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Kybeyan and Nimmitabel Experiences
From Peter Goed petergoed@optushome.com.au

Amsterdam to Bathurst | Kybeyan | Nimmitabel Motors | The Sundowners

Amsterdam to Bathurst

16. Johan van Oldenbareveldt

I was Born in Amsterdam, Holland, in the midst of the German occupation in December 1943. As an only-child, I was probably quite spoiled by my parents at an early age.

I still have memories of V2 self propelled rocket bombs; one landed on the block of flats next door to where we lived and completely demolished it, our place only lost some plaster from the ceilings.

My father's family owned a large business near the centre of Amsterdam. They made pressurised lighting of all sorts. My grandfather and his two brothers made their fortune in the early 1890s by inventing pressurised kerosene lighting. They travelled all over Europe renting these lighting systems to carnivals and circuses.
Memories of Holland are vague with age, but I do remember meeting the Queen of Holland whilst my mother (Ans) and I were shopping for furniture to bring with us to Australia. Unlike the Queen of England, the Dutch Queen just mingled with the ordinary people, who all revered her - no security guards or anything like that.

After the war we stayed with my mother's parents in the smallest province in Holland, Bennebroek, where they had a small rural property - I think it was less than a hectare - where my grandfather grew vegetables and played around with Tulips; his ambition was to create a black Tulip.

We had relatives who moved to Canada in 1949 and my parents decided to immigrate also, choosing Australia, because it offered new opportunities, something Holland could not offer to all its inhabitants after WWII.
We all had to have medical check-ups, answer 10,000 questions, fill in hundreds of forms, and wait for selection.
In August 1950 we were selected for migration to Sydney, Australia - having to pay full fare - some 3,250 Guilders (about £410 - the basic wage at this time was about £5 per week), as the "Ten Quid Migrant Fares" from Holland were not introduced until February 1951.

We sailed for Australia on Saturday, 2 September, 1950, travelling via the Suez Canal, on the first boatload of post World War Two Dutch Migrants headed for Australia. Our first stop was at Aden, where the boat had to re-bunker. The stop at Aden was fascinating, whilst docking, many small canoes came alongside offering all sorts of goodies, and several Fakirs came aboard. One of these Fakirs that I distinctly remember was a very Egyptian looking rogue, who threw a rope, tied to an anchor, over the side of our ship and immediately proceeded to climb aboard. No sooner was he on board than he spread out a small mat, said some words that I could not understand - could have been either Egyptian or English, as I understood neither- and threw his rope up into the air on the forecastle of the ship (an area totally devoid of any overhead gear). Amazingly, his rope stood straight up in the air, and after a few moments, this Fakir climbed up his rope, probably the best part of 10 feet off the ground, and just sat there perfectly motionless for several minutes. You have no idea how many times I have tried this trick since then and still want to see someone show me how the 'Indian Rope Trick' is performed.

The boat we came over on was the Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, a luxury cruiser of 20,000 tons, built in 1928. She had been converted into a troop carrier during the war, and was still in that configuration on our journey, as she had been used to evacuate Dutch troops from Indonesia in 1948. The men were in one huge dormitory, and the women and younger children in another, nothing luxurious I can assure you. This was the first boatload of Dutch migrants to come to Australia; there were 1414 passengers on board.

The voyage took seemingly forever, but living on this large ship was fantastic for a six-year old. There were just so many places to get lost in, and during a rather severe dust-storm in the Suez Canal, half the ship's crew were out looking for me, but I was in the reading room, getting acquainted with some lovely people who were there to write letters home. There were always a thousand and one things to do on that boat and as one of the few people on board who didn't get seasick, had an absolute ball - got into every part of the ship and explored it; got friendly with the Indonesian crew and even shared meals with them.

Our first sighting of Australia was near Perth, West Australia, as we headed to Fremantle to disembark passengers. The ship entered Sydney Heads on 11 October 1950 and we proceeded to one of the docks near the Harbour Bridge, where we disembarked. After passing through Immigration and Customs, which to me, seemed to take a whole day, we were whisked away to Central Railway Station, given tickets, shoved onto the right platform, and finally boarded a train bound for Bathurst, and the Bathurst Migrant Camp; originally a military camp during WWII.

Bathurst Migrant Camp was an eye opener, several families lived in each hut and there were seemingly hundreds of kids. The creek at the bottom of the camp was previously a place where they had extracted gold in the 1860s; it was like a magnet to a six year-old kid with an exploring mind. I well remember a local chap who came to the creek every morning with a heap of large sheets of blotting paper, using these to capture fine particles of alluvial gold floating down the stream; he managed to make a very comfortable living from spending about an hour each day collecting fine gold in this manner and in the process gave me 'gold-fever'..