankment. After we had got over the shock, we turned around and were soon on the crown of the road again. A hundred yards further on we found that the tyre that the horse had kicked was flat. So we had to change the wheel again. We arrived back at about 9pm after a really enjoyable day. Today I have done a little writing.
I have been longing for some time to attempt to describe the scenery from Renmark to Adelaide, by way of the Gorge. This is the type of writing I really ought to write down roughly and then revise, alter, correct and then rewrite, but I am on holiday and feel lazy. Starting from the township of Renmark you would proceed up Renmark Avenue which is a fine, wide road, a three chain road, I believe, with two avenues of trees which divide the road into three roads – the centre, the road proper (which is termed a metal road) and, on either side, dirt tracks which can only be used in dry weather. When it rains they become mud tracks and when the sun shines they are dust tracks. Dust is mud which has had the water squeezed out of it. Yesterday we were witnessing dust in the making, or the unfinished product. Although I say there are two avenues of trees on the Renmark Avenue, it would be nearer the truth if I were to say four, for although there are two avenues of trees which have been planted by the order of the Renmark Hotel and which are watered free by the Irrigation Trust, there are trees on the boundaries of the road, if I may be allowed to term it such. The trees in the centre are willows and gums, with a few poplars, while on the extreme are willows, mallee, gums, peppers, olives, fruit trees (especially pears), in one spot an expanse of box thorn and, further on, some tall poplars. In my opinion, the finest sight along the Avenue as regards trees is a veritable curtain of weeping willows. When the wind is fiercely raging and the sun is setting they look glorious. The long branches sweeping to and fro as if in agony, the fantasy of light and shade enhanced and intensified by the coloured rays of the departing sun. As regards majesty, the tall gum trees take some beating, and for a fine view the whole Avenue is glorious. Every time I see it I think it is a real ‘Kings Highway’.