To Maryborough by train

A couple of weeks ago I made the 250km journey to Maryborough for a mate’s 60th birthday while in Brisbane. Having flown down from Mount Isa, I didn’t have my car so I used Queensland Rail services, boarding the 4.55pm from Roma St to Bundaberg. That train was a pleasant experience which got me into Maryborough West around 8.25pm where a friend picked me up and took me the 10km or so into town.

The following morning I walked into town and spotted the first of Maryborough’s many heritage-listed buildings, the city hall. Maryborough was originally situated north of the Mary River with wharves established in 1847 to transport wool from Burnett sheep stations. In 1852 the town was transferred north where ships could better navigate the river. Maryborough was declared a municipality in 1861 and a timber town hall was built in 1874 on Kent Street. Maryborough developed rapidly for the Gympie goldrush in 1867. As Maryborough so did the demand for a new town hall, finally built in 1908 on the opposite side of Kent St. It was heritage listed in 1992 “demonstrating the growth of Maryborough in the early 20th century”. The day I passed it was used as a Covid mass vaccination centre.

The day I was there was a Thursday and the Maryborough City Markets were on at Adelaide St as they were every Thursday. at Lennox St in the city centre. The markets have been going since 1987 and visitors combine browsing with a heritage walk which starts at the next door town hall. As I found out, tomorrow was Maryborough Show Day so there was a particular holiday atmosphere in town that day.

Maryborough Post Office is another heritage-listed building at 227 Bazaar Street. It was designed by Queensland Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin and built in 1865-1866. This was in the middle of a thriving period for the town, after the Maryborough Sugar Company was set up in 1865 and gold was discovered in Gympie in 1867. It is the oldest post office known to survive in Queensland, and is one of three remaining masonry post offices from between 1859 and 1878. In 1869 a single faced clock, facing Wharf Street, was installed in the third level of the tower. The telephone exchange opened here in 1882.

Queens Park was established in 1860 and many of its beautiful huge trees are over a century old as they look down on the majestic Mary River. The river, named Moocooboola ( “river that twists and turns”) by the Kabi people, is responsible for the name of the city and its reason for existence. Early Europeans called it the Wide Bay River but in September 1847 New South Wales governor Charles FitzRoy changed the name for his wife Lady Mary Lennox. It was an ill omen for Lady Mary. Three months later, she was in a carriage when the horses bolted and crashed down a hill. The carriage fell on top of her. killing her instantly. The port opened the same year, fared better. The Mary has suffered many major floods over the years with the river peaking at 8.2m here in the 2011 floods.

Maryborough School of Arts is another heritage-listed building on Kent Street opposite the city hall. It was designed by John Harry Grainger and built from 1887 to 1888 by Jacob & John Rooney. It replaced the first Maryborough School of Arts, a small brick building built in 1861 soon after the establishment of a local School of Arts committee. The school of arts movement, also known as the mechanics’ institute movement, spread through the English-speaking world in the mid-nineteenth century. Public lectures were popular as a way of spreading scientific knowledge. Scottish emigrants brought the concept to Australia and most towns had their own school of arts for “the diffusion of Scientific and other useful knowledge as extensively as possible throughout the Colony.”

Maryborough Courthouse is a heritage-listed courthouse on Richmond Street. It was designed by Francis Drummond Greville Stanley and built in 1877 by John Thomas Annear for the Queensland Government, the first large court building designed for a rural town in Queensland. It was the forerunner for several other buildings in regional areas. The building is rectangular in form with corner towers and connecting verandahs, and was constructed in rendered brick, with timber work forming the verandahs. The building stands as part of the historic Wharf Street precinct. The courthouse has been used by the supreme, district and magistrates courts of Queensland since completed in 1878, making it the longest serving and oldest courthouse in use in Queensland.

From Queens Park a rail line was visible next to the river. I could also hear the toot of a steam train and a few minutes later it came into view down the track. A dedicated team of volunteers crew the Mary Ann which operates each Thursday along the riverside. The original Mary Ann was used to haul timber in the 1870s, named for the daughters of Scottish timber pioneers and the timber offcuts fuelled the engine. It ran on a 3’3 gauge, even narrower than the Queensland 3’6 gauge. The current engine is a replica built in the 1990s.

J E Brown commenced business as a provisions and victuals merchant in 1857 in Richmond Street. In 1879 he had this two-storey brick warehouse built and was designed by local architect James Buchanan. In later years, the premises were used for dances, balls, boxing tournaments, a restaurant, and currently houses the Maryborough Military and Colonial Museum.

Maryborough Heritage Centre is a heritage-listed former bank building at 164 Richmond Street. It was designed by George Allen Mansfield and James Cowlishaw and built in 1877 with goldrush wealth for the Bank of New South Wales. It is also known as National Parks and Wildlife Service Headquarters, Post Master General’s Department, and Telecom Building.

The following day was Friday and it was Fraser Coast show day. It seemed everyone in town was at the Maryborough Showgrounds to the west of the city. It was a typical boisterous show with all the usual ingredients. But after a while I became uneasy at so much close contact in these Covid times and went back to town.

This sculpture commemorates the work of Pamela Lyndon Travers, born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough in 1899. P. L.Travers is most famous for the series of Mary Poppins children’s novels. Travers was an actress and journalist whose most abiding creation was the magical English nanny, Mary Poppins, famously played by Julie Andrews in the smash hit 1964 Hollywood film. Walt Disney’s daughters loved the novels when they were children, and Disney spent 20 years trying to purchase the film rights. Travers was an adviser in the production, but disapproved of the watered-down Disney Poppins character. She so hated the animation she ruled out any further adaptations of the series. At the premiere after-party she told Disney “The first thing that has to go is the animation sequence.” Disney replied, “Pamela, the ship has sailed” and walked away. Travers died in England in 1996 aged 96.

On the Saturday I went down to Anzac Park for the weekly local parkrun at 7am. The 5km track takes runners and walkers around the lovely Ululah Lagoon taking the pain off the exertion. The park also houses Maryborough golf club.

I had just enough time for shower and breakfast before getting a lift back to Maryborough West station for the 11.05am train back to Brisbane. This one was the tilt train originating in Rockhampton.

Unlike the trip up, the trip back to Brisbane was in full daylight so I was able to enjoy the scenery. A highlight is Mount Tibrogargan, one of the 13 peaks of the Glass House Mountains. Lieutenant James Cook gave them that name in 1770 because the peaks reminded him of the glass furnaces in his native Yorkshire. The range was formed as molten lava cooled to form hard rock in the cores of volcanoes 26-27 million years ago. Tibrogargan is the third tallest of the peaks. The name comes from the local aboriginal words chibur for flying squirrel and kaiyathin for biting. Tibrogargan was the father of all the other Glass House Mountains except Beerwah, his wife. Tibrogargan saw a rising of the waters from the sea, and called to his son Coonowrin to take his mother Beerwah to a safe place. However Coonowrin failed to do so, and in anger Tibrogargan clubbed himand broke his neck. Tibrogargan is said to have turned his back to face Coonowrin. We turned our backs on Tibrogargan as we tilted effortlessly back to Brisbane.