Gympie days

Another weekend, another round of parkrun tourism, or so I hoped. This weekend’s plan was to get the Brisbane suburban train all the way to the end of the line in Gympie, stay overnight, do the Victory Heights trail parkrun in the morning and get the bus home (the train timetables did not align for a return by rail). So after over three hours of slow rattling we got into Gympie North station around lunchtime Friday. The weather was overcast with rain forecasted, as I found my nearby Airbnb and walked 3km into town. I crossed fingers the parkrun would not be cancelled.

On the way, I passed Gympie station, which is prettier than the functional Gympie North and much closer to town, but is sadly no longer on the main line. A station first opened here in 1881 to connect Gympie’s goldfields with the port of Maryborough and within 10 years there was a connection to Brisbane. The current building, designed in Pagoda style with multiple layered eaves, dates to 1913 and is the largest timber railway station in Queensland. Gympie’s station became neglected with the rise of car travel and in 1989 Queensland Rail built Gympie North in an 8km diversion on the newly electrified Brisbane-Rockhampton route. Freight stopped coming through Gympie by 1995. The station got a new lease of life in 1998 when QR leased it to the Mary Valley Heritage Railway. The Valley Rattler steam train now plies the route to Amamoor.

Gold was first found 4km south of Gympie in 1867 and Scottish prospector William Ferguson named the area Monkland for a locality west of Glasgow. By 1873, there were shops and four hotels to serve the goldrush and the railway station was added in 1889 on the Brisbane line. Like Gympie station, it was bypassed a century later though the Valley Rattler still trundles through.

Goldrush memories are preserved in the nearby Gympie Gold Mining and Historical Museum. The tagline outside reads “the town that saved Queensland” and that’s not too much of an exaggeration. When Queensland left New South Wales in 1859, the parent colony took the treasury leaving the northerners broke. Unemployment was high, railway works had stopped, and the Bank of Queensland failed, leaving the new colony to survive in hand-to-mouth fashion. Then the Brisbane Courier announced in 1867 the discovery of gold at “Gympy Creek”. Prospectors poured into the region and found large deposits of gold. Within 12 months, Gympie had 30,000 people. Queensland’s unemployment problem vanished overnight.

The Upper Mary River goldfield was officially proclaimed in 1867 in a 25 square mile radius. But the finds were so good, the radius was expanded to 120 square miles in 1877. By then the alluvial gold was exhausted. Shallow and deep reef mining commenced and by 1881 intensive gold mining marked a new era of wealth and prosperity. While payable gold ran out by the 1920s, there is still a fossicking area nearby. The museum’s No 2 South Great Eastern shaft is accessible via a reconstructed gantry. It contains an operational boiler house and steam powered winding engine, air compressor, generator and anciliary machinery.

The museum also features exhibits from the timber industry, dairy, agriculture, gems, transport, and military and social history including the relocated cottage of early Australian prime minister Andrew Fisher. Fisher, aged 10, came to Australia with his Scottish family during Queensland’s goldrush. He moved to Gympie in 1888, worked in the mines and was a trade unionist and Labor party activist. He help found the Gympie cooperative, and in 1891 became secretary of the Gympie Joint Labour Committee. He was elected to Queensland’s assembly as the member for Gympie before winning the seat of Wide Bay in the first federal election in 1901. He became Labor leader in 1905 and served three terms as prime minister in 1908-09, 1910-13 and 1914-15.

Near the museum is Lake Alford, an important bird sanctuary, named for neighbour Frank “Tiny” Alford (nicknamed in Australian fashion because he was very tall) who helped develop the park. This was a swampy area which Gympie Council drained and filled with water. The lake is home to numerous bird species. The signature black swans (Cygnus atratus) are completely black except for the red bill and white flight feathers on their wings while chicks are light grey.

I wandered down a wet track to the Mary River. The river rises at Booroobin west of Landsborough and flows north through Gympie and Maryborough before emptying into the Great Sandy Strait near Fraser Island. The river was important to the Gubbi Gubbi people who called it “Moocooboola” (not to be confused with Mooloolaba which has a different root). The Gubbi Gubbi named a tributary creek for the gimpi-gimpi, the fearsome stinging tree found across the region. Europeans encroached onto Gubbi Gubbi lands in 1842 and found what they called the Wide Bay River. Five years later NSW governor Charles FitzRoy renamed it for his wife Mary. Settlers were attracted to the rich cedar which they threw into the river and exported to Sydney via Maryborough. After gold transformed the region, the Gubbi Gubbi were reduced by massacres and disease and were eventually forced into reservations at Fraser Island and Cherbourg.

The first Gympie Volunteer Fire Brigade was formed in 1876 but lapsed before re-forming in 1901 with a fire station built in 1902. The current magnificent brick and concrete fire station dates to 1940. The station is believed to be haunted by the ghost of a fireman who died in a fall from the lookout on the tower in 1943. In 2023 the state government announced plans to build a new station south of town.

Gympie was gazetted as a town on January 26, 1880 and a reserve for a town hall was soon created. The original town hall and clock tower dates from 1890 and witnessed the creation of Gympie city in 1905. As gold production declined, Gympie transformed into an agricultural service centre. The building received a makeover in 1939 with a post office and reception hall added. It was heritage listed in 2011 for its original structure representing the importance of a highly profitable gold mining town and its 1930s extension reflecting Gympie’s evolution as the service town of an important dairy and agricultural district.

The town centre winds its way up from the river along flood-prone Mary Street. The Cullinane brothers started a drapery business in 1868, a year after the town was founded. They established a large presence on both sides of the street selling everything from dress material and accessories to china, linen and household goods. Gympie’s worst flood was in 1893 with a peak of 25.45 metres, inundating many businesses to the rooftops in lower Mary Street. On November 6, 1939 Cullinanes’ store burnt down with damage estimated at £60,000.

The influx of money and yield of gold was reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s. Derry-born architect Richard Gailey built the neo-classical Bank of New South Wales in 1890–1891 to replace a branch on the goldfields. In 1940 the bank sold the building to Widgee Shire Council which administered the rural area around Gympie. In 1993, Widgee amalgamated with the city of Gympie and the building became the Cooloola Shire Council Chambers. In 2008, Cooloola, Kilkivan and part of Tiaro were amalgamated into Gympie Regional Council. The building is now the Gympie Regional Council Chambers. It is heritage listed as “physical evidence of the evolution of Gympie gold mining, a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland”.

Around the corner on Channon St is the original courthouse and now home to the Australian Institute of Country Music. Irish-born Henry Edward King was appointed gold commissioner for Wide Bay in 1867 and conducted business on the Gympie goldfields until a Court of Petty Sessions was established in 1868. A new court was erected on Channon St in 1876 and it became the land office when the court house moved up the road in 1893. It continued to be used by state departments until 2002 when Cooloola Shire took it over and made the building available to the AICM.

Across the road is the old bank building. The Queensland National Bank established a timber branch here in 1872, and enjoyed the gold bonanza, purchasing over 6000 ounces in its first three weeks. Three years later the current brick building was erected. When Gympie’s commercial centre moved to eastern Mary St the bank sold the building. It was used by industries until Widgee Council bought it in 1990. It is now used as council offices.

Further up Channon St is the new courthouse. In the 1890s local MP Andrew Fisher pushed for a larger replacement to the old courthouse. In 1900 colonial architect Alfred Barton Brady, who designed Brisbane’s old Victoria Bridge, selected the site and commissioned fellow architect John Smith Murdoch to design the building in Federation Free style. The building was designed to be seen from across town and the clock tower dominated the landscape. It has been heritage listed as a significant landmark with high quality design and workmanship.

Gympie’s third important colonial-era bank building is the Royal Bank of Queensland. A great fire in 1891 destroyed many timber buildings on Mary St and this neoclassical single-storey building was one of many permanent structures erected the following year. The Royal Bank was established to help Queensland farming and mining investors who could not get loans with other banks. In 1922 the Royal merged with the Bank of Northern Queensland to become the Bank of Queensland and then merged with the National Australia Bank in 1948. NAB closed this branch in 1979 and it became commercial premises, and offices for the Gympie Muster. It is heritage listed as a “good example of a masonry structure in a classical style”.

The following morning I went out to Victory Heights Trail Network, which comprises 60 hectares of eucalypt forest and 25km of mountain biking trails. It also hosts Gympie’s parkrun. While Saturday was perfect for running, the damage had already been done and Gympie Regional Council asked organisers to cancel it to give the course time to dry out. I sadly trudged the 3km back to town to get my bus home.

I had breakfast at a Mary Street cafe and admired the nearby “Lady of the Mary” statue. The statue honours British aristocrat Lady Mary Fitzroy, who moved to Australia when her husband Charles Fitzroy was made governor of NSW in 1846. In 1847 Fitzroy renamed the Wide Bay River and Maryborough in her honour. A few months later, Lady Mary was killed in a carriage accident in Sydney. The 2017 statue imagines her dipping her feet in the Mary river, which she never saw.

The parkrun cancellation gave me more walking time and I checked out St Patrick’s Church. Many Irish Catholics joined the Gympie gold rush and priests followed them, with the first Mass in the new town in 1868. Gympie’s early churches were basic affairs until the massive sandstone St Patrick’s was constructed on a prominent spot on Calton Hill in 1883. The architect was prolific Scottish-born government architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, who also built Brisbane’s GPO, Roma St station, Toowoomba’s courthouse and post office, and some of Charters Towers’ grand buildings. Queensland’s first Catholic archbishop Robert Dunne officially opened St Patrick’s in 1887. It is heritage listed as a good example of 1880s church architecture, “influenced by Gothic revival styles and of the ecclesiastical work of the prominent Queensland architect, FDG Stanley.”

It is appropriate that a city associated with country music was once called Nashville. A Memorial Park monument celebrates Wiltshire-born James Nash “who discovered the Gympie Goldfield 16th October 1867.” Nash emigrated to Sydney aged 23 and became a labourer and NSW gold prospector. Nash moved to Calliope, Queensland in 1863 then to Nanango. He was attracted by the news of a £3000 government reward for a new gold field, and set off from Nanango to Gladstone. As he came down from Imbil, he thought the Mary River might be payable. Nash found quantities of gold and reported his findings in Maryborough. Within a month, the port town was full of excited prospectors “off to the diggings” at what was soon dubbed “Nashville, Gympie Creek”. However the miserly colonial government haggled with Nash before granting only £1000 after twelve months’ debate while the field quickly shed his name and became Gympie. Though Nash and his brother earned £7000 from their claims, they lost their winnings in poorly-performing mining stock and an ill-fated drapery store. The government finally helped the near penniless Nash in 1888 it made him the local powder-magazine keeper at £100 a year. He died in 1913 in Gympie, aged 79, suffering from bronchitis and asthma.

The bus back to Brisbane stopped at a service station in Traveston, 20 minutes south of town. In the car park was a glorious piece of 1980s Queensland kitsch. The 13-metre-tall Matilda was the kangaroo mascot for the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. Matilda became a favourite when she was wheeled into the opening ceremony, turned her head, wiggled her ears and winked at the crowd. In 1984 Matilda was placed alongside the Pacific Highway at Wet N Wild, Oxenford. Matilda Fuel Services bought the namesake kangaroo in 2009 for their Tugun outlet but the massive marsupial breached Gold Coast planning regulations. The owners moved her to another travel centre at Kybong, 20km south of Gympie. Anticipating the Gympie bypass, the Traveston Service Centre was opened 5km away in 2020 and Matilda made the short hop south down the Bruce Hwy. She gave me a sly wink before sending me on my way home.

Lutwyche Cemetery

I decided this week to cast my Brisbane city council vote in advance of polling day and that meant a long walk to the pre-poll office in Kedron Heights. It was an excuse to go somewhere new in my neighbourhood. I’d often passed Lutwyche Cemetery while driving up Gympie Rd but had never visited it. Though the graveyard has had no interments in three decades and is mostly ignored apart from the occasional dog walker, it remains a beautiful place, rich in history.

The cemetery and nearby suburb are named for 19th century politician and judge Alfred Lutwyche. Lutwyche was a NSW attorney-general who became Queensland’s first resident judge after it became a colony in 1859. He became the colony’s first supreme court judge two years later. Lutwyche lived in a grand house on Nelson St in my own next door suburb of Wooloowin and died in 1880. He was buried in St Andrew’s Anglican churchyard, though the cemetery named for him had just opened. Brisbane Cemetery (now Toowong Cemetery) had opened a few years earlier, but was already overcrowded and the growing city needed a second cemetery. In 1877 the Courier reported a council debate where “citizens of the village of Lutwyche” were lobbying for a public hall and reading room, and there was also “a sum on the estimates for a cemetery at Lutwyche”. Building began in the new year and by April the Church of England portion was consecrated. Five-year-old Walter Silcock was the first burial on August 4 that year.

During the Second World War, authorities built a War Graves section to bury 389 soldiers, both identified and unidentified. The remains of nine servicemen from the First World War were also moved to this section. The Imperial War Graves Commission erected the Cross of Sacrifice in 1950 using Helidon freestone.

The most famous of the First World War graves is William Edward Sing’s. Billy Sing was a sniper at Gallipoli who killed up to 300 Turkish soldiers. Born in Clermont to an English mother, he suffered racial prejudice on account of his Chinese father. He kept his head down, becoming a stockman and became an expert shooter. Recruiters agonised over his “unsuitable background” before accepting him into the army in 1914, aged 30. The rugged Gallipoli terrain was made for snipers such as Sing whose spotter was the later best-selling author Ion Idriess, and he quickly became deadly. The Turks assigned their best marksman against him in vain. Fellow soldiers witnessing Sing’s marksmanship dubbed him “The Assassin”. Later in the war he moved to the western front where he was not as effective, and was wounded in the trenches before gas exposure ended his military career. Suffering from injuries, he failed at farming and mining and remained in poverty after the war. He died in obscurity in Brisbane in 1943. This large memorial was unveiled for him at Lutwyche in 2016.

James Brennan was a little known Queensland politician who served in turbulent times. Brennan was born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia in his 20s, taking up mining at Gympie. He later worked for a meat export company in Brisbane and Townsville, and from 1902 managed a Rockhampton meatworks. In 1907 he stood for election as a Kidstonite for the seat of North Rockhampton. Former Premier William Kidston had left the Labour Party and formed his own party with support from moderates including fellow Rockhampton man Brennan. The election left Kidston as a minority premier but within a year he merged with Robert Philp’s conservatives, Philp briefly replacing him as premier. Brennan joined their new Liberal Party which held government under Kidston and later Digby Denham. Brennan resigned in 1912 when the seat of Rockhampton North was abolished. On retirement he moved to Wooloowin. He was buried here in 1917 next to his son William who died at Gallipoli.

Charles Moffatt Jenkinson (1865–1954) was a political contemporary of Brennan. Born in Birmingham, England in 1865, Jenkinson emigrated to Australia in 1883 and worked as a sports journalist before becoming proprietor at the South Brisbane Herald. In 1902 he was elected to Wide Bay as an opposition MP and year later moved to the seat of Fassifern. Though dismissed as a “sanctimonious job hunter” by the Brisbane Worker, he refused ministerial office. The highlight of his parliamentary career was an eight-hour filibuster, though he later voted for time limits to deny this expedient to others. In 1912 he became a Brisbane city alderman and was elected mayor in 1914. He immediately set out his vision for a new city hall at Albert Square (now King George Sq) and the foundation stone was laid in 1917. Jenkinson retired from council in 1916 and helped establish the large wartime Queensland Patriotic Fund for army wives and children. He returned to the Herald and in 1922 was described as “one of the regulars at Ascot and Albion Park racecourses”. He died aged 94 in 1954.

One of Lutwyche’s better known graves belongs to musician Harold “Buddy” Williams. Country and western music emerged out of the Appalachian mountains in the 1920s and singers like Jimmie Rodgers became popular with the rise of radio. Born in Sydney in 1918, the young Williams heard Rodgers’ music at a Dorrigo dairy farm and started busking illegally on the NSW North Coast as “the Clarence River Yodeller”. He enlisted in the Second World War and was seriously wounded at the battle of Balikpapan in Borneo. After the war Williams toured with the rodeo circuit and took his own variety show across Australia. He achieved lasting fame when fan Bert Newton had him on his TV show in the 1970s. Williams died of cancer in 1986. He was regarded as Australia’s first country star influencing those who followed including Slim Dusty. Williams was buried next to his daughter Donita who was killed in a traffic accident in Scottsdale, Tasmania in 1948, aged just 21 months. His grave contains a drawing of a guitar and words from his song Beyond the Setting Sun.

Buried in the Catholic portion is Patrick Short, Queensland’s first native-born police commissioner. His Irish parents Patrick and Mary Keogh emigrated to Ipswich in 1855. Patrick senior ran an engineering and blacksmith’s works though he died in 1862 when his son was three. Starting in the building trade, Patrick junior worked in south-west Queensland before joining the police force in 1878 and was posted to St George. He married Irish Catholic Eleanor Butler in 1880 at Roma. There were rumours that year that members of the Kelly gang had escaped Victoria so Short was assigned to border patrol. Though talk persists to modern times that Steve Hart and Dan Kelly lived out their lives in southern Queensland, Short found no trace of them and went back to regular duties. In almost half a century of service, he rose through the ranks becoming chief inspector in 1916 and commissioner five years later. He retired to Clayfield in 1925. A horse lover, Scott helped develop the police stud at Springsure and like Jenkinson, was often found at Brisbane racecourses. He died in 1941, aged 81.

Though the war had ended, there was tragedy on February 19, 1946 when an RAAF Lincoln bomber crashed at Amberley Airport near Ipswich killing 16 airmen. The plane was flying RAAF men home from Laverton near Melbourne but overshot the landing strip. Witnesses said the pilot retracted the under-carriage and attempted to lift the plane for a second circuit but it failed to respond and crashed before bursting into flames. The sixteen are buried together at Lutwyche. “Individual identification was not possible”, according to the grave plaque.

Lieutenant George Witton was a Boer War veteran, and a co-accused of Harry “Breaker” Morant. Witton was born to a Warrnambool, Victoria farming family in 1874. When the Second Boer War broke out in 1899, patriotic Australian colonies including Victoria rushed to send troops to fight in the conflict on the side of the British Empire. Witton served as a gunner before the war before enlisting in the Victorian Imperial Bushmen. In South Africa in 1901 he was recruited for the Bushveldt Carbineers, an irregular mounted infantry regiment, reporting to fellow lieutenant Morant. After the Boers murdered a captured British officer, Morant and another lieutenant Peter Handcock found Boer soldier Floris Visser with the murdered officer’s papers. Though Witton objected, they killed Visser after a de facto court-martial. That was one of six “disgraceful incidents” including the shooting of six surrendered Afrikaners cited in a letter signed by 15 Carbineers, which led to charges of several officers. Morant, Handcock and Witton were all charged with Visser’s killing. Morant infamously testified they shot him under “rule 303” referring to the 0.303 inch cartridge used in British Army rifles. Morant and Handcock were sentenced to death for murder. Witton was convicted of manslaughter and released in 1904 after Australian government intervention. In later life he was a succesful pastoralist and director of a Biggenden cheese factory. He died of a heart attack, aged 68, in 1942. He published his version of events in Scapegoats of the Empire: the true story of Breaker Morant’s Bushveldt Carbineers in 1904, though the book was hard to get, with many believing it was deliberately suppressed. In 2010, the British Government rejected a petition to review of the convictions of Morant, Handcock and Witton.

Toowoomba days

Once a month I try to attend a new parkrun venue. The original idea for March was a train to the Sunshine Coast and cycle to Caloundra for an ocean swim before doing the run on Saturday morning. However early in the week, my bike played up and the bottom bracket broke, a part my local shop said would take a fortnight to get. Cooling my heels I decided on plan B, a bus to Toowoomba for a run in the Garden City. And so an hour and a half after leaving Roma St station we were trundling up the range 700 metres above sea level, on the road shown below. Toowoomba was a few minutes away at the top of the hill. This was the main Warrego Highway west until the Toowoomba bypass was built to the north in 2018.

Emerging from Neil Street bus station on a gorgeous Friday afternoon I pass by the heritage-listed old court house. As the sign on this classical building states this was Toowoomba’s court house between 1878 and 1979. Toowoomba was surveyed in 1852 as a replacement for the settlement of Drayton as it was closer to the edge of the range. Toowoomba is thought to be named either after a property in the area in the 1850s, or from an Aboriginal word meaning “place where water sits” or “place of melon” or “place where reeds grow” or “berries place” or “white man”. Whichever it was, Toowoomba became the main town on the Darling Downs when Queensland became a colony in 1859. A small court opened in Margaret St in 1863 but wealthy Downs citizens commissioned this imposing replacement of locally-quarried stone in 1876 designed by prolific Scottish-born government architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, who was also responsible for Brisbane’s GPO, Roma St station and some of Charters Towers’ grand buildings. When Toowoomba’s court moved to a new building in 1979, it was used as government buildings before being sold privately in 2000.

Nearby is Toowoomba’s former post office. The post office was also designed by Stanley in classical revival style and complements the Court House in form and material. The post office opened in 1880 as a major staging point on the intercolonial telegraph and operated for 120 years before Australia Post moved to a new building in 1999. It functions now as a cafe and offices.

The third major heritage-listed building in the Margaret-Neil St precinct is Toowoomba’s police headquarters. This Raymond Nowland designed-building is of later vintage than the other two, dating to 1935, replacing an earlier timber structure. There are four parts to the complex: a police station, garage, watch house and keeper’s residence. The Heritage Register says the impressive form is indicative of Toowoomba’s importance as “Queensland’s second city in the urban hierarchy of the state.”

I decided on a long walk from the city to Picnic Point. I passed Queens Park where I would be doing the parkrun in the morning. The 25-hectare park was gazetted as a public reserve in 1869.

I then took the long walkway besides East Creek. There are a number of parks along the creek, all with unimaginative numerical names. Below is East Creek Park 2 between Margaret and Herries St, a pretty and popular lunch destination for city workers with barbecue and picnic facilities. The park is the start of the East Creek cycle route to Spring St, Middle Ridge.

A feature of Park 2 is the Mothers Memorial Garden. The Mothers` Memorial (rear of image below) was the site of military recruitment during the First World War and where Toowoomba’s Anzac Day commemoration has been held since 1916. After the war bereaved mothers sold flowers to raise funds for a Mothers’ Memorial which was originally at the corner of Margaret and Ruthven St in 1922. Calls to move it away from its busy location began in the 1960s and after much controversy it was moved to its present peaceful location in 1985. The trachyte stone memorial is unique in Queensland.

I followed the East Creek path to Long St then diverted up the hill to Picnic Point. These lovely parklands are at the top of the range looking east towards the Lockyer Valley. It is the home of many native birds including the red-browed finch, striated pardalote and pale-headed rosella.

Carnival Falls is an artificial waterfall below the Bill Gould lookout (where the first photo in this blogpost was taken). A bluestone quarry was established here in 1890 to provide stone for roads and buildings including the post office and court house. The quarry closed by the 1940s. The Carnival of Flowers Association built the falls in 1965 in the disused quarry as a planned beautification to attract more carnival visitors. Nearby a Camera Obscura was erected in 1967 with two six-inch lenses offering views of the city and the valley below. It was closed in 1990 and demolished three years later.

Along the path are markers for a scaled model of the solar system. I first spotted Neptune (4.4 billion kms from the sun) and gradually passed most of the remaining inner planets in the next few kilometres. The only sign I missed was the one for Uranus. Perhaps the model had taken Neptune’s elliptical orbit into consideration and Uranus was hidden somewhere beyond it. The marker for Mars (213 million kms from the sun) was just around the corner from Earth, Venus, Mercury and the sun.

Below is the view from the Tobruk Memorial Drive Lookout. On the right is Sugar Loaf and left centre is Table Top Mountain. Over millions of years Table Top eroded leaving only the flat-topped basalt plug and scree slopes. Local tribes knew the mountain as Meewah and in 1840 a white land overseer shot dead Aboriginal men dancing on the mountain peak. The incident unleashed attacks between white and black. By 1843 an alliance of south-east Queensland tribes tried to starve white colonists out. Multuggerah led 100 warriors to ambush a convoy of drays up the Range from Grantham. Angry settlers followed them to Table Top but wandered into a trap of hurled boulders and stones in what became known as the Battle of One Tree Hill. Clashes persisted until 1850 when superior weaponry and the introduction of native police turned the tide.

Walking back to town, I diverted again to Queen’s Park’s Botanic Gardens. Every September the gardens are a centrepiece of internationally renowned Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers. Each year, thousands of seedlings are planted in attractive geometric-shaped garden beds to ensure their blooms peak in time for the Carnival.

A short walk from the Botanic Gardens is “Whyembah” on Campbell St, Toowoomba’s “Grand Lady”. Built around 1896 for commercial traveller John Rosser, the weatherboard house is heritage-listed because it “demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1890s ornate timber house in Toowoomba”. Rosser was a first class cricketer for Victoria in the 1880s. He also enjoyed lawn bowls and installed a bowling green on the property, though this is now long gone. Rosser died in 1925 and his widow Margaret continued to live there until her death in the 1940s.

As the evening closed in, I passed more heritage-listed buildings. The Strand Theatre on Margaret St was built as a cinema in 1915. Toowoomba councillor James Newman commissioned Brisbane architect George Addison to build it on the site of picture gardens. The American-derived design with its large semi-circular glazed arch was similar to cinemas from the same era in Brisbane and Melbourne though the top level was designed as additional accommodation for Newman’s next door Crown Hotel. Pioneering movie exhibitor Mary Stuart “Señora” Spencer (billed as “The Only Lady Cinematograph Artist in the World”) leased the theatre and named it the Strand like her theatres in Brisbane and Newcastle. The April 5, 1916 Darling Downs said “SEÑORA SPENCER seeing no reason to doubt that the high class features, style, and novelty, that characterise the enormously successful Cinematograph Exhibitions conducted by her at the Strand Theatre, Brisbane, would prove immensely popular with the Toowoomba public.” Though Spencer sold up in 1918, the Strand flourished through the golden age of cinema and still shows movies. Its heritage listing hails its demonstration of “the emergence of cinema as a 20th-century social phenomenon.”

On Neil St is the art deco Empire Theatre. Like the Strand, the Empire was built as a cinema by Brisbane entertainment promoter EJ Carroll in 1911. Although destroyed by fire, substantial sections were included in the 1933 rebuild. Brisbane’s TR Hall & LB Phillips was architect for the new building which accommodated 2500 people, the second largest venue in Queensland. The cinema declined with the advent of television and the local council bought it in 1997 and restored it as a performing arts venue. Its heritage listing calls it “rare and important evidence of the increasingly sophisticated expectations of interwar cinema audiences”.

St Luke’s Anglican Church on Herries St is another heritage-listed building. A primitive church was established on the site in 1857 as Toowoomba began to replace Drayton as the leading town on the Downs. The foundation stone for the current bluestone structure was laid in 1895 and the church opened two years later. St Luke’s was designed in traditional Gothic revival style though it took several phases to complete. A stained glass window is a replica of one at Chartres Cathedral and the church retains a magnificent Norman and Beard pipe organ from 1907. The heritage listing hails St Luke’s as a major work of 19th century English-born ecclesiastical architect John Hingeston Buckeridge, who built 60 churches in Queensland.

The first elected Toowoomba Council in 1861 petitioned the new colony of Queensland for a land grant to build a town hall, originally on the corner of James and Neil Sts. The city expanded greatly that decade with the arrival of the railway from Brisbane and the founding of the Chronicle newspaper. In 1898 the School of Arts on Ruthven St burned down and Council hired English architect Willoughby Powell to design a new city hall on the site in 1900. The new building also incorporated a school of arts, a technical college and a theatre. It opened late that year with the clock added in 1901, which remains a focal point of Ruthven St. The building was heritage listed in the 1990s as its “generous size and grand character provide evidence of the prosperity and importance of Toowoomba as a major regional centre at the turn of the century.”

The White Horse Hotel on Ruthven St is also heritage-listed. The July 7, 1866 Chronicle reported that the hotel “lately opened by worthy Boniface Daniel Donovan” was “capacious” with 19 rooms and built of brick on stone foundations. The hotel changed hands a number of times and in 1912 new owners decided on an ornately detailed rebuild including a new facade and remodelled wings. The pub closed in 1986 and the ground floor is now shops. Its heritage listing promotes its importance as an early 20th century hotel, “in particular the flamboyant facade and interior elements such as the main stair, pressed metal ceilings, doorways, and fanlight.”

I was up early on Saturday morning for my run. I wandered across to Queen’s Park, just 10 minutes away, accompanied only by occasional pedestrians and four-legged friends.

There were a lot more people at the Margaret St end where the parkrun begins. Toowoomba is one of the biggest parkruns in the world and there were over 800 participants the prior week. For reasons unknown, there were a “mere” 550 runners this week but it still made for a crowded start line.

The course is two laps around the park, including the scenic Botanic Gardens. My efforts in my 217th parkrun and 93rd course were captured in this grimacing photo as I cross the finish line in a time of 24:30. Having freshened up and then enjoyed breakfast, I went to the station to get the bus down the range to Brisbane. But I’ll be back. T-Bar has plenty to offer – not least two other parkrun courses to conquer.

John Uniacke, Waterford’s connection to the founding of Brisbane

The northern entrance to the Pumicestone Passage at Caloundra with Bribie Island on the far shore. Uniacke and Oxley encountered castaways Pamphlet and Finnegan near here with the Bribie Island people. Photo: Author’s collection

John Fitzgerald Uniacke is not well remembered in Brisbane history, but his account of John Oxley’s voyage to the Brisbane River 200 years ago is an important text documenting life in Queensland prior to European occupation. It also tells the remarkable story of European castaways they found living with Indigenous tribes. 

John Uniacke (pronounced YUNE-yak) was born in Cork in 1797 from a wealthy Stradbally, Co Waterford Protestant Ascendency family. His mother Annette Uniacke was one of the all-powerful Beresfords, which dominated Waterford and national politics before Catholic Emancipation. His father Robert Uniacke was MP for Youghal in the Dublin parliament pre 1801 Act of Union. John was educated at Trinity College Dublin but did not complete his studies. Robert was inept financially and the Uniackes fell on hard times before John emigrated to Sydney in 1823 as a free settler. Eager to impress, he met New South Wales Governor Thomas Brisbane and accepted a place in surveyor-general John Oxley’s expedition to find a new penal settlement in what would become Queensland. Uniacke was designated “super cargo” and was treasurer and storekeeper for the expedition while doubling as a naturalist.

Uniake’s narrative “Mr Oxley’s expedition to survey Port Curtis and Moreton Bay” commences in Sydney on October 21, 1823. “Mr. Oxley, Lieutenant Stirling of the Buffs, and I, embarked on board the colonial cutter Mermaid (Charles Penson, master), about noon, and proceeded down the harbour; but the wind proving unfavourable, we came to under Point Piper where we remained till the next day at midnight, when a moderate breeze springing up we got under way and ran out of the harbour.”

Four days later they arrived 400km north at Port Macquarie, which Oxley visited in 1818, and where a penal settlement was established in 1821. They went ashore, Uniacke noting that maize and sugarcane grew well and would be “a lucrative form of export”, a prediction which came true for sugarcane. On the beach after dinner they were “highly amused by a dance among the natives” who were coming to an accommodation with the new settlement. Uniacke said “some of the more civilised” were working as constables. “Whenever (as frequently happens) any of the prisoners attempt to escape into the woods, they are instantly pursued by some of this black police, who possess a wonderful facility in tracing them” for which they were rewarded with “blankets, spirits &c.” Native troopers became a major part of frontier policing throughout the 19th century, especially in Queensland.

After two days the expedition continued north. They arrived at Point Danger four days later on October 31. In a whaleboat, they explored the mouth of a large river which Oxley named the Tweed. Uniacke was impressed by the scenery which “exceeded anything I had previously seen in Australia” with Mount Warning, “the highest land in New South Wales,” in the background. Locals included a man “curiously scarified all over the body, the flesh being raised as thick as my finger all over his breasts” who spat out a biscuit offered by the Europeans. While Uniacke saw no weapons in a nearby village, 200 warriors gathered with spears and they watched quietly as the ship sailed north. 

South-east Queensland places named in the text.

On November 6, they arrived 550km north at Port Curtis (Gladstone) where they searched for water in hot weather and bathed “in defiance of sharks.” They camped at a sandy beach and were “persecuted all night by musquitoes (sic) and sand-flies.” The following morning they hiked six hours through barren country seeing nothing but kangaroos. The only sign of humans was a grave near a tree whose bark had been stripped off, “the wood deeply engraven with a variety of rude symbols some resembling the print left on soft ground by kangaroos, emus and other animals.” They explored streams and found a large river they named the Boyne, but the ship could not cross the bar. Having found what became Gladstone Harbour, Oxley headed south.

After several days they laid anchor north of Brisbane at “Pumice-stone River, Moreton Bay” the passage inside Bribie Island, that Cook (1770) and Flinders (1799) both assumed was a river. On Bribie Island they saw natives, one a lighter colour and taller than the rest who shocked the seafarers by speaking in English. He was ticket-of-leave convict Thomas Pamphlet (sometimes Pamphlett). Seven months earlier, Pamphlet sailed south from Sydney in a boat with fellow convicts John Finnegan, Richard Parsons and John Thompson to cut cedar at Illawarra but were blown out to sea by a storm. After three weeks they landed on the east coast of Moreton Island. Thompson died of thirst and their boat was broken up by the surf. Though they were 800km north, the survivors somehow believed they were south of Sydney and walked north along the beach.

They paddled to Stradbroke Island in a native canoe and built their own canoe in which they crossed to the mainland. Continuing north they found an impassable large river and walked upstream until they found a canoe at what became Oxley Creek. They crossed the river, returned to the mouth, and followed the shore of Moreton Bay north to Redcliffe Peninsula and Bribie Island where Oxley found Pamphlet on November 29. Parsons and Finnegan abandoned him six weeks earlier when Pamphlet’s feet were too sore to travel. Locals treated him with “great kindness.” When Parsons and Finnegan quarrelled a few days later, Parsons headed north towards Noosa (and was found by Oxley on his 1824 voyage) and Finnegan returned to Pamphlet. Finnegan was hunting with tribesmen when Uniacke’s ship arrived. A day later Finnegan returned and the two castaways told the travellers of the great river south of the bay.

Oxley and Stirling accompanied Finnegan to find the river by whaleboat while Uniacke stayed behind to transcribe Pamphlet’s story and explore Bribie Island. There were 30 adults and 20 children who lived there in huts which held 10-12 people “built of long slender wattles, both ends of which are stuck into the ground” forming a one-metre high arch, “strongly interwoven with rude wicker-work and the whole is covered with tea-tree bark” to keep out the rain. Women carried heavy burdens, “whatever rude utensils they possess, with a large quantity of fern-root, and not unfrequently, two or three children.” Men carried spears and fire-sticks and caught fish by driving them into hoop-nets in shallow waters. They were amazed by Pamphlet’s ability to boil water in a tin pot he saved from the wreckage. Both sexes were naked and unornamented. They refused clothing though they accepted Uniacke’s gifts of strips of red cloth, bunting and cockatoo feathers.

Uniacke Park, Tweed Heads, NSW. The text reads “John Fitzgerald Uniacke (1798 sic -1825) was the son of the member for Younghall (sic) in the Irish House of Commons. Soon after his arrival in the Colony he was appointed Superintendent of Distilleries, and later Sheriff and Provost Master of NSW. His special role in the 1823 Oxley Expedition that discovered the Tweed River was the identification of Rocks and Minerals.”  Photo: author’s collection

Uniacke noted how tribes painted themselves, some blackened with charcoal and beeswax, some with white pigments and others with “red jaspar (sic), which they burn and reduce to a powder.” Their “chief” was a tall middle-aged man with two wives, which was “not common with them.” The women had lost “the first two joints of the little finger of the left hand” but young men did not practise tooth avulsion.

While the natives begged for everything the visitors had, Uniacke saw only one example of theft when someone stole an axe. Uniacke made his retrieval mission known by sign language. As he approached a young man with the axe, the man ran away but the tribe delivered it back the following morning. With trust restored, many ventured to board the ship, where they were astonished by the cats and goats. They caressed the cats, but were in awe of the goats’ horns and would not approach them.

Uniacke found no religion in the Bribie Islanders. He never saw them pray or have any good or evil spirits. Pamphlet said the women were treated well and never beaten, except by other women. Uniacke said the women were beautiful, “tall, straight and well-formed”. The tribe quarrelled with other tribes, sometimes with fatal effect. Finnegan told him of a women’s fight with sticks he’d witnessed, “in five minutes, their heads, arms &c, being dreadfully cut and swelled” and a spear-fight between two men, where one was killed and skinned. It was followed by a general fight “in the manner of light infantry” where Finnegan’s party was forced to give way after several deaths. Finnegan himself was captured but opponents merely laughed at him and left him unharmed.

Pamphlet witnessed a more gladiatorial fight where there was no bloodshed. This was a one on one contest in a “combat ring” watched by 500 men. Two combatants entered the ring and shouted abuse before throwing spears at each other which they warded off with shields. When one spear finally penetrated a shoulder, “the tournament concluded with loud huzzahs.”

Uniacke fretted when Oxley and Stirling failed to return to Bribie as expected on December 4. The following night, the ship heard gunfire. Oxley’s party arrived exhausted at midnight, having rowed all day. Oxley said they found a “magnificent river” which meandered 50km through rich soil and “flat country, clothed with large timber” with excellent wood. The Mermaid left Moreton Bay a day later and sailed south. Uniacke ended his journal saying they arrived in Sydney on December 13.

Oxley named the magnificent river for Governor Brisbane. After he returned in 1824 it became the site of a penal colony, and later Australia’s third largest city. Uniacke published Pamphlet’s narrative. Historian Thomas Welsby said the credit for the European discovery “must be given without hesitation” to Uniacke because he “gleaned from the men their pitiful tale (and) heard from their lips the finding of the river itself.” Uniacke did not live to see the settlement he helped found. He failed to gain advancement in Sydney other than a trifling position as “surveyor of distilleries.” In 1824 he got a temporary job as sheriff and provost marshal but could not make it permanent.

On January 13, 1825 Uniacke contracted a remitting fever and died, aged 27. The Sydney Gazette praised his “high and delicate sense of honour” and his “honest feeling heart” which sympathised with “the distress of the poor”. He was interred at Devonshire St cemetery. When that was cleared to make way for Sydney Central Station in 1904, his body was exhumed with thousands of others, and moved to La Perouse. Uniacke’s journal and his description of adventures of the castaways gained wider circulation in Barron Field’s Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales, published in London in 1825. Biographer Serge Riviere said Uniacke had found “a place in Australian history” though his memory has been largely forgotten with only a park at Tweed Heads in northern NSW named for him. His 1823 travel journal is an important document for the remarkable tale of the castaways and his descriptive and dispassionate account of native life in Queensland prior to European settlement.

A walk around Binna Burra’s Coomera Circuit

On Sunday, I joined a group for a walk of Binna Burra’s Coomera Circuit. Billed as one of the great day walks by Australian Geographic, it was the second major walk I’ve done there in the past 12 months after doing the 10km Dave’s Creek circuit last year. At that time, many of the other walks were closed due to storm damage and while they were open this time, there was plenty of water about after South East Queensland’s big La Nina season. After a 90 minute drive (slightly longer than expected due to the closure of Beechworth Rd), I got to Binna Bunna before my walking companions and enjoyed the view down to Advancetown Lake (Hinze Dam) and the high-rise buildings of the Gold Coast beyond.

When the others arrived we set off south down the Border Track, a 21 km U-shaped walk to O’Reillys that traverses the border with New South Wales. Binna Burra and O’Reillys remain private operations adjacent to but not part of Lamington National Park. Our walk was scheduled to be a 17km loop off the main track but in the end we did 21km. The track was wet after recent rains and slippery and extremely muddy in places. It also meant the creeks were up. Conditions are remarkably different now then when they were in September 2019, when the area was devastated by bushfires and the historic lodge Binna Burra Lodge was destroyed.

Binna Burra means “where the (Antarctic) beech trees grow” in local Aboriginal language, a hint of the rainforest’s Gondwana origins. There were glimpses of the wider national park through the dense foliage as we diverted off the border track to the Coomera Circuit around the 2km. As well as beech, the forest is full of giant brush box Lophostemon confertus. The brush box evolved from a common ancestor as the eucalypt and have similar fruit.

Many Binna Burra tracks were designed and built by Romeo Lahey (who helped found the National Parks Association of Queensland in 1930) during the Great Depression, deliberately to have a gradient of less than 10%, something we’d appreciate on the way back. For now we were going down. After descending a few kilometres we came to a viewing spot of Coomera Falls. These are cantilevered falls where the Coomera River cascades into a 160m deep gorge. The Coomera River heads north-east down the range and empties into the Gold Coast Broadwater near Coomera Island and Paradise Point.

The view at the bottom of the falls.

Below we are faced with the first of many tricky river crossings as we follow the Coomera up towards its source. On several occasions we had no option but to get wet, in my case up to my upper thigh, to navigate the crossings.

There were many smaller waterfalls along the way such as Bahnamboola Falls. There is a deep pool under the plunge falls though swimming is not recommended along the track.

A little further on is Kagoonya Falls.

Followed by Gwongarragong Falls.

And then Moolgoolong Cascades.

There were several more cascades to come including the spectacular Neerigomindalala Falls, one of the last before we rejoin the Border Track.

Back on high ground we stop for lunch and a chance to dry out after all the creek crossings. There’s also a view of the Woggunba Valley from Joalah Lookout. This is the view east towards Natural Bridge.

It was a tough eight-hour-plus day of walking made more difficult than usual thanks to the wet conditions. At least it wasn’t raining on the walk so leeches weren’t an issue as they were in October when we did O’Reillys day walks. But it was raining somewhere as this lovely rainbow showed near Beechworth, a highlight of a long, tired drive home.

Around Ingham, Wallaman Falls and Balgal Beach

Two weeks ago, I did a quick trip to the coast for the Tyto Wetlands parkrun course in Ingham. After 10 hours in the car on Friday from Mount Isa, I arrived in Ingham late on a hot and humid afternoon and after checking into a motel I stretched my legs at the wetlands.

Tyto Wetlands is a 90-hectare natural wetland with lookouts and viewing points for many birds, native Australian wildlife and tropical plants. The area is named for the endangered Eastern Grass Owl (Tyto Longimembris). Hinchinbrook Shire is one of the few places in the world where this owl can be spotted regularly leaving their grassy habitat at dusk. The view below looks towards the Cardwell Range to the north.

With four kilometres of walking tracks, four bird viewing platforms and a multitude of ecosystems, I decide to go for a deeper walk in the wetlands. As well as the Eastern Grass Owl, it is home to over 240 species of birds and many agile wallabies. Thanks to signposts I found the track where I would do the parkrun the following morning. It’s a trail run with two loops around a lake.

After my walk it was time for dinner and a beer. Despite the name the place I chose was “the pub with no beer.” I thought the original pub with no beer was in Northern New South Wales at Taylor’s Arm but apparently that one is the imposter. The official Pub with No Beer made famous by Slim Dusty’s song of that name is this one, Lee’s Hotel in Ingham. The song is based on the poem A Pub Without Beer written by Ingham sugarcane farmer and poet Dan Sheahan in what was then called the Day Dawn Hotel in 1943.

After I’d eaten and wanted to walk off my dinner, I found this second watering hole, the impressive looking Royal Hotel. The original Royal was built by hotelier couple, James and Mary Shewcroft who moved south from Cardwell in 1883 to build the pub. But new owners in the 1920s didn’t like it and rebuilt it from scratch to the current configuration. Since the 1950s it has been run by the Quagliotto family. They are among the half of Ingham’s population of Italian descent. Many came to work in the sugar cane industry after the town began in 1864.

The following morning I was up early for the parkrun. Trail runs are tough at the best of times but the combination of mid 30s heat and high humidity made it a very sweaty exercise. Happy enough with a 26.48 time and despite my grimacing I enjoyed the views.

After freshening up and breakfast I headed to Wallaman Falls, 50km west. The road is flat through fields of sugar cane but as I approached the Seaview Range some climbing lay ahead. The range is the headwaters for the Burdekin and Herbert Rivers.

The last 20km are winding mountain roads. There are signs warning to be cautious of cassowaries, thought because of the bends I’m not going very fast. The southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) live in tropical forests in southern New Guinea, northeastern Australia, and the Aru Islands. There are 2000 of the flightless birds in Australia mainly around here and the Cassowary Coast to the north but this sign was as close as I got to one.

After an hour from Ingham I got to the carpark for the Falls. There they were, right in front of me – the highest permanent single-drop waterfall in Australia, the largest drop 268 metres. Wallaman Falls is in the traditional lands of the Warrgamaygan Aboriginal People at Girringun National Park. The falls descend over small cascades before the 268m horsetail drop for a total of 305 metres. They were formed 50 million years ago by continental margin uplift. The Herbert River previously flowed west but cut through the terrain towards Coral Sea. The gorge produced by erosive action gradually retreated inland but tributaries were left suspended forming their own gorges.

It’s a stunning sight but I wanted to know what it looked like from the bottom. There was a 2km walk down which was difficult in the heat especially the return leg uphill.

It was worth the trudge through tropical rainforest to get close to the falls. There is a swimming hole beneath the falls but I didn’t fancy climbing over slippery rocks to get to it.

The Wallaman Falls are part of Queensland’s world heritage-listed Wet Tropics. These lands are the oldest surviving rainforests on earth and host rare animal and plant species. In Warrgamaygan culture Yamanie came down from the sky in the form of a rainbow, transforming into the great rainbow serpent and creating the hills, rivers and creeks. Yamanie rested in the waterhole at the bottom of the falls. The Warrgamaygan try not to make him angry as he then shows his displeasure by making the waterhole overflow.

I drove back to Ingham for lunch and then an hour-long drive to Townsville. Half way down at Rollingstone I took a diversion to the beach. Balgal Beach is a pleasant unspoiled place looking out to the Palm Island group and Magnetic Island to the south. There was a protected swimming spot so it was a great place to cool down on a hot day.

Rollingstone is named for the smooth rounded stones in the creek bed. It was originally called Armidale but renamed in 1915 to avoid confusion with the NSW town. The railway came through the same year. It was founded as an overnight stop on the mail coach from Townsville to Ingham. Rollingstone Beach was founded in 1947 and later renamed Balgal Beach for an Aboriginal word for stone. The beach is a popular spot for fishers, daytrippers and weekend visitors from Townsville.

UPDATE LATE 2023: Sadly the Tyto Wetlands parkrun has closed due to an “increase in crocodile population”. I believe a new Ingham parkrun called Palm Creek has opened instead.

Author of new book claims to have discovered Lasseter’s Reef

A new book claims to have solved the long standing mystery of the supposed Lasseter’s Reef. The existence of a fabulously wealthy gold-bearing reef somewhere in the Australian outback has always been doubted since Harold Lasseter first put forward the idea in the 1930s. During the Great Depression Lasseter claimed he had known about a “vast gold bearing reef” in central Australia for 18 years and convinced the federal government for him to mount an expedition west of Alice Springs. The expedition ended in tragedy. Lasseter died in the desert and the reef was never found.

However the idea there was an Aladdin’s Cave of wealth somewhere in the Red Centre did not die with Lasseter despite most people thinking it only existed in his imagination. Ion Idriess’s bestselling novel Lasseter’s Last Ride: El Dorado Found kept the idea alive and although over 80 parties have since gone through “Lasseter’s country” without a single authenticated gold discovery, some still believe the reef does exist.

Among those is veteran explorer Bill Decarli. With the help of author Kristin Lee, Decarli has documented his findings in a new book called Lasseter’s Reef: One Man’s Journey Uncovers the Truth. Decarli boldly states the reef does exist and he has seen it. Decarli has known about Lasseter’s story most of his adult life and Decarli first went searching for the Reef in 1991. He said he found the reef on that first trip noting the “three tall circular hills” that Lasseter said were in the vicinity which Decarli said he found by going “in the opposite direction”. He said since then he has visited the site nine times and found an important link with another bushman.

Decarli begins the book by looking at elements of Lasseter’s story. They include the tale that in 1897 Lasseter, aged 17, rode on horseback from Cloncurry to the MacDonnell Ranges to look for rubies. Failing to find the gems, he kept going towards Western Australia and somewhere in this journey claimed to have found the 10-mile long gold reef. Almost out of food, he was rescued by an Afghan cameleer who brought him to a government surveyor named Harding who took him to Carnarvon, WA. The pair relocated the reef in 1900. But they could not get any funding to explore it and Harding died shortly after.

Lasseter kept up the dream until the infamous 1931 journey in which Lasseter argued with fellow expedition members before striking out on his own, which took him to his death and into legend. Decarli followed in Lasseter’s footsteps in 1991 travelling in a 4WD with his nephew. They went to Alice Springs but on a hunch went east instead of west, towards the old mining town Arltunga. Beyond that was tough 4WD country to Boulia and the Queensland border. Decarli claimed to have found the distinctive hills 480km east of Alice. Elated they drove on to Boulia to share the news of their discovery though few believed him.

Decarli continued to research Lasseter’s life. He found many anomalies including documents that showed he could not have been in the outback in 1897 as he was in the navy at the time. He found Lasseter had lived in Adelaide in 1917 close to where a former Arltunga miner Joseph Harding also lived. Harding was familiar with the eastern part of the Territory and was a competent surveyor. He was also a renowned cattle thief who would run a duffing route in Queensland along the area Decarli explored. Decarli believes Lasseter met Harding in Adelaide, perhaps by chance, and heard the story of the reef from him. Lasseter’s first letters to his family about the reef date from 1917. Harding died in 1928 and Lasseter went public with his claims a year later. Decarli believes Lasseter claimed he discovered the reef to secure the funding for the expedition.

Decarli formed a three-man syndicate for his second expedition in 1993. They found the reef again before returning to Alice. There Decarli looked at a map and noticed Carnarvon Ranges in Queenland almost directly opposite Carnarvon, WA as travelled from the reef. Decarli used this clue to determine from Lasseter’s writings he had got his east-west coordinates the wrong way round and that his writings referred to the other Carnarvon.

In 1994 Decarli told his story to People magazine though he had a setback when the family deli caught fire. Insurance would not pay all the costs and they discovered a partner had stolen money from the business. With the help of Niche Exploration he took samples from the reef which found gold and silver. Decarli then told his story to Bush Tucker Man in 1996 though Les Hiddens was unconvinced. Decarli packed his evidence away again saying he was “Lassetered out”.

In 2005 he published a book A Dead Man’s Dream: Lasseter’s Reef Found which generated brief interest. Filmmaker Luke Walker interviewed him for his Lasseter’s Bones documentary in 2012 though Decarli’s material did not make the final cut. Walker did shed some light on a mysterious man named Olaf Johanson whom Lasseter hoped to meet on his final ill-fated journey. Decarli traced the mysterious Johanson to Adelaide around the same time as Lasseter and Harding in 1917 while he found Johanson was in central Australia at the time of the 1931 expedition.

In 2016 Decarli appeared on an American Travel Channel documentary about the reef. The producers flew him to the region for filming from the air and the publicity encouraged another expedition to visit the site. Two members went missing west of Boulia and when Decarli joined a pilot looking for them they went low on fuel and landed on the Donahue Hwy. Boulia councillor and grazier Sam Beauchamp helped them out with fuel and they flew back to Boulia. Eventually the other two were found bogged near the border.

The group set up another syndicate and applied for an exploration permit. Flying from Mount Isa to Boulia, Decarli noticed resemblances between a “sphinx-like” feature named by Lasseter and a rock formation at the Monument, near Dajarra. Decarli claims he has found the “haystack” which lies between Alice and Boulia, not west of Alice as most post-Lasseter explorers have searched. But he has not yet found the “needle” which he said could be in Ethabuka Reserve west of Bedourie. He said the search goes on for a partner mining company. He would like to see a monument in Boulia telling the reef story and how it originates from this region. And though he believes Harding discovered it not Lasseter, it should remain Lasseter’s Reef, because he was the one who brought it to public attention, then “died for his efforts”. It’s another intriguing addition to the Reef mythology with a convincing explanation for many of Lasseter’s errors. Like all others before, Decarli and Lee have not definitively laid the matter to rest. The search for Australia’s El Dorado goes on.

Kevin and Eva O’Doherty, Brisbane’s Young Irelanders

The grave of Kevin and Eva O’Doherty at Toowong cemetery. Photo: Author’s collection.

Researching the Young Irelander revolutionaries of 1848, I sought out the graves of the Brisbane contingent. Husband and wife Kevin and Eva O’Doherty are buried in the rambling Toowong Cemetery. The prominent grave was easy to find in Portion 7 (Irish Catholic section). The grave is inscribed “SACRED To The Memory Of KEVIN IZOD O`DOHERTY The Irish Patriot Died 15th July 1905, Aged 81 Years Whose Name Will Live In Irish History And Whose Memory Ever Remains En-Shrined In Irish Hearts At Home And Abroad. Also His Gifted Wife ‘EVA of the NATION’ Died 22nd May 1910, Aged 80 Years Requiescant In Pace.” These lesser known rebels are celebrated in Ross and Heather Patrick’s Exiles Undaunted.

I first heard of Kevin Izod O’Doherty while researching the 1883 visit of Irish nationalists, John Redmond and brother Willie. The Redmonds were promoting Irish home rule in Australia and despite encountering sectarianism, they found O’Doherty an obliging host in Queensland. O’Doherty was Brisbane’s leading Irishman, a Queensland parliamentarian, and president of the Queensland Medical Association and the Queensland branch of the Land League. O’Doherty presided as Redmond spoke to 2000 people at a Goodna picnic to set up a branch of the Irish National League.

Almost four decades had passed since O’Doherty was one of seven Young Irelanders transported for a failed 1848 rebellion along with William Smith O’Brien, John Mitchel, Thomas Francis Meagher, John Martin, Terence MacManus and Patrick O’Donohoe. They were young radicals unhappy at the pace of reform of Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Association, dedicated to repeal of the union between Britain and Ireland. They were transported to Van Diemen’s Land where they continued a spirited campaign to keep the Irish nationalist cause alive.

The Young Irelanders were the scions of wealthy families who took their name from Young Italy, Mazzini’s movement to unite Italy in the 1830s. In 1843 O’Connell was nearing 70 while Meagher and O’Doherty were just 20. There were young women in the movement, including Jane Elgee writing as Speranza (later to become Lady Wilde, mother of Oscar) and black-haired poet Mary Ann Kelly known by nom de plume Eva.

They were well-educated liberal moderates pushed into extreme action by the government and their own naive idealism. Led by older Ascendancy parliamentarian William Smith O’Brien (who called himself “Middle Aged Ireland”) they were appalled by the British crackdown on Repeal agitation in 1843, gradually leading to a split with O’Connell’s moderates. In 1847 they formed the Irish Confederacy dedicated to independence. Ireland was in the middle of devastating Famine while Europe was wracked by revolutions. In February 1848 the people of Paris took to the barricades to establish a republic, toppling the monarchy. Revolts in Germany, Denmark and across the Hapsburg Empire also reverberated in Ireland.

O’Doherty was the son of a Dublin solicitor. In 1842 he commenced studies at the Original School of Medicine. He had a flair for journalism and wrote stirring editorials in support of revolution in Ireland. Poetry and light verse also helped readers imagine an Irish nation and one of the most powerful pens belonged to Mary Ann Kelly.

Kelly was the daughter of wealthy Galway landowners. Aged 15, she wrote a poem The Banshee about a spirit whose wailing heralded the death of members of leading Irish families including her own and it appeared in the Nation, the Young Ireland newspaper. Her first contribution as Eva was “Lament for Davis” after the unexpected early death of Nation founder Thomas Davis in 1845. Her The Awakening of the Sleepers was a call to arms: “The time is come – it is the hour / Warrior chiefs of Eire, now for your pow’r”. Kelly became known as Eva of the Nation.

A mystery poet who originally signed off as a “gentleman of Dublin” was soon revealed as Jane Francesca Elgee, daughter of Protestant Loyalists. Elgee reinvented herself as “Speranza” (hope) passing herself off as a distant relative of Dante. Her poetry electrified the Nation amid the worsening Famine and she showed “the vehement will of a woman of genius” as editor Charles Gavan Duffy said. She attracted the attentions of many Young Irelander men and was possibly Meagher’s lover.

The hottest head of the Young Irelanders belonged to John Mitchel. He used the Nation to advocate open rebellion against the official line of the Confederates to support constitutional reform. Alarmed by his writings, Duffy sacked him from the Nation, so Mitchel founded his own organ the United Irishman. In April 1848 the British introduced the Treason Felony Act punishing printed and spoken words promoting rebellion with transportation. Mitchel was tried and convicted under the new act and transported for 14 years.

Others took up the mantle. O’Doherty launched the Irish Tribune in June 1848 feting Mitchel and accusing Britain of creating a “state of slavery” in Ireland. The Tribune lasted five editions. In the final edition O’Doherty reminded readers of the Famine. “Every ditch has a corpse and every lordling Moloch his hecatomb of murdered tenantry. Clearly we are guilty if we turn not our hand against the enemies of our race”. In July O’Doherty was arrested and taken to Dublin’s Newgate Gaol, weeks before his final medical examinations. While he awaited trial, the British suspended habeas corpus. Smith O’Brien led a swift and sorry failed uprising in Co Tipperary.

O’Doherty, then 24, was one of three, with Gavan Duffy and John Martin, tried for their publishing blitz after Mitchel’s arrest. In custody O’Doherty was visited by “Eva” Kelly and the two young revolutionaries fell in love. She appeared in the courtroom every day of the trial. He was tried three times before an all Protestant jury found him guilty under the Treason Felony Act. After the second trial, the British offered him freedom if he pleaded guilty. He discussed it with Eva before refusing the offer. He was sentenced to ten years’ transportation with Martin. Eva promised to wait for O’Doherty’s return. O’Brien, Meagher, MacManus and O’Donohoe were sentenced to death for treason but had their sentences commuted to transportation.

Kevin and Eva O’Doherty in later years.

O’Doherty was transferred to Richmond prison where he met Eva daily. Their romance was sealed with a secret betrothal. On June 16, 1849 he and Martin were taken to Cork and put aboard the Mount Stewart Elphinstone convict ship. They sailed to Sydney then transferred to Hobart aboard the Emma. In Van Diemen’s Land, O’Doherty accepted a ticket-of-leave like the others except for leader Smith O’Brien who was sent to Maria Island. O’Doherty went to Oatlands in the midlands. There he wrote letters to Eva and put his training to use, though island governor William Denison frustrated his bid to practise medicine. O’Doherty and Meagher bent the rules not to fraternise, meeting for dinner at a bridge over Blackman’s River at the junction of their separate police districts, each man seated in his own district.

Meagher built a house at Dog’s Head Peninsula, Lake Sorrell where Young Irelanders gathered. Meagher named a boat Speranza for his old flame who had married Irish doctor Sir William Wilde (O’Doherty studied at a hospital Wilde founded). She gave birth to Oscar Wilde in 1854. Meagher married a Tasmanian woman but O’Doherty remained faithful to Eva, the others calling him “St Kevin”. He asked authorities permission every month for her to come over and dispensed free medical care at a local clinic to improve his chances. The unforgiving Denison briefly jailed him for being outside his police district.

Smith O’Brien stepped up a high profile campaign against his jailers and became a leader among those calling to end transportation to the island. He was helped by the Irish Diaspora who treated the transportees as heroes. Several including Meagher and Mitchel escaped to America with Irish aid where they became the toast of Irish America, Meagher in particular. The US government lobbied Britain for the release of the remaining prisoners.

O’Doherty’s friends got him an appointment as house surgeon at St Mary’s, a self-supporting Hobart hospital run by surgeon Dr E.S. Bedford. The Land Board of Medical Examiners gave O’Doherty permission to practise medicine at Port Cygnet but he relied on money from Ireland to survive.

In 1854 Home Secretary Lord Palmerston granted conditional pardons to Smith O’Brien, O’Doherty and Martin. They could leave what was soon to become Tasmania and travel anywhere except Britain and Ireland. They went to gold-rush era Melbourne where they were greeted as Irish heroes. O’Doherty made an unsuccessful trip to the goldfields and was possibly at Ballarat during the Eureka Stockade, though not involved in the miners’ strike.

Eva remained foremost on his mind. In 1855 he sailed incognito to Liverpool and then to Dublin where still illegal, he kept a low profile. He took a stagecoach to Galway and after six years’ absence, he reunited with Eva. Despite the secrecy Dublin Castle was informed of the rebel’s return. The couple made plans to marry and O’Doherty made a hasty exit to Paris to continue his medical education.

The couple met again in London in August 1855 where they were secretly married by Catholic Archbishop Wiseman. They moved to Paris where they had second nuptials in November. Eva fell quickly pregnant and suffered far from family while O’Doherty worked long hours at the hospital. In May 1856 Smith O’Brien, Martin and O’Doherty received unconditional pardons. The couple returned to Dublin for Eva’s confinement and she gave birth to son William on May 26. O’Doherty graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons a year later.

O’Doherty felt great concern for post-Famine Ireland and sensed hostility against him, especially in his own anti-republican family and the established church. The couple believed opportunities for the Irish in the self-governing colonies of Australia were more favourable. Eva gave birth to two more sons while O’Doherty became friendly with Dublin priest James Quinn who was sympathetic to the Young Irelanders. After Quinn was appointed Bishop of Brisbane in 1859 he encouraged his friend to join him in the new Queensland colony. The couple sailed to Sydney in 1860 with their growing family, Eva pregnant with a fourth boy.

Eva continued to write poetry promoting Irish nationalism but O’Doherty became a Home Ruler based on his Australian colonial experience. Bishop Quinn met them in Sydney and persuaded them to join him in the new northern capital in 1862. O’Doherty was registered as Queensland’s 14th doctor and the most highly qualified medic in the colony. He commenced practice in Ipswich to help Quinn in a dispute with a local priest and was surgeon at the new Ipswich Hospital. The family grew in Ipswich (they had eight children) while O’Doherty joined leading citizens in support of a rail line west from Brisbane.

In 1865 they moved to Brisbane where Kevin worked at Brisbane Hospital and built up a large private practice. He was one of Queensland’s two foremost surgeons and the leading Catholic layman in the city. He helped establish the All Hallows convent and St Stephen’s Cathedral. In 1867 O’Doherty was elected to one of three seats for North Brisbane in the Queensland Legislative Assembly and sat on the cross-bench as an independent. Now a conservative city father, O’Doherty’s past was temporarily forgiven by the press (like Gavan Duffy, who became premier of Victoria) though some spread unfounded rumours he associated with Fenians.

O’Doherty established Queensland’s first health act to reduce veneral disease. While it improved the problem, the act was hypocritical with compulsory medical examination and detention of prostitutes while there was no provision for action against men who frequented brothels or who suffered from venereal disease. He was also a leading critic of the “blackbirding” of indentured Kanaka labour.

In 1868 supposed “Fenian agent” Henry Farrell attempted to assassinate Prince Alfred in Sydney causing anti-Irish sentiment across Australia. O’Doherty led a Brisbane-Irish motion condemning the attack. He also formed a committee to build a road to Gympie where a new gold-rush was in place. He was re-elected in 1868 and topped the poll in 1870. He was returned a fourth time in 1871 unopposed. His biggest achievement was the 1872 Health Act providing for a central health board appointed by local authorities. He retired after six years at the 1873 election.

O’Doherty returned to private practice and maintained his interest in gold becoming a mining company director. Eva managed the large family and helped her husband in Catholic fundraising efforts. She was homesick for Ireland and had almost abandoned her writing. Still, the San Francisco Monitor remembered ”Eva of the Nation” when they visited America. In May 1877 O’Doherty returned to parliament, appointed to the Legislative Council. He also published a report into quarantine services at Peel Island and was appointed a member of the Medical Board of Queensland.

O’Doherty was concerned at possible famine in Ireland in 1879 and set up a successful Irish famine fund. There were calls for him to return to Ireland as a member of parliament, a thought revived after his great friend Bishop Quinn died in 1881. New Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell was troubling British governments and a Brisbane branch of the Irish Land league was formed in January 1881, chaired by O’Doherty. The Redmond brothers’ 1883 visit coincided with the trial of men charged with the Phoenix Park murders and allegations Land Leaguers were involved. O’Doherty was condemned by sectarian media for supporting an all Australian Irish Land League as “a disloyal assemblage aimed against Queen and country.”

O’Doherty and Eva returned to Ireland in 1885 with an election expected that year. He met Parnell who assured him a safe seat. He received the freedom of the city of Dublin, which the Brisbane Courier said bizarrely, showed he had not renounced the 1848 rebellion. In November O’Doherty was elected MP for County Meath. He was in parliament as prime minister Gladstone introduced a home rule bill but saw it defeated, leading to Gladstone’s resignation and another election.

O’Doherty declined to be re-nominated and returned to Brisbane to sort out financial difficulties. The Courier campaigned against him and his medical practice was damaged by his Home Rule stand. In August 1887 O’Doherty, aged 64, was appointed government medical officer at Croydon goldfield for £50 a year and the right of private practice. With financial troubles continuing, he moved to Warwick in 1891 before the government appointed him to the Queensland Health Board as the supervisor of quarantine. There was family tragedy – within 10 years they lost all four sons and one grand-daughter. In later years the almost blind O’Doherty and Eva lived in rental accommodation in Rosalie. He died aged 81 in 1905. The near penniless Eva received £300 from an Irish insurance policy on Kevin’s life. Eva continued to write until her death in 1910, aged 80. They were among the few Young Irelanders to see the 20th century.

On 18 January 1912, 1500 people gathered at the O’Doherty grave for the unveiling of a memorial by the Queensland Irish Association. On the base is inscribed: “This monument is erected by admirers of the late Dr O’Doherty and his wife as a mark of appreciation of their unsullied patriotism and exulted devotion to the cause of Ireland”. It should have added at the end, “and Queensland.”

Lamington National Park: The life of O’Reilly’s

Earlier this year we did a day trip to O’Reillys in the Scenic Rim and enjoyed short walks to Moran Falls and Python Rock where I took this photo below looking back to Moran Falls. Since then we’ve wanted to come back to the Lamington National Park resort and see more of its charms. The park is named for Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, a prim-faced, mustachioed British politician and colonial administrator who was Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901, now most famous for the popular Australian sponge cake that bears his name. Appropriately we returned the week Lonely Planet’s 2022 travel guide named the Scenic Rim in the world’s top 10 tourist spots, with O’Reilly’s one of its prize destinations.

We booked three nights motel-style accommodation at the O’Reilly’s resort. The road up from Canungra is narrow and winding and it takes an hour or more to climb 35km up the hill. We took a diversion to Kamarun Lookout which has superb views over Lamington National Park and farmland below. The Romeo Lahey memorial lookout shelter, opened in 1970, recognises Lahey’s significant contribution towards Lamington becoming a national park in 1915. Lahey was an engineer and conservationist who knew Lamington’s value was in remaining “unimproved.”

Land on the northern slopes of the McPherson Ranges was thrown open in 1911 for dairy farmers. A group of Irish brothers and cousins from the Blue Mountains named O’Reilly were the only selectors. Within a year the O’Reillys opened a track to Mt Bithongabel and by 1914 tourists were paying to stay at slab huts and enjoy the scenery. After Lahey lobbied to open the national park, the O’Reillys resisted pressure to sell out and continued their own tourist venture, aided by a new road from Canungra in 1935.

The O’Reilly’s mythology began when an Airlines of Australia Stinson Model A plane disappeared on February 19, 1937 during a flight from Brisbane to Sydney with seven people aboard. Both pilots and two passengers were killed in the crash in the McPherson Ranges on the NSW border. One survivor died while attempting to aid two other survivors. The plane was missing for over a week with most searches being too far south. After a two-day hike, Bernard O’Reilly found it on March 1 after correctly guessing the aircraft failed to cross the border. Both survivors were rescued. The dramatic events brought prominence to the guesthouse. A replica of the plane stands proudly outside the resort beside a monument recreating the meeting between O’Reilly and the survivors.

In 2015 the Park celebrated 100 years since gazetting with the acknowledgement of Mick O’Reilly as Queensland’s first paid park ranger in 1915. He protected the park from illegal logging and poaching and began building tracks, a task completed by Depression-era work gangs. O’Reilly’s Resort remains strong on “pioneering ecotourism” though the numerous and admittedly cute crimson rosellas (shown) and king parrots could do with less feeding outside the cafe.

After checking in, we took a short walk around local attractions, including the treetop Booyong Walk. This 800m track is hoisted 16m above ground on nine suspension bridges. Peter O’Reilly, 86, (whose son Shane now runs the resort) had the idea for the world’s first tree top walk in 1987. A striking mararie fig tree spotted with blooming ferns and orchids was the focal point, surrounded by three suspension bridges. Due to huge public and media interest they installed an additional six bridges to avoid congestion, creating a one-way circuit.

We visited the nearby overgrown and labyrinthine botanical gardens which are neither part of O’Reilly’s nor Lamington National Park. According to an entrance sign they were established in 1966 by “Col Harman OAM and were maintained by him until his retirement from the Mountain”. The gardens are now maintained on a volunteer basis by the Green Mountains Natural History Association.

Amid the foliage I spotted this brown gerygone (gerygone mouki). The name pronounced ‘jer-IG-on-nee’, comes from Greek “the children of song”. This songster is found across eastern coastal Australia from Cooktown to Gippsland and lives in cool, subtropical rainforests and fringes, obtaining insects from leaves and branches, and sometimes captures its food in flight.

The unsettled weather that evening gave a spectacular-coloured sunset over the range to the south. We enjoyed the view with a beer before heading to the restaurant with its roaring fire, which was welcome despite it being October.

The following morning the weather cleared to give us the promised view from the motel room. We saw down to Mt Lindsay and Mt Barney and Mt Lindsay. Out of shot is Mt Warning, across the border. The caldera of the Mt Warning shield volcano eroded over 23 million years and has a diameter of over 40kms, making it the biggest erosion caldera in the southern hemisphere and one of the largest calderas on earth. Lamington spans the northern side of the caldera.

The centrepiece is the 21km border walk along the crest of the McPherson Ranges from O’Reilly’s to Binna Burra Lodge east to west. It crosses the ridges along the Queensland-NSW border on the southern end of the walk. The area is home to the Wangerriburra and Nerangballum people who used the ‘Kweebani’ (cooking) cave near Binna Burra and a traditional pathway passed through the southern section of Lamington National Park.

Barely 500m into the walk the first bird appears on the track, the brown cuckoo dove (Macropygia amboinensis). It was once called the “pheasant-tailed pigeon” because of its long tail, used as a counterbalance or support when foraging in the treetops, especially when hanging upside down or making an acrobatic manoeuvre to reach distant fruits or berries. It lives in rainforests and wet sclerophyll forests in north-eastern and eastern Queensland, and eastern coastal NSW.

A little further on, I stopped to admire the rainforest and was rewarded by a visit from this beautiful satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus). This adult male has striking glossy blue-black plumage, a pale bluish white bill and a violet-blue iris, frustratingly camouflaged by a leaf in this shot I got before he quickly flew away. Another east coast rainforest bird, it is renowned for building and decorating bowers to attract females. The ground bower has two walls of sticks and is decorated with bright blue-coloured objects, used as a courtship arena in the breeding season.

We passed our first Antarctic beech (Nothofagus moorei), a reminder of Lamington’s Gondwana origins. This magnificent tree inhabits cool-temperate rainforests of northern NSW and southern Queensland up to 1500 metres. Most populations are now protected in national parks. This tree once covered Antarctica before Gondwana broke apart 180 million years ago. As the south became colder, the Antarctic Beeches moved to warmer climates. These trees grow by coppicing. The tree sends out new shoots radially from the base of the original trunk which eventually grow into clones of the parent tree forming a ring of trunks.

After 2km we branch off the Border Track to the grade four 16km-long Toolona Creek circuit. We quickly descend through the forest to Picnic Rock, a pleasant spot to sit and reflect on the natural beauty.

Nearby is Elabana Falls, the first of many waterfalls on this track. With much rain in recent days, the waterfalls are in full flow, gushing down the mountain. We were lucky with the weather early in the day, but after three hours, the heavens opened with a thunderstorm and hail. That was manageable but was a field day for segmented worms, better known as leeches, which feasted on our legs.

We pressed on to the glorious Chalahn Falls and watched the water tumbling off the mountain, cascading over mossy rocks and logs. It’s one of many creek crossings along this walk and with so much water it’s not always possible to get from one side to the other without getting wet feet. Care needs to be taken on the slippery rocks.

As we cross the creek there is a flash of blue from behind a rock, a Lamington spiny crayfish (Euastacus sulcatus). These shy crustaceans are restricted to streams bordered by rainforest and wet eucalypt forest above 300m altitude. They inhabit mountains in a crescent from Mount Tamborine to Lamington Plateau, west along McPherson Range and north via Cunningham’s Gap into the Mistake Mountains. A long lens camera was handy as it pays not to get too close. They can be aggressive, waving claws and hissing audibly, and can deliver a painful nip if handled.

The last of the great falls along this track is the one that gives its name to the creek and the walk, the Toolona Falls. The falls are divided into two, a plunge falls and a cascade. Afterwards it was a slow trudge up the hill to rejoin the Border Track at Wanungura lookout over which only clouds were visible thanks to steady rain. We climbed the peak of Mt Bithongabel (1200m) on the five kilometre trek back to the resort.

At base camp, we dried off the copious blood (leeches inject anti-clogging agent to increase bleeding) and had well-deserved showers before beer and dinner at the restaurant and an early night. We were rested and looking forward to our day 3 hike on the West Canungra Creek circuit, with a pleasing dry forecast. This is another grade 4 hike, this one 16km long which quickly veers off the Border Track northwards down the hill deep into the rainforest.

We descend past Darraboola Falls, through lush rainforest dotted with red cedar (toona ciliate) and pick up the West Canungra Creek at Yerralahla (blue pool).

We follow the West Canunga Creek for several kilometres, crossing at regular intervals. Like yesterday it was not always possible to cross without getting wet feet due to the volume of water. The creek descends into Canungra before joining the Albert River which joins the Logan River and enters Moreton Bay near Lagoon Island.

For someone used to the brown and red dirt of North West Queensland, the green hues in Lamington National Park were a sight for sore eyes. The better weather means the leeches aren’t as big a problem today, though we still pick up one or two.

There’s time for one last waterfall before we starting climbing back up, this one the Yanbacoochie Falls.

There’s a choice of return tracks to the Resort, either 5.3km via the Box Circuit Track and the Toolona Track or 5.8km via more of the Toolona Track. After an exhausting, hard and damp walk we’re happy to take the slightly shorter route home, though like yesterday it is well over six hour’s hiking. There’s one last surprise on the way home, a curious Australian king parrot (Psittacus scapularis) which got up close and personal. They range from north and central Queensland to southern Victoria and this one is used to human contact. We were warned by fellow hikers who just passed by, that it might land on your head, but this one was content to watch closely. It ended a pleasant few days of walking. We could have done without the leeches but they are part of the rich Lamington experience, and it could have been worse – such as ticks or the infamous gympie gympie stinging tree. Gondwana still lives in the Australian rainforest.

The tragedy of Nockatunga

The monument to the expedition at Noccundra.

On November 9, 1874, workers at remote Nockatunga station saw an unsteady rider stumble in from the desert. Near death from thirst, the man fell down in front of them. The workers recognised him as Lewis Thompson, the stockman they called “the piano tuner”. He’d left there nine days earlier heading west with two other men, an Australian bushie named Andrew Hume, and an Irish soldier and Victoria Cross recipient, Timothy O’Dea. The other two were still missing, presumed dead, in the relentless heat of a far western Queensland summer.

I’ve written about Andrew Hume before. Having read Darrell Lewis’ Where is Dr Leichhardt? I believed Hume was a conman who contrived a Leichhardt expedition just to get out of jail. But Hume did eventually go looking for Leichhardt and he died on that search. I recently read a more sympathetic account of his journey in Les Perrin’s The Mystery of the Leichhardt Survivor.

Hume’s hopes of finding Leichhardt were slim. Ludwig Leichhardt and six or seven others in his expedition went missing 26 years earlier in 1848 somewhere between western Queensland and the west coast. There was evidence at Glenormiston though Leichhardt’s group likely died far into the Northern Territory or even WA. Hume was at Nockatunga Station (now Noccundra) in far south-west Queensland searching for survivors.

Perrin begins the story in 1866 at Baradine, New South Wales where Hume went on a several-day alcohol bender. Having ran out of money, he launched a farcical armed raid on the pub, and drunkenly told patrons he was the bushranger “The Black Prince”. The shambles ended in his arrest and incarceration with hard labour for ten years, a harsh sentence. He was sent to Darlinghurst prison and then to Cockatoo Island before ending up at Parramatta jail in 1869. Here he read a report on a wild white man in western Queensland. He told authorities about his own travels in the early 1860s when he claimed to have reached the west coast. Far inland he met a white man living with an Aboriginal tribe. The man told Hume he was a survivor of an expedition party. Hume said he was bringing back this news when waylaid in Baradine. He claimed he didn’t want to mention this after the arrest as people would think it a ploy to get released.

Surprisingly, Parramatta prison officers were impressed by his story and got him to dictate a letter. The letter had two diagrams showing marks he found on remote trees; one saying “L C Nov 1847 Dig” and the other “L C Aug 1848 Rock”. Hume said he placed papers in a saddle bag under one of the trees hoping to bring them back at a later date. He was sure he could find them again. Though Hume did not divulge the name of the white man, his letter was sent at a time of intense interest in the mysterious fate of Leichhardt. There were two searches near Thargomindah into reports of an old white man living further west. If Hume’s story was true, it needed to be investigated. Many were sceptical. Hovenden Hely who travelled in Leichhardt’s failed second expedition said Leichhardt started his third and final expedition in 1848 not 1847 and marked his trees L or LL but never LC.

Yet the NSW Governor pardoned Hume after serving half his sentence and the government approved travel and expenses into the interior. The South Australian government agreed to pay for a voyage to Darwin where he would then travel south-west. South Australia was building the Adelaide-Darwin telegraph line and among those aboard was postmaster-general Charles Todd who was responsible for the line. Todd was unimpressed with Hume’s story and believed him a fake. When the ship arrived at Roper River in March 1872, the captain took the ship upstream as far as possible in floods as it would be closer to the line than Darwin. Hume disembarked but found his way forward blocked by the floods. He finally proceeded to the Line where he got a job while waiting for a horse. He stayed on the Line till its completion in August. He got a horse in December and then went missing for 12 months.

He arrived back at Roper in November 1873 and announced he’d found the white man. Hume identified him as Classen, another German in Leichhardt’s party. He carried a leather satchel which he claimed contained Classen’s writings, Leichhardt’s watch and other relics but he refused to show them to anyone. Hume wrote to Sydney authorities about his finds and sailed to Brisbane where he met Rev James Samuel Hassall, his former Parramatta jail chaplain. Hume told Hassall he travelled west of Tennant Creek into the Davenport Ranges. There he supposedly met Classen, now in his seventies, who told him he had survived as a tribal doctor. Classen wrote his story down for Hume and showed him Leichhardt’s remains in a coolamon tree. However surveyor-general AC Gregory (who also searched for Leichhardt) could not recognise locations Hume said he went to. Although Gregory, Todd and others pointed out discrepancies in Hume’s story, he was still eagerly expected when he arrived back in Sydney.

But when it came to the handover of the artifacts, Hume claimed the satchel had been cut open and the contents stolen. He stuck to his story giving a detailed description of Leichhardt’s watch and chain. He told authorities it would be difficult to remove Classen from the tribe. Newspapers described Hume as an “impudent imposter” but wealthy supporters such as Eccleston Du Faur and John Dunmore Lang were willing to privately finance another expedition. This time he would go overland, and be accompanied.

Experienced bushman Peter Lorimer initially signed up but insisted he carry the money, which Hume refused. Three replacements were found but Hume took to alcohol and all three resigned their commission. Du Faur finally found an excellent replacement in Timothy O’Hea, a young Irishman awarded a Victoria Cross in Canada in 1866. Ironically O’Hea won it for defending the Empire from fellow Irish Fenians who had invaded from the US. He showed his valour putting out a fire on a munitions train, saving the lives of many passengers. He remains the only man to win a VC outside of battle. After returning to Ireland and then becoming a New Zealand constable, O’Hea arrived in Sydney in 1874. When Du Faur found out, he offered him a spot on the expedition. O’Hea immediately accepted.

O’Hea found Hume at Murrurundi and the two men took an instant liking to each other. O’Hea was interested in Hume’s life and became a sobering influence. They crossed into Queensland at Mungindi. While delayed due to stray horses, they recruited a third member, stockman and piano tuner Lewis Thompson. Like O’Hea, Thompson served in the army, in India, and the other two were impressed by his horsemanship and determination.

The trio proceeded west to the Warrego River at Cunnamulla and arrived at Thargomindah station in October. While they were welcomed at the station, the owner was away and the lack of his knowledge proved crucial. The trio passed the last outpost of white Australia, Bulloo Barracks, where Thargomindah township now stands. They arrived at Nockatunga on October 31 but Hume was determined to push on to the Cooper Creek before the wet season started.

It was difficult country. Charles Sturt was trapped for months in an exceptional dry year in his 1845 expedition and Burke and Wills died there 16 years later. Hume wanted to head along the Diamantina and Georgina systems and then north of the Simpson Desert to the Telegraph Line. They rode out on November 1, heading south-west.

Thompson said they followed the Wilson River to Noccundra Waterhole and then followed an indistinct track which they hoped would lead to the Cooper Creek. Most watercourses were dry, though they found water at Graham’s Creek. Hume was sure they were just a day away from the Cooper, 60 miles away and he dismissed O’Hea’s suggestion to fill their water bags. At the end of the day their bags were drained but Hume was confident the Cooper was close by. A day later, Hume was puzzled they still hadn’t found it, and they had no water for 30 hours.

The problem was that after following a north-south path for hundreds of kilometres the Cooper takes a right-angled turn west west of Noccundra. Hume’s limited map did not show this diversion and with the station owner absent no one else told them about it. They remained 30km south of the creek and were travelling parallel to it in searing temperatures. Midway through the next day Hume decided to turn back to Graham’s Creek, though they took a south-westerly path in the hope of finding water. After three days without water O’Hea became despondent.

They continued a fourth day without water, resting frequently. Although Hume believed they weren’t far from Graham’s Creek, O’Hea could go no further and Hume instructed Thompson to go ahead. Thompson staggered on and found a waterhole a day later, a place later called Thompson’s Creek. His horse would go no further so he walked back to where he left the other two but they were gone. Thompson went back to the waterhole and saddled his horse before another vain search for his comrades. On returning to Thompson’s Creek a third time he found five horses but no riders. Three horses had their saddles and packs removed and another horse carried flour but the bags were torn and the flour scattered in the wind. Late on November 8, Thompson rode back to Noccundra.

He arrived the following day having suffered great hardship. He said they got lost in the desert and the other two were missing and dangerously weakened. After two rest days Thompson led a search party of two station workers and a black tracker. They went to Graham’s Creek then Thompson’s Creek and found the horses where Thompson left them. The tracker found packs nearby. They reached the last camp where Thompson had left the other two. They found O’Hea’s rifle and other possessions and worked out the pair had unbuckled the spare horses but bafflingly had not followed them to Thompson Creek in search of water, 6km away, and instead gone in the opposite direction.

They found O’Hea’s dead horse half eaten by wild dogs. The tracker followed Hume’s horse tracks and eventually found it, also dead. Nearby was Hume’s belt and watch, his rifle, and his hat. But there was no sign of Hume, or O’Hea. After a long search Thompson found Hume’s body a half mile from the horse. He estimated Hume had been dead six days. The following morning they headed back to Nockatunga which they reached a day later. Bulloo Barracks sub-inspector Dunne was waiting and a JP who made out an inventory of the dead men’s possessions. Dunne led another expedition to Thompson Creek where he examined Hume’s body. They buried him there and had another unsuccessful hunt for O’Hea. His body was never found.

Dunne sent a message to the Charleville magistrate that Hume was dead and O’Hea was also presumed dead. Thompson gave Du Faur a similar message though he also supposed “he may have fell in with a party of blacks”. But that was about as likely as “Classen” suffering the same fate. The Leichhardt expedition probably died far to the west, their remains forever hidden by the desert, just like O’Hea’s.