Holidays 1938: Len, Lena, Charles and Leonard, with Rugby 6 utility
Where the people live
Daphne Lowth
Chapter Five - Sport and Holidays
During the 'thirties' the people of Ajana added two more courts to the two already at the Ajana Tennis Club. The men made a grader by welding a long handle to a sheet of flat iron that they dragged across the heavy red soil to flatten it out. We children had a lot of fun sitting as ballast on this 'grader' while it was pulled around. Once the ground was levelled, watered and rolled hard, the men painted a mixture of lime, cement and superphosphate over the string lines set out to mark the lines for the two new courts.
Every Sunday afternoon we could play social tennis at the club. A shelter shed had been built which had a corrugated iron roof with weatherboard walls on the north and west sides as protection from the wind and afternoon sun. The other sides were open. Yellow sand had been spread over the red soils so that children could sit in the shelter and play. For the shelter shed Uncle Syd made a table that consisted of four posts set in the ground and eight packing cases nailed together. The packing cases were attached to the posts so that one end of the boxes made the tabletop and the other end served as a shelf on which the ladies stored the afternoon tea goodies. Afternoon tea usually was a feast of cream-filled sponge cakes, cream puffs, buttered scones, small cakes and sandwiches.
To make the billy tea, water was boiled in a four-gallon tin over an open fire. Milk was brought in enamel billycans and another four-gallon tin was used to boil water for washing up. For all of us, afternoon tea at tennis was a free-for-all feast!
Whenever new nets were bought for the club, dad used to buy one of the used nets for our court at home. We also used to take home any of the second hand tennis balls. Ajana School was also looked after in the same way.
Every two years during the thirties and forties and in the Christmas school vacation, our families had a holiday by the seaside at the mouth of the Murchison River. I have very vivid memories of one of these holidays that took place when I was about six years old. Mum and dad loaded up the Ford truck with groceries, clothing, bedding, planks of wood, bags, saws, spades, hammers, nails, axes, a roll of wire and some hessian as well as petrol and water and away we went. The 'good' road ended about sixteen kilometres from Ajana and from there we had to cross about forty kilometres of sand plain. Because the night air cooled the sand and made it firmer to drive on, we either drove all night or left in the very early hours of the morning.
Aunty Maggie Bandy and Bert Mitchell travelled on the truck with us but I am sure they pushed that truck more than they rode in it. The truck bogged down time and time again. Whenever we completed a journey to the mouth of the Murchison in eight hours then we considered we had had a good trip. Today the same trip takes about forty minutes.
This particular holiday had been planned so that we were at the mouth with several of our relatives. These were the families of Uncle Tom Bandy, Aunty Edie Cornell and Uncle Artie Bandy who also brought his nephew Neil Duplex.
At this time no one lived at the mouth of the Murchison River and the nearest dwelling was at the Murchison House Station twenty kilometres upstream. So we had to make our own campsite.
The men built one very large bough shed for meals on which they erected this sign - A.B.C.D. - representing each of the families. In it they built a table and seats with the planks and posts brought up on the truck. We slept in tents in which we made bed frames from hessian that was stretched and tacked to a wooden frame and then fixed to four posts set in the ground. A folded rug served as a mattress and we used other rugs to cover ourselves. Although the days were usually quite hot, cool breezes blew from the ocean in the evening and so we nearly always had to sleep under rugs.
Setting up a camp was necessary each time we went to the mouth. Because fresh water was so important, we made our camp among the shady she-oaks not far from one of the two freshwater springs. The site we chose overlooked the river and gave us wonderful views of the river mouth and was no more than twenty or thirty metres from the river where we were able to swim, fish, build sandcastles, collect shells or just wander along the beach. When I think about it, I guess we used to do all those things pretty well every day.
Today the Mouth of the Murchison River is the seaside town of Kalbarri. If you are familiar with this tourist and fishing centre, then our campsite was either in the vicinity of the swings in the park across the road from the Kalbarri Hotel or across the road from where the Community Centre is now located.
We usually stayed about a month and as the thirties and forties were days before the common use of refrigeration, we were fortunate that it was possible then to almost 'live off the land'. Fish were plentiful, particularly mullet, whiting, river bream, tailor and mulloway, which we called 'kingie' or kingfish. Less plentiful were dhufish, schnapper, and mackerel but enough were caught for us all to enjoy. The fish were cooked in a frying pan over an open fire. We also made our own bread, which we baked in a camp oven buried in the coals of the open fire, and whenever a cup of tea was needed it was made in a billy over the open fire. We used powdered or tinned milk for our drinks.
From an early age we all learned to catch whiting from the river and we caught them by the dozens. In the evenings the adults fished for tailor and 'kingies' in the sea at the river mouth. Sharks were also frequently caught. We needed bait to catch the fish but this was no problem because Bill Sutherland used to throw a stick of dynamite into a school of mullet to stun enough to provide a supply of bait for all the men.
Another evening activity when the tides were low and the sea breeze had died down was crayfish catching. Armed with a Tilly lantern, a glove and a bucket we used to wait until the crayfish came on to the reefs to feed and caught them with our gloved hand. This was a very exciting activity because the crayfish were extraordinarily quick as they flipped their tails and moved in reverse over the reef in an attempt to go into one of the hundreds of holes, cracks and pools that abounded on those reefs. We always caught a feed of these delectable crustaceans, some of which we often cooked on the beach and ate before going back to the camp. Years later the crayfish became the rock lobster!
In those days we all had cord fishing lines. One night, dad asked me to hold his line while he lit up his pipe. I hooked a fish that was too big for me to handle and dad had to help me pull it in. It turned out to be seven and a half kilograms of thrashing, fighting 'kingie'. I was one very excited ten year old. Next day, dad took a photograph of me holding my big fish and later posted the picture to his sister Louisa in England. Forty-six years later, when my daughter Sheryl was visiting England, Aunt Louisa's daughter, Ellen Graham, showed her that photograph.
For the Christmas holiday trip to the Mouth of the Murchison in 1938, dad had bought a small Rugby utility from my cousin Bill Atkinson. Other relatives took most of our heavy gear on their truck over a track that had been considerably improved and we headed off in our Rugby utility. By travelling the distance in less than four hours, we set a record for travelling the sixty odd kilometres from Ajana to the mouth.
However it took a day and a half for us to complete the return journey! We left the coast before sunrise to benefit from travelling over the sandplain while it was still cool. With us was the Cornell's twenty two-year-old son, Ted, so that in all there were seven of travelling in the ute. Ted's family was to leave a little later in the day. We carried a full waterbag of drinking water and a full can of water for the radiator. Mum had cooked fresh crayfish to go with the bread and butter for our lunch.
About half way along the track was a notorious stretch of sand plain known as Banksia Flat. This is an area of sand that supports only small shrubs and stunted banksia trees. And it was here that the Rugby utility spluttered and stopped dead. It spluttered and stopped again and again until the battery went flat. We expected the Cornell family to come along before long so we settled down and enjoyed our crayfish sandwiches, drank the water and waited. Unfortunately we did not know that the Cornell's had decided that morning to stay another two days at the mouth.
The temperature climbed to forty-one degrees Celsius and there was no shade. Dad tied rugs from the side of the utility and we crawled under these to get shade. On Banksia Flat were two water tanks used by drovers with a further one at Hardibutt Hill.
Dad and Ted took the empty waterbag and walked about six kilometres to these tanks and then had to turn round and walk back to tell us that the tanks were empty. They were completely exhausted by the experience. Mum cried and cried because she was sure that we would all die.
At sunset nobody had come our way so when it was dark I went to sleep on the seat of the utility while Pat, Charlie and Len slept on the back. Dad and Ted lit a fire and kept it going all night to frighten away snakes but the light of the fire attracted centipedes. I woke up and screamed when I found one about ten centimetres long crawling up my arm.
About midnight a truckload of shearers travelling in from Murchison House Station found us and left us some water and took a message to Tom Wilshusen in Ajana asking him to come to our help with a new battery.
Tom arrived about eight the following morning with a new battery and some very welcome water to drink. There seemed to be a an intermittent blockage in the fuel system so every time the vehicle stalled, the tyre pump was used to blow back the obstruction and allow the petrol to flow through again. Unfortunately that was not the end of our troubles. While crossing a stony creek about fifteen kilometres from Ajana, an axle broke and we had to be towed into Ajana. We eventually arrived at Aunty Mary's about lunchtime feeling hot, dusty, tired and hungry.
It was suggested that dad cut a hole in the fuel tank and clean out whatever rubbish was causing the blockage. When he did this, he found a piece of stick about five centimetres long and as thick as a little finger. It must have got in there when the cap was off the petrol tank. This was a trip that we never forgot, and even today I will never travel a great distance without taking along a good supply of water.
Another holiday place for families in our area was Three Mile Bay which is now called Horrock's Beach. Located twenty-one kilometres west of Northampton, it is about the same distance from Ajana as the mouth of the Murchison River. However the roads were much better for driving. Several times we stayed in a friend's place which was made out of bamboo. There was a sand floor and the beds were posts in the ground on which was a frame with hessian tacked to it. Mum made a straw mattress for herself and dad while we slept on a rug on the bed. The beach was clean, white sand and very safe for children to play and swim. During the early nineteen forties locals started to build better cottages. Our parents built a nice cottage there in the early nineteen fifties.