6 June 1935

BATTLING AGAINST HEAD WINDS ON HOPPER BARGES 

Nearly Ten Months On Voyage From Glasgow

Few undertakings are as hazardous as that of manning a slow, clumsy barge on a long deep-sea voyage. These lumbering craft are obviously designed for leisurely movement in placid waters, and life on them at sea is either uncomfortable and monotonous or unpleasantly dangerous. 

With a consumption of coal quite out of proportion to the storage capacity of their bunkers, barges making a long run, such as that between Ceylon and Australia, may well exhaust their fuel supply and drift about at the mercy of wind and tide, exposing their crews to the horrors of thirst and hunger. 

These conditions are well illustrated by the experiences of two hopper barges, the Goolwa and the Kadina, which were built in Glasgow for the South Australian Government in 1878. 

Before beginning the voyage from Glasgow to Port Adelaide, the master of the Goolwa was told that the barge was an admirable sea-boat, and could steam at the rate of 11 knots an hour, but he soon found that 4½ knots was her limit. Even with all sails set (for she was rigged as a schooner for the voyage in order to assist her engines), the Goolwa could not exceed six knots an hour. 

Leaving Glasgow on August 8, 1878, the barge took in fresh supplies of coal at frequent intervals, calling for this purpose at Gibraltar, Malta and Port Said. Two months of plodding brought her to Aden, where the engines had to be overhauled. A little later she sprang a leak, and her unfortunate crew had to work in three feet of water while getting coal out of the bunkers. The leisurely voyage was interrupted at Ceylon for a few days owing to the harassed captain being ordered into hospital. During the long run from Ceylon to Australia, instead of receiving the expected assistance of the trade winds, the barge ran into a series of sou' westerly gales, which impeded her rate of progress and rendered it doubtful whether her supply of coal would hold out. 

As the coal was used up the vessel became too light in the water and could make no headway against the wind. It was therefore necessary to cut holes in the side compartments in order to fill them with water ballast. Battling constantly against adverse winds, the Goolwa succeeded at last in crawling into the mouth of the River Murchison (Western Australia) with no more than a single day's supply of coal in hand. 

A boat, which was sent ashore in search of wood for fuel, was capsized in the surf and its crew narrowly escaped drowning. The coast abounded in sharks, some of which, according to a contemporary account, were caught and used in the furnaces in the hope of raising steam. 

As a last resource the decks were broken up and all the bulkheads, ceilings and other woodwork were pulled down in order to get the barge to Port Gregory. Here the schooner Ariel was sighted on her way from Champion Bay (Geraldton) to Batavia, and for £600 her captain agreed to put back with news of the barge's predicament. 

Lighters of coal and provisions were at once sent from Geraldton, and the Goolwa was enabled to resume her voyage, which terminated at Port Adelaide on March 11, 1879, 216 days after leaving Glasgow. 

The other barge, the Kadina, made an even longer, though less eventful voyage. Although she left Glasgow a few days before the Goolwa, she reached Aden a month after that vessel. Here she was beached and scraped in order to remove the marine growths which were impeding her progress. Sickness broke out on the Kadina before she reached Australia, and two of her crew succumbed to a tropical fever, contracted probably at Batavia, where a call was made for supplies. 

As the barge fought her way down the Western Australian coast against southerly gales, supplies of every sort began to run low, and with the coal bunkers nearly empty, the stock of provisions reduced to a few tins of soup and bouilli, and the supplies of drinking water down to the last 60 gallons, the position became serious. Finally, with one day's coal to spare, the Kadina worked her way into Champion Bay, where she made a long stay for purposes of quarantine and with the object of laying in a fully supply of coal, provisions, and medicines. 

The last stage of her long voyage was accomplished with no worse mishap than the smashing of the deck by heavy seas near Cape Borda, but upon reaching Port Adelaide, to complete her misfortunes, the barge crashed head on into Simpson's wharf, and staved in the whole of her bow plating. Her 294 days' voyage had come to a sensational end. — 'Jeepee.'

Peter Burt's Trip To Oakbank

Mr. G. S. Lindsay's account of how he took Peter Burt's two little girls back to their Queensland home, which appeared in 'The Chronicle' of May 2 [1935], brought back to my memory a trip which I made to the Oakbank race course with Peter Burt, Harry and Ted Laughton at the time of which Mr. Lindsay writes. Peter Burt was a neighbor of mine in Queensland, and one of his greatest desires was to see the Great Eastern Steeplechase run at Oakbank. 

The opportunity came when he and his family took that holiday trip to Adelaide nearly 50 years ago. I had come to Adelaide at the same time with a mob of cattle; after they were sold I waited to see the Oakbank races, and was taken to the course, in company with Peter Burt, in a private drag owned by the Laughton brothers, who were among the leading stock and station agents of Adelaide at that time. 

We had a fine picnic lunch on the course. After the meal Peter Burt leaned back against a tree, put his hat over his eyes to shield them from the sun, lit his pipe, and sat listening while we others yarned. Suddenly Ted Laughton looked down at the course and exclaimed, 'Heavens above, there's the horses going out for the Great Eastern, and I haven't laid my bets yet. Come on, you chaps.' He led the way at a run, and we followed. 

We saw the great race, yarned to friends for a time, and then strolled back to the drag, to find that Peter Burt had evidently returned before us, for he was once more sitting under the tree with his hat over his eyes. When Harry Laughton spoke to him Burt did not answer. Laughton spoke in a louder tone; Burt blinked up at him and said, 'Eh?' 'Did you back the winner and get a good view of the race, Peter?' enquired Laughton for the third time. 'What race?' replied Peter. 'The Great Eastern, of course.' 'When will it be run?' said Burt. 'What on earth are you talking about?' I put in. 'It's been run.' 

Then the dreadful truth dawned on the old man. 'I've been asleep,' he stammered. 'I say, boys, don't tell me that I sat here sleeping while the race I came all the way from Queensland to see has been run?' We assured him that it was so. In our haste to get down to the course, none of us had looked around to see if Burt was following. We had no idea that he had fallen asleep, for his attitude as he leaned back against the tree suggested that he was listening intently to what we were saying. 

On the way home, Peter Burt vowed that he would come again to Adelaide at Easter, and next time would make certain that he would not fail to gratify his ambition of watching one of the world's greatest steeplechase races being run. But I'm sorry to say that this fine old pioneer station manager died with his ambition unfulfilled. He was never able to come to Adelaide again.— W.O.

Gregor' s Ordeal

In 1906 William Gregor, then more than 70 years of age, was living at Coward Springs in the far north. He developed eye trouble and started to ride to Tarcoola for medical attention. 

He came to my station at Miller's Creek, put in a few days there, and then continued his journey.  

Next day a lad in my employ reported that he had come across the tracks of a horse wandering all over the place near the road to Tarcoola, and stated that old Gregor must be lost. 

At daylight next morning I loaded up a packhorse and set off to see what had happened. I cut his tracks, followed them until it was dark, camped, and set off again as soon as it was light enough to see in the morning. 

Those tracks led me a merry dance. Time and again they doubled back or crossed themselves. I pushed on as fast as I could, for the man I was after had not been near water since I first picked up his trail, and I knew he must be getting very exhausted. My own horses were feeling the want of water, too, for they had been 24 hours with out a drink. 

That day I came to a crabhole with some water in it, and was able to give my horses a drink, but the man I was after had missed the waterhole by about 200 yards. 

I followed the trail to the Lake Torrens vermin fence, to find that the man I was chasing had gone along the fence to a gate, where he had crossed to the other side. I went through, followed his tracks all over the place, and then found that they had led back to the gate again. While I had been following the tracks, the man I was after had gone back through the gate. It was exasperating, to say the least, but it served a good purpose by telling me how far ahead of me he was. 

I set off as hard as my horses could go on his trail, and was relieved to see that the man ahead had been able to get a drink when his horse led him to a swamp of very muddy water. I pushed on again, and caught up with him at another swamp. As I suspected, it was old Gregor, and he greeted me with. "Just after I left your place I went blind, and I've been blind ever since."

After we had both had a good rest and a meal— the first food Gregor had eaten for more than 24 hours — I took the poor old chap along to Mount Eba, an abandoned station, where only a caretaker lived. 

I handed Gregor over to George Deacon, the caretaker, and instructed him not to let the old man out of his sight until someone came along who could take charge of him for the rest of the journey to Tarcoola. It would be hard to imagine a more terrifying ordeal than to be stricken blind out in the bush, and then to go wandering on through perpetual darkness, hopelessly lost. It was a wonder that Gregor managed to retain his sanity.

— William Oliffe. 

A Homing Pig 

Nearly all animals can find their way home — even the pig. 

I once carried a young pig three miles in a thick corn sack and put it in a farmer's sty. There was no opening in the bag, the mouth being tied up, so the animal had no chance of studying the scenery on the way. 

Yet in a couple of hours he was back in his own pen. We did not return straight across country, but followed the winding foot track that I had taken, which leaves me doubtful as to whether he was guided by scent or instinct. 

A neighbor had a similar experience. After delivering a couple of strong suckers to a selector two miles away, he stopped there talking for an hour or so. When he returned home he found that the pigs had got back before him.— J.R.