Western Mail – Perth 24 October 1940, page 9
OLD PEAK HILL
By Suter Abis, Inglewood.
Dear Non-Com.
Many moons ago I wrote several articles on “Old Peak Hill,” but a flood of correspondence of a similar nature from other pens about other parts put me out of action. As there is a lull in such articles perhaps a few more details about the old camp may be appreciated.
Other writers have mentioned the names of scores of men who passed through the Peak or remained in that area for some time. They were a roving band and always on the move looking for something better than they had. A lot of them left behind far better things than they ever located again. It was a glorious period which none of the old hands would have missed for anything, those above ground never cease talking about the things that happened and can never happen again anywhere.
I was a police trooper at that time and travelled the country for hundreds of miles around, as well as doing gold escort and such like duty, so naturally saw a lot of what was doing. Darlington Simpson was King Pin. It was ‘HIS’ mine and none of the gold obtained from it ever went to any of the Aussie banks, it was sent directly to the Bank of England to be opened there before the director’s own eyes. It was good gold, too, worth at that time £4/2/6 an ounce the highest price ever paid for gold up to that period. He had two sons, the younger was slightly lame, and, like his father, went about bareheaded. The father did it to make his hair grow, and whether it was the sun or not, his hair was very thick. He said he was bald a few years before. The young chap sunbathed and burned himself nearly black, asked why he did it, he said he expected to return to England a little later and was anxious to “get even” with a man who had come back from India to England with a “glorious tan” some two years before and taken his best girl.
Main shaft, Peak Hill Cosmopolitan Mine, 1898. Darlington Simpson, the manager, is in the foreground, without a hat and with walking stick.
At the time he was a white-faced stripling and hadn’t a ghost of a chance with any of the English girls when such sunburned he-men were about. He only hoped the girl had married the man, he would show him when he got back. The other chaps tan would have gone while his would be nearly black. He used to chuckle when he thought of the good times in store But he nearly lost his tan and the number of other things when he got weather-bound on the Ord River during the big flood of 1900.
From about 1896 until the autumn of 1900 there had been a severe drought throughout the Murchison and Gascoyne areas. Cattle on the stations had to travel long distances to water, which was mostly contained in tanks sunk in the river beds. There were a few windmills but nothing to compare with the present time. These tanks were very low and the water and mud were mixed until it was like soup. After travelling miles, the stock would fill up on this stuff. Some died in the tanks and others could just struggle out again. Dead stock were everywhere. It was with a sigh of relief that everyone welcomed the first big storm which broke the drought and brought in the best season ever known in that area. Then there was another complaint there was too much water!
Household water was very scarce and was mostly carted from the Government well two miles north of the town. The rate was 15 shillings a hundred gallons delivered. The morning before the rain we had secured 300 gallons, which cost £2 5s. That afternoon the tank and all was washed away. All the good rainwater was going to waste!
The rain started to fall at 4 pm, and by 5 o’clock 665 points had been registered in the Post Office weather gauge. Warden Bagot was then resident there, and Mr. Fowler was Clerk of Courts. I am not sure of the name of the postmaster, but it may have been Mr. Willie, one time of Yalgoo. That was the start of the flood season. It rained for weeks all over W.A. and from the south to north the country was a bog, rivers burst their banks and inland lakes were overflowing and covered with wildfowl, ducks could be seen in scores of thousands, they made their nests along the lake banks in the thick weed and herbage and eggs could be had by the barrel full.
Boating on Lake Miranda, Murchison WA – Photo by Booty & Rix – SLWA
The first storm covered an area of about 20 miles in width, but the water ran for over 70 miles down the Gascoyne River far beyond the storm area. The Murchison River was flooded for about two months and in places, it was several miles wide, and all teams were held up. It was impossible to travel. Horses had to be loosed from their hobbles, or drown, and waggons with loads sank to the axles. Wheat grew out of chaff bags on the loadings, and food became very scarce in all the goldfields towns. Peak Hill was 10 weeks without the arrival of a team. An Afghan got through with half a ton of flour and H. C. Francisco bought it for £75. There happened to be plenty of bran in store when the rains came and this was used with flour, in a proportion of about 10 to one.
The bread was 1s/3d per loaf, as we were near the cattle country beef was plentiful enough and this saved the position. There was no tobacco or tea, and all the old stock in the stores sold at famine rates. The first team to get through was driven by Scotty Thompson, and it was loaded with beer, or what was left of the original loading, together with some barrels said to contain rum.
The first team to get through was loaded with beer!
The beer was undrinkable, ditto the rum. The barrels had been bored in scores of places and afterward spiked. To outward appearances everything was right. The vandals had first moved the hoops up round the casks and bored holes under them; then replaced the hoops. It was very simple. One of the barrels had the end knocked in and looked like a porcupine, it had so many spikes showing. The rum had been spoiled with water. When they took rum out water was added with the result that it was of no value at all. Scotty may as well have thrown it on the side of the road.
Nannine Cycle Agency – A E Whitchurch & Nannine Timber Yard – A E Fisher with boats for sale.
The rains were the salvation of the country, herbage, grass, and wildflowers were everywhere. I was one day on Milgun Station on the Gascoyne River with the late Charles Smith when we saw some glorious flowers, something like Sturt Peas. Mr. Smith said that he had not seen any of the same kind for over 12 years. It was only during extraordinarily wet seasons that they grew. I don’t know the name of them. Fish that had been impounded in the permanent pools along the rivers came upstream against the flood and were plentiful in all the small pools and easy to catch. Thousands died in the shallow waters and birds preyed on them.
Thousands of brown hawks, claimed by many to be from South Africa, were to be found for miles along with all waterways; they lived on fish, frogs, and later grasshoppers which came in millions. Every tree had birds on it, wild turkeys were fat and plentiful and could in places be seen in hundreds. In all these big flocks there were always a few wild ones and they flew off with the others following, single ones or pairs were easy to shoot. Wild pigeons too had a great time, top knots and bronze wings, to say nothing of the white cockatoos, and galahs.
The first boat to arrive in Nannine on camel train – Photo SLWA
The first rains caught Jack Berger, the coach driver, and young Simpson and others, on a knoll on the Ord River They were on the way to Abbotts and camped overnight. As it happened they picked the only high ground on the river flat, in the morning they were surrounded by water and the flat was as shaky as a Jelly. George Murdock kept the Minderoo Hotel across the Ord, but that was a couple of miles away, and Jack and his friends were without tucker for three days. In the meantime, they ate young saltbush leaves, there was nothing else and this made a wreck of the lot of them, especially young Simpson, who lost a lot of his hard-earned tan. Eventually, a wire was passed over the river from tree to tree, food was taken over and the mail bags were sent back. Word reached Peak Hill of the predicament in which the men were, and with J. N. Scott, Bob Ovens as the driver, an offsider, and myself set out to relieve them.
It was a 60-mile journey. The roads were very bad and the horses fresh. It took us two days. On the junction of the old and new roads over the Murchison River, about five miles north of the river, we saw two men coming towards us. They appeared to have big swags and were making heavy work of it. One man was a stranger but the other was Joe Roberts, a tall elderly man with a long flowing beard. He was a humorous chap at the best of times, and when he met us he had a joke on himself. Asked about the food, he said he had plenty. “Look at it he said, bags full to the brim, but it’s bran, a whole 50lb of it, got it at the last coach change, might not get another chance so took all I could carry. Have had nothing else for a week, so used to it that now I put the nose bag on and go to bed”.
His eyes sparkled when he was offered a whisky, and the tins of meat handed out were rushed. They were a Sydney brand with a band around them and a key. The band was torn off and the meat taken out and stuffed in the men’s mouths in one motion. They were given something to carry them in, also two big turkeys which we had shot not long before. Joe said afterward that they camped on the spot that night, and grilled and ate both birds, a wonderful effort, as they weighed about 10 lb each.
A couple of weeks later an escort was taken to Cue. On the way, a night was spent at Nannine where Jim Bond kept an hotel. The Nannie Lake was overflowing and there was any number of sailing boats on it. R, H. Williams had one and Mr. Masterton had another, but the daddy of the lot belonged to Sergeant Simpson (the “Little Sarg,”) who had been a sailor in his young days and knew all about watercraft. They used to have regattas on the lake. Nannine had a lean time during the wet and it would have been still worse but for the wild game which was exceedingly plentiful. The Nannine lake by the way measured 26 miles round.
Bill Bond’s Hotel at Nannine – 1896
People got very sick of wildfowl. On the night we landed tea was taken at Jim Bond’s hotel. About 40 people sat down, On the menu was ‘Wild Duck – Wild Turkey – Roast Mutton’. Not one person asked for game – they couldn’t look it in the face and were meat hungry. The mutton got a rough time.
On the way back the coach passed through Abbott’s, which was reached via the Gap, and the Red and White well. There was no Meekatharra in those days. It is quite a newcomer as the “old spots” go. It was the Sunday after payday at Mason and McKay’s mine, where a fair number of men were employed and who were paid monthly. The cheques were worth having. We came to town at about 5 pm. A crowd of surging men was in front of the hotel. They wouldn’t shift for the coach which had to go around them. The uniformed men on the box seat were ignored. There was a most important event being settled. They had been playing two up all day and a couple of the lucky ones had collected the cash between them nearly £300 apiece. One wanted to quit, but the other was a “Sydney or the Bush” type and insisted on spinning for the lot. So “up the lot” it was. This is what all the surging was about.
They had been playing two up all day
The man with the kip had already “oned them” 15 times and everyone was in a lather of sweat. Between the excitement of the “big throw,” the examination of pennies to see there was no “grey” about, and the milling of the men, they were well worked up. They had been tossing themselves since breakfast, now they were merely spectators. But they were all on their toes, for it was the biggest “roll” ever tossed for in that part, and everyone wanted to have his nose in the ring and watch the collective, hard-earned cash go into the pocket of someone else.
On the 18th throw, they came down tails. Disgustedly the loser threw the kip on the roadway and joined the mob, who, without waiting to be asked, flocked into the pub and “had a couple with the winner,” who left for a tour the following morning, while the loser went back to toil in the mine to get the where-with-all to have another fly next payday. He said that after all, he hadn’t lost so much. Just the balance of his pay which was over when he settled up his debts. The big wad he had been spinning for was buckshee (free). He had had lots of chances of winning it. So he had 18 of them, but couldn’t do it right. Perhaps next time his luck would be better.
It was the first rush of stormwater in the Peak which drowned all G. K. Elms’s fowls; he was better known as “Dead Finish.” He afterward plucked the fowls and sold them to the publicans.
The rainwater, muddy and all as it was, was a real treat, and men and not a few women could be seen paddling about in the deeper patches on the road. Old Charlie was so pleased with it that he took Cuddingwarra Kate (“Cuddingwarra Kate” appears to reside somewhere in the mulga, and only comes casually into town per sulky conveyance. According to local tradition, she was at one time closely connected with the press — wrote for the “Bulletin” and other papers. But her identity is too mysterious to go into detail here) out to the deepest pool he could find and dumped her in, Jack Brosnan saved her from being drowned –
Moya Sharp
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