But who can forget the beauty of that long and patient yoke

All collared and chained for duty, an hour ‘ere the magpie woke

The proud head bent in endeavour, the shoulders taking the strain

With never a baulk and never the shame of an idle chain.

An extract from a poem by W. H. Ogilvie.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

TRANSPORT was by foot, horseback, horse team, bullock team, camel or donkey and of course ‘covered wagons’.

People did not travel frequently.

John Graham McDonald on behalf of a Sydney syndicate formed by Robert Towns explored country around Burketown and opened up Floraville.

As stations were taken up, in order to facilitate the distribution of supplies to these and other stations, Robert Towns and Co created a trading centre that was consolidated into a township called Burketown, which became the port of entry for a vast hinterland to Camooweal and beyond.

Robert Towns and Co’s steamer ‘Pioneer’ was carrying out wool clips and bringing in rations, provisions etc from Townsville and Brisbane as early as 1864 and 1868.

The schooner ‘Policeman’ under Captain Lee was also plying the Gulf route.

Normanton became the chief port into the Gulf after the 1870s, but it was from Burketown that the Camooweal district continued to draw its supplies.

In the 1880s regular A S N Company Line services were operated between Normanton and Burketown by the ‘Dugong’ and by 1881 Burns Philip had the gulf steamer services with the ‘Truganini’.

Later John Burke and Co became Gulf traders and handled the ‘Aramac’ 271, the ‘Suva’ 16 and the ‘Palmer’ were some of the boats coming into Burketown.

In the twenties period there was the ‘Kallatina’.

At Burketown the goods were transferred to a tial river, the boats had to wait to make the tide or transfer goods to barge or tender.

Affleck, Rendall Synnott and later Synnott, Murray and Scholes developed large stores, handling the wool and freight for the Northern Territory stations.

As these stations developed, the supplies were overlanded from Burketown by the teamsters up the Gregory Road to Riversleigh, Undilla, Camooweal, Morestone and Rocklands and across to Avon, Alexandria, Brunette Downs, Alroy, Rockhampton Downs and down the Georgina to Barclay, Lake Nash Station, Urandangie and beyond.

It was a common sight to see a number of teams camped on a freshwater lake outside Burketown waiting for their turn to load up with rations and other goods.

Whole families lived along those bush routes.

The ‘chooks’, a pig or two and the goats went along with mum and the kids.

Sometimes the women were driving the goats or driving ahead in a buckboard or ‘covered wagon’ to set up the next camp and prepare the evening meal and perhaps ‘give the young ‘uns the only education they would get’ or ‘do the washing’.

For safety the small children were tied around the waist to the spokes of the wagon wheels as they were in extreme danger around the open fires and waterholes while the mother was busy in the evening.

The older children sometimes rode along bringing up the goats and where there was ‘poison country’ they were instructed to ‘rush the goats through’ keeping the animals strictly to the road well away from the dread ‘Ironwood’.

Two leaves would kill a goat, a handful would kill a camel.

The new born goat kids were carried on the wagon for about a week then they too had to walk with the herd.

The teamster himself rode or walked beside his team urging them on and often in drier times tired and weary at day’s end had to ‘wind the windlass’ to raise buckets of water for the team from the wells or springs along the route.

In very stormy weather teams have been known to move only one mile in three days.

For three months the roads were too wet to travel and often too dry as these team horses were grass fed animals.

If there was no special hurry, the settlers and their families joined the teamsters around the camp fire while collecting their goods and were entertained with accordion or mouth organ.

The Burr family were especially welcome as they were all fine musicians.

Camel teams were also used and there was great rivalry between camel and horse teams especially as the camels frightened the horses both with their appearance and their strange smell.

The camel teamsters cut the ‘going rates’ causing great concern but I got the impression Synnott and Affleck and those agents connected with the loading favoured the horse teams as their owners were their best customers.

On one occasion there was rivalry over a Brunette Downs consignment and the agent ruled that two large ships tanks in the consignment must also go, so the Afghan camel teamster tried hard to load his big bull camel with one tank but each time the animal got up, the wind would catch the tankand pull him over.

It must be remembered that one large bull camel would carry half a ton.

I believe on that occasion, the horse team won the day.

Researched by Kim-Maree Burton.   

www.kimmareeburton.com  

First published in The Border and Beyond – Camooweal 1984-1994.

Photographs courtesy of Mrs Ada Miller.