by Stuart Kells
By what is known as the Entrance Gate to Renmark are four very fine poplar trees, worthy sentinels to that great Avenue.
Saturday, 4 July 1925
Unfortunately (or perhaps, for you, fortunately) I was unable to continue with my description of the scenery witnessed on a trip to Adelaide from Renmark, but I think I made quite a lengthy entry as it was. The only trouble is that the thread of the story is broken, not only to you as the reader but also to my humble self as scribbler. One day, perhaps, I am going to write a book chiefly on track driving, but it is quite possible that this book will never be written. The main thing against it would be that it would not be readable; nobody would be troubled to read it. I am afraid that nothing I could ever write would interest anybody, except perhaps the family circle.
And again, perhaps, when I am an old man tottering about with the aid of two sticks and speaking in a wheezy voice, I may read these few books that I have allowed my pen to wander through and I may be permitted to exclaim, ‘Ah, shiver my timbers, but them were the days’.
But even if I do not write a book dealing with my track driving reminiscences I have thought out a title for the book. I thought of it a long time ago and now, for the first time, I will disclose it. On the back of some types of spotlights there is a small mirror and in this mirror can be seen vehicles approaching from the rear (the ground one has just travelled over), and also, by a slight turn, one can see the back seat of the car and the passengers, if any, sitting on it. Bearing this in mind, you may be able to understand why I have chosen for the title of this unwritten book: ‘Back of the Spotlight’.
For the first four days of this week I was very busy helping with the ‘lamb marking’. This is one of the hardest, and by far the dirtiest, jobs I have ever done. It also necessitated fairly long hours, as we had to be well on our way by sunrise and we did not come back to the homestead till long after sundown. The sheep had to be mustered and driven into the shearing yards; this in itself is quite a long job as some of the paddocks the sheep were in consisted of thousands of acres. The actual operation of marking took very little time. Most of the time there were several boys who caught the lambs and handed them to the men who held the lambs during the marking operation. The men – I was one of them – held the lamb in such a way as to prevent them from kicking and carried them to one man who ear marked them: the station mark on one ear and a year mark on the other. Our marks were a swallow tail and a slash on the right ear and a square on the left for ewes, the marks reversed for wethers. After this had been done, the lambs were carried to a man who tailed them (cut their tails off) and the next man applied a solution of Stockholm tar, dip and paraffin to the cut. The lambs were then dropped over the side of the yard, and so on. We marked 2,096 lambs in three days. The fourth day we marked a neighbour’s lambs. He was unable, through illness, to mark his own. We mustered, yarded and marked 430 or 440 lambs by 9.30am – not bad going. During the period in which I was learning lamb marking, I retired fairly early in the evening, the only excitement being an occasional game of ‘Rummy’. I have not had a game of bridge since I left Renmark.
Tuesday, 7 July 1925
I have now left my ‘teens’ behind me. If science progresses as much during the next century as it has during the last, it seems quite possible that I shall start on my ‘teens’ again in roughly ninety years’ time, but in many ways I hope not. Although I am not actually twenty-one years old, I am a youth of twenty-one summers.
My ‘birthday mail’ has not yet arrived, as all my letters have to be re-addressed from Renmark and it takes a week for letters from there to reach me. However, I received a present from the Rowland family consisting of six boxes of 555 State Express cigarettes. As I have a few minutes to spare, I think I ought to continue with the bumps, track and general scenery on the way from Renmark to Adelaide.
After leaving Renmark Avenue you ‘come off the metal’ on to a dirt track for a couple of hundred yards and then on to the metal again. This time the road has a very decided crown with a dirt track on the left. In wet weather the track on the left becomes a pond and in very wet weather the metal becomes very slippery. I remember one day, when this portion of the road was bad, going over it fairly fast. I had made a late start owing to being ‘bogged’ for over half an hour. I had two passengers, both in front, and I believe I ‘put the wind up them’ for they both assured me that they were in no particular hurry to reach Adelaide. 8 o’clock would do them just as well as 5 o’clock.
The trouble is, if you skid on a road with a decided crown and you skid off the crown, you are never sure where you are going to stop, and when. If you slip to the left, there is a small lake waiting to receive you and you know that once you are in the lake you are bogged and have little hope of getting out, and again, when skidding off the crown, you are nearly as likely to turn over as you are to remain on four wheels. So, perhaps they were justified in their assurance that time was no object. However, I will not admit that I was driving dangerously.
Whenever I was driving passengers the words ‘safety first’ were forever, always, in my mind. One bad mistake and my reputation as a driver was ruined, so I was always careful. I did about 10,000 miles of track driving and during the whole time I was driving I never had an accident and also I never broke a spring. With passengers, I rarely exceeded fifty m.p.h.. But by myself I frequently did an unripe sixty and, a few times, a ripe one down the Bay Road late at night or early in the morning.
Along the road with the high crown for a comparatively short distance and then up Quondong Hill. A quondong (I am doubtful of the spelling) is a wild peach, the stones of which are very pretty and are frequently made into necklaces. From the top of the hill you get quite a good view of Renmark, and also a good view of the river when it is in flood and the lignums for miles are covered with water. For a short distance along the straight road you now are on and, on both sides of it, you will observe the fresh green of the wild tobacco plant.
As well as being on the Morgan track you are now on the Renmark–Berri road. The metal road keeps on with as few bends as possible while the dirt track winds in and out of the scrub with, as it seems to the driver, as many bends as possible. There are one or two nasty patches of sand along here and in two places there are half-buried tree stumps to look out for. One of the easiest ways of obtaining a first class ‘blow out’ is to run over, or against, a small stump. The two stumps are a good way apart but both are met in heavy sand. I should imagine that these stumps have done quite a good turn to tyre dealers and manufacturers, for while a driver who has once negotiated them knows them for good and even if he does not remember quite where they lie he will be on the lookout for them, the driver who is new to the track is very liable to come in contact with them. Also, careless drivers do not seem to worry about such small things as stumps or tyres.
About ten miles along the track you come to the Berri turn off. This, as the name implies, is where you turn off for Berri. As a matter of a fact, for Berri you keep straight on and turn off for Morgan. From here you can get quite a good view of Berri, the river, lignum, gum trees and Spring Cart Gully. Sharp to the right, into some sand and the track passes, with a curve, around a telegraph pole. You have now left the metal for a few miles.
From the turn off to Monash is a very nice stretch of road and, as long as the track is dry, thirty-five m.p.h. is quite a safe pace to travel. It was on this stretch that I ran out of water on my first trip up as a track driver, the memorable trip when I arrived at Renmark in the early hours of the morning. There is one rather nasty stretch to look out for. There is a small crevice in the centre of the track down which the water rushes when it rains. The best way of traversing this is to drive with one wheel on each side of it, actually two wheels each side, but I think you will understand what I mean by one wheel each side.
Monash is rather a nice little settlement, quite a young one. On the left, as you enter, are some very fine orange trees.
Wednesday, 8 July 1925
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A few minutes to spare, so on with the tourist’s guide. Passing through Monash you are all the time in an avenue of trees. Pepper trees and mallee; I think gum trees are rather scarce so far from the river. Through the settlement the track is straight, or rather the road is straight for the track itself will not keep still but winds from one side to the other like the trail of a drunken caterpillar on a sheet of paper.
On leaving Monash, you cross over an irrigation channel and then take the track that bears slightly to the right. The other of the two tracks leads to Barmera, Lake Bonney, Kingston, Cobdogla, Moorook etc., but if you wish you can go to Barmera and then cut back again to the Morgan track. After bearing around to the right you soon come on to a patch of metal road again – but not for long – with a sweeping turn to the right you are once again on the dirt track.
When you see a large tree close to the track, and on the right hand side of it, slow down, for there is a small gutter crossing the road here, a natural one, and if you are going fast it gives you a nasty bump. Having passed this you can ‘open up’ again. A very few miles from here and you get the best sight of the first 150 miles: a view of Lake Bonney. Looking towards Barmera, which is on your left, the foreground is dull red sand (very rarely is this green), then a ridge of tall gum trees which fringe the lake. On a clear day the colour of the water is that blue which untraveled Englishmen, seeing it in a painting, declare it is an impossible blue for water to be. A real rich, Azure blue, the blue one expects to see under Oriental skies, and the dull red sand, although nothing by itself, in such a setting it blends so harmoniously with the colour of the trees and the lake that with no stretch of imagination could one hope to improve the beauty of the scene by changing its colour. On the further shore of the lake is another belt of trees, beyond that some rather high land that is brown and dark yellow at the same time and then the sky, misty white, misty blue, light blue and then a blue the same colour as the lake. It is indeed a very fine and refreshing scene to gaze upon, but you must not take your eyes off the track for one moment or you will run into the belt of pines that you are fast approaching. Here the land is fairly flat and I think it is known as the Broad Lake Plains.
The pine country you are now in is very sandy. About twenty miles from Renmark you pass through an opening in a fence. Here there is a notice – ‘Poison laid here’ – but I am afraid the poison must have been laid there a long time ago for it is just about here that the rabbits are thickest. At sundown you can see them in their thousands. Two and a half miles from the poison fence you come to another turn off the track, to the left, taking you to the lake. A short distance from this turn off, in the heavy sand which pine trees seem to thrive in and on your right, you will notice a tree that seems to have lost most of its bark on one side. Thereby hangs a tale.
Late one night a man was driving a car (Stude Light Six) along this track. He was feeling very tired and drowsy, the purring drone of the engine only accentuated this feeling. He was not much more than twenty miles from Renmark and home. Now, with ordinary luck, he would be there in less than an hour. He had been driving all day and would be glad to get back home again. It was very lonely driving all by himself, however he would soon be there now. Rather chilly now, but bed was not very far away now. When, suddenly, a large tree looked up in front of the radiator. Whatever could have happened? Crash! And he soon knew. Dozed at the wheel!
A few miles further on and one crosses ‘Boggy Flat’. In wet weather it is a terribly dangerous place. Many times here has the car evinced a desire to return to the country which it has just traversed about. Here it is also what is termed ‘Crab Hole’ country, that is country full of holes which, although a small size, are fairly deep and once you slip into them the wheels will go around as fast as you wish to make them but the car will proceed not at all. Assuming that it is dry weather and that you safely cross ‘Boggy Flat’, you will soon arrive at the top of the hill that winds down to Overland Corner. I think we had also better assume that you have a puncture and, as I have no need to detail how to mend a puncture, I will give you time to mend it. As for myself, I will go and have some dinner.
Friday, 10 July 1925
Having mended the puncture, we will proceed. The track heads straight for the river but, abruptly turning to the right, it drops down for a couple of hundred feet. A short rise and then down again, but not quite so steeply as before. Two or three nasty gutters which at any pace are real ‘spring breakers’ and we come to a turn off. One track, a dirt one, drops a few more feet and then rises again to the hotel at Overland Corner. The other track bends slightly to the right and rises a few feet, only to drop again as it meets the other track just before the hotel is reached – this is a metal road. The lower track is the one generally used, but when the river is high it covers it and of a necessity drivers take to the metal. Dirt tracks are always used in preference to metal ones as they do not cut the tyres about. Overland Corner consists of the two buildings, one at the top of the hill and the other at the bottom – this one being the hotel. They do not, however, sell anything stronger than tea. Really it is a general store and tea rooms. Most cars stop here to let the passengers have a cup of tea, but I very rarely stopped. Nobody really wants a cup of tea so soon after breakfast, but they have one just because everybody else does. I used to pass through at a fair pace and try and get up the hill the other side of the hotel on ‘top’. No sooner do you reach the crown of the hill than you drop again, rise again, only to descend once more and then a gradual rise for nearly half a mile. You are now on the most monotonous and dreary part of the whole trip, from the Corner to Taylorville, about twenty-three miles.
The scenery never changes, or at least never seems to change: rough metal with occasional patches of sand. All the way the corrugations are most pronounced. In fact, they are all the way from Renmark to Morgan but just about here they seem extra specially bad. Corrugations are very curious. One would think that soft, pneumatic tyres running on a good track would make a very fair surface, but no, they make the surface wavy and on this track one wonders how the cars manage to keep together, the rattling and vibration set up being terrific. It is my opinion that, within reason, the faster one travels over this type of track the less one feels the corrugations, the longer wheel base the car has the less the waves are felt. Driving a Ford along these tracks is not the acme of comfortable transportation. Always welcome is the first sight of Taylorville, which is really the homestead of a fair-sized wheat farm, but now there is a post office there and two or three small houses. It is at Taylorville that the track to Waikerie branches off to the left, but straight on for Morgan. While I was driving – only a few months – a town sprang up between Taylorville and Morgan. This was usually termed ‘Canvas Town’, the name derived from the material of which most of the buildings were constructed.
It is really the dwellings of the men engaged in building Number Two Lock.
Tuesday, 14 July 1925
I am afraid I shall have to make a few notes here of the remainder of the trip and write them up some time when I am settled down. I am still at ‘Millamolong’. I have been here nearly a month and although I do not do much I find plenty to do without doing any writing. For the last couple of days I have been pruning. The vines were not of the orthodox Renmark shape but I have done my best to make them so. However, this must wait. Just a few more notes on the track.
Number One Lock is in Blanchetown. Number Two is between Taylorville and Morgan. Number Three is between Kingston and Overland Corner, and is a good way from the track we take. There is, however, a letter box or mail box on the Morgan track just on the Renmark side of Overland Corner. Number Four Lock is not far from Loxton. Number Five is close to Paringa and therefore not far from Renmark. After passing Number Two Lock you soon find yourself on the Morgan plains where a little judicious speeding may be indulged in. There is a creek to cross a couple of miles from Morgan, but this is usually dry. Morgan is a ‘dead and alive’ sort of a hole. I stayed at
the hotel one night, not very long ago, and I sincerely hope I shall never spend another there. There is nothing much of note between Morgan and Blanchetown. One steep hill you descend – this is by far the greatest gradient on the whole trip and it is about fifty yards in length. When you go down, it is like going over it and I am sure that were a car travelling at any great pace it would leave the ground for a considerable space.