I’ll never forget roll-yer-own, coughing, cursing, tell it as it was, Nicholas Tallack. He was a bushman of wide experience, and with a swag of stories for every one of them.
Nick Tallack was my favourite yarn spinner, and in this episode of Red Dust Tapes Nick will wax lyrical about camels and donkey teams.
And later, we’ll chuff/clunk/whistle our way at a leisurely pace in the boiler room and wheelhouse of Murray River paddlesteamers, in the jolly good company of stokers and captains, and hear stories of the river in flood, to when the blazing sun turns the flows into mud.
Then let’s go from fresh water to salt, to the ‘mosquito fleet’, the coastal ketches of South Australia, in the company of a man who was a deck boy, and had all manner of rough and tumble humorous tales to tell.
But let’s return to those bullocky stories … ah, the romance of travel by bullock wagon, with a mob of (mostly) docile bullocks, two-abreast, 28 or 30 of them yoked up and plodding serenely along a dusty road, while you just lean back against the bales of wool piled high above you, content under the warm sun, taking the occasional sip from your canvas waterbag …
Yeah, right mate. Pull the other leg.
That well-known colonial-era song, ‘The Old Bullock Dray’ makes it sound like being a bullocky was an idyllic life. But as we’ll find out, the reality was about mud, sand dunes, broken axles, sweat and curses.
I’ll bring you all manner of stories, including of a 13 year-old bullocky who would do his homework by lantern light, and after hauling loads through the Victorian goldfields, saved all his cash and returned to give it to his dear old mum.
From there we’ll go further south, to Tasmania, to meet an old bloke who will teach us bullocky language, as he describes the muddy job ofhauling logs out of those deep and dark forests.
So let’s go slow slogging, with Red Dust Tapes.
