Drovers took sheep and cattle to southwest Queensland for fattening while teamsters carted supplies from Burketown port to pioneer families in the West.

Most station cooks were Chinese and stations bought fresh vegetables in Camooweal from Tommy Chong who had a market garden beside the Georgina River. When the river was dry, well water was hoisted to the surface using a horse-powered winch.

At the surface, the water was tipped into a system of corrugated iron troughs around the garden.

The many goats in the town provided a ready supply of manure for the garden and also provided milk, cream, cheese, meat and hides for the pioneers.

Mail arrived at the small settlement by buggy from Cloncurry.

Mrs Freckleton remembered when the Cloncurry mailman drove a mail buggy to Spring Creek, where a Camooweal mailman met it and the two swapped loads.

The journey to Spring Creek, near where Mount Isa now stands, took three or four days. Horses were spelled overnight at staging camps and the mail was carried in cane baskets on the back of horse-drawn buggies.

Children explored large limestone caves and picnicked at creeks. Toys were impossible to buy and they used dressing bottles for dolls. Outside of school they cared for goats, poddy calves, dogs and sheep.

Kangaroo shooters often presented families with joeys orphaned when their mother was shot.

Josephine Freckleton was born in Camooweal, one of eight children. "They should have a monument to the goats because they reared all the children in this part of the world and the 'mutton' was very good," she recalled. Several local stations ran sheep including Avon Downs, Morestone and Austral Downs and they used ant beds to construct outbuilding.

The ant bed was mixed with water and the mud was used to make walls which stood 0.5m thick.

Joseph Freckleton heard about the booming town of Camooweal and left South Australia for the remote town.

He and Josephine had six children - three boys and three girls. Joseph worked as a tank sinker, a trade long since faded into obscurity.

In the early days tank sinkers built dams beside bores where water was stored for the cattle.

The shallow square dams were built by ploughing an area with a horse-drawn plough and then piling dirt around the outside of the dam to form a wall.

A team of 12 horses ploughed the dam and a smaller team of three scooped the dirt from the dam. The completed dam was called a 'turkey's next' because of the mounds of earth around the sides.

Josephine accompanied Joseph on his travels, caring for the children and doing the cooking.

Josephine was well acquainted with tank sinking since her father was a sinker as well.

Her mother, Emily McMahon, was a well-known member of the community, firstly as a teacher.

"She saw to it that everyone went to school," Mrs Freckleton recalled.

"We used to call the school the 'Little Brown Schoolhouse".

The building was painted cream and brown because these were the only colours available at the time.

Mrs Freckleton said the children attending the school knew only three careers - postmaster, policeman and schoolmaster - other than those connected with the grazing industry.

THE ROAD TO CAMOOWEAL

By yon gilgal are the ruins that bespeak of other days,

In the remnants of a garden where the wily dingoes steal,

Where a tenderness still lingers as the traveller delays

On that road of deviations leading out to Camooweal.

On a trunk close by I've noticed there's a rugged ageing sign,

On a heart the name of Roma, which so somehow intrigues appeal,

And the carver's name still struggles in its rusty gaping lines,

Pointing to romance long vanished on the road to Camooweal.

There's no more, the bush holds secrets which the passer-by may scan,

Leaving to imagination quite a lot with which to deal,

And I wonder how they ended, little Roma and that man,

Who have left young love recorded on the road to Camooweal?

Did he yield to spurious glory when he heard the trumpets blare?

Was he killed in France? If wounded did his shattered members heal?

In him was affection fickle? Did he leave her in despair?

But the bush embalms the secret on the road to Camooweal.

Was he smashed out on the clay pan in some frenzied stock stampede?

Was their union brought to wedlock?

How I hope their love was real,

And of joys and sorrow Roma, which was greater in your need?

For I've seen your blossoms wilting on the road to Camooweal.

There are moulding heaps and crosses drooping half a league away,

Where I've seen the ravens resting, where above the eagles' wheel,

Where no loved ones keep remembrance, and no mourners come to pray,

Where the roos and brolgas wander by the road to Camooweal.

On that road of willie-willies I can hear a storm in thought,

Where the bush on many stories now forever sets its seal,

Where the skeletons and headstones in the vegetation caught,

Whisper takes of bold endeavour on THE ROAD TO CAMOOWEAL.

First published in The Border and Beyond - Camooweal 1884-1984 by Liliian Ada Miller (nee Freckleton) 3 May 1927-11 Oct 2018.

The Road to Camooweal poem was written by D.B. O'Connor in 1933.

Researched by Kim-Maree Burton