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Kybeyan and Nimmitabel Experiences
From Peter Goed petergoed@optushome.com.au
Amsterdam to Bathurst | Kybeyan | Nimmitabel Motors | The Sundowners
Kybeyan
After a few weeks looking for work, my father, Peter, a mechanic, was interviewed by Ron Mould, for a position as mechanic/general hand on Kybeyan Station. Leaving my mother and me at the camp, dad went to Kybeyan to suss out the situation, and soon sent for us to join him.
Leaving the migrant hostel, we went to Bathurst Railway Station, catching the afternoon train to Sydney, there we disembarked, had to hunt out the platform to board the Cooma train, and finally got underway. We arrived at Cooma in the very early hours of the morning, where we had to wait for the 7.00am train to Nimmitabel, finally arriving there to be met by dad in the Kybeyan station truck.
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| 40. Ans Goed |
41. Ans Goed with Allie and Gerrit Shrivers | 55. First House |
We finally arrived at our destination, Kybeyan, sometime in mid November 1950, to take up residence in the timber house nearest to the stables. We had no furniture of our own, as this was still on a cargo ship en route from Holland. I think that the furniture in the house was borrowed from all over the place, but we got by until our own furniture arrived some weeks later in a huge wooden crate eight foot wide by eight foot high by ten feet deep. This included my treasured bike, which I was much too small to ride at this time, and more importantly, my Meccano set, which
was quite large.
When we first arrived at Kybeyan, the only person anywhere near my own age was Pattrick Mould. He and I got on like a house-on-fire, getting into much mischief, mostly of my making, and generally having a good time.
Coming from a country like Holland to the bush of Kybeyan was marvellous. I learnt to ride a horse (within a few weeks of arriving), shoot a rifle, trap rabbits, hunt dingoes and eagles (both carrying a bounty in those days), whistle-up foxes, and chase kangaroos. As well, much excitement was had in chasing black snakes across the cleared scrub, catching them as they went hell bent into a tussock, and flinging them like a stock-whip, cracking off their heads; we didn't realize just how dangerous it was then.
There were flaming rabbits everywhere, and at night,
with a torch, they seemed to be in such extreme proportions that there was not one spare inch of ground left void of them. We trapped them, we poisoned them with strychnine laced thistle roots, we dug up the burrows and literally pulled them out and wrung their necks with our bare hands and we resorted to blowing up their burrows with gelignite, but never quite managed to eradicate them.
Another large problem was the kangaroos, and every few weeks there would be another organised drive. A fence would be strengthened in a corner and built up to about eight feet high with wire netting. A large group of men with 'roo' dogs would assemble and drive the kangaroos into this inescapable corner. The men assembled on horseback, on tractors and on foot, with the driven kangaroos slaughtered in their hundreds, very necessary at the time as they were devastating the pastures, leaving nothing for the sheep.
School in Australia started for me in February 1951, catching the School Bus, driven by Ted Owers, to Nimmitabel Primary School, where I was confronted by Mrs. Buckley (infants) and Mr. Edgar Dill, the headmaster. Language was a problem; yes I had one, but it wasn't understandable by many others. And when Mrs. Buckley kept on asking me "beg your pardon", which in Dutch meant something like 'get back up on your horse'; I was totally confused, especially as I did not at that time have a horse.
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48. Nimmitabel School 1951 |
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38. Nimmitabel School 1954 Classes 5,6 & 7 |
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All those language problems disappeared with time, but in the intervening period there were many incidents where language was a barrier.
The school bus was a great place to play-up, with poor old Ted finding that Peter Goed, David Dunning and Henry Rose could be more than a handful. I won the prize as 'worst bus-boy' for two years running, to follow it up the next year with a propelling pencil for being the 'most improved bus-boy'; and I still have the certificate, although the propelling pencil bit the dust 45 years ago.
Not long after this, our furniture finally arrived from Holland. In mid 1951 we moved into the stone house opposite the row of timber houses and finally my mother was happy to have a real home, where she spent much time trying to establish a garden with Dutch Tulips.
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| 51. Homestead Garden | 52. The Homestead | 8. Our second house |
This house was interesting, as the bath had a hole about 4" diameter to let out the bath-water. This left plenty of room for a 'sometimes' friendly carpet snake to gain entrance to the bottom of the chip-heater. Now, we always knew he was there, but I once forgot to check when I lit the heater, and Whamo!! The bloody thing came out at a great rate of knots and bit me on the arm; I still have the bite marks as evidence today, fifty years on.
The station was full of animals, and there were many horses, including a pretty friendly draught-horse, whose name eludes me. It was that tame you could lead it to a rock, climb on its back and ride around the paddock easily. However, one-day, it got a bit cranky with me, and decided to get its own back by standing on my foot with one of its front hooves. Now, no matter how hard I tried, it would just not let me get my foot out from under. I yelled and screamed for ages, until finally, my mother heard me and came to the rescue. My foot was pretty blue for quite some time thereafter.
A new workshop was built and a bulldozer purchased, actually I think there were two more to follow in quick succession, to help with clearing the property. I remember my dad building some rather large pipe and mesh structures on these machines, and even so, there were a couple of accidents where people were injured by falling trees. These 'dozers were also used to dig a rather large dam on the property. Everybody thought that Ron had gone around the twist, but when the dam filled up at the next bit of rainfall, and held out during a severe drought, they soon changed their minds.
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| 42. Building the workshop | 73.Peter on Silver | 49. Off to town in the truck |
The tractors on the property were; a Farmall (perhaps two of these bloody dangerous machines with two front-wheels side by side); a Massey Harris; and an old single cylinder tractor (Russian?), that was started with a 12 gauge blank cartridge (and a ½ hour warm-up with a very large Army-Issue blowtorch during winter). These were followed by a Ferguson, equipped with many options (a most useful beast on which I learned to drive in 1953, at age 9).
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| 75. Peter Snr and Kees (Con Wassink) | 76. Peter Snr ploughing |
81. Protective Cabin |
There were several old tractors (Fordson's) parked under the tree at the back of the stables. These made great toys for Pattrick and me to play on. As well there was a bit of a rubbish tip here that had all sorts of fascinating items too good for a couple of young lads to ignore - including some old fire extinguishers that made both of us really ill from the fumes of the acid and soda.
I learned to ride at Kybeyan, probably within the first few weeks of living there, and in 1951 got a pony of my own, Silver, a brumby from up in the Snowy Mountains, broken in by Kees (Con) Wassink, one of the Dutch general hands on Kybeyan. Silver was certainly lots of fun, especially when someone heavy tried to mount him, and then get thrown. Only Kees and I could ride him, but he did try me out every time by finding a low tree branch to try and dislodge me - and there were times that he succeeded. He hated to gallop, always preferring a trot, and finally he was sold for £50 to somebody interested in
trotting horses - eventually he did rather well at country trot meetings.
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| 50. Great toys! | 62. Pattrick & Peter | 61. Peter & Pattrick riding |
There was always something to do at Kybeyan. September school holidays was shearing time, what a great event this was every year. All us young lads had an opportunity to earn some pocket money as 'rouse-abouts', dipping the sheep (there is a story in that), tailing the lambs, and in the off season, crutching the sheep and walking them through the footrot baths. Getting carried away with the sheep dipping, one rather large ram got the better of me. With the push stick caught in its horns, I was pulled into the dip - you guessed it, I couldn't swim and took in a few good
mouthfuls of arsenic dip, spending the next several weeks in Cooma Hospital as a very sick young boy.
Of course, at the end of the shearing was the inevitable party. A party that went on until the rum ran out, and as Ron was a participant in the 700+ pence per pound for some of his wool crop at that time, was very generous at these parties. The rum generally flowed until the very early hours of the morning - although he insisted that all the men rallied under his bedroom window at 6.00am SHARP to receive their orders for the day, on the following morning.
The creek (Kybeyan River) was a source of joy and Pattrick and I spent many hours there trying to catch the
odd trout on a stick fitted with a piece of string, a bent pin from my mother's sewing kit, and if lucky a blow-fly that was still half-alive. I must confess here, and I have never admitted to it before, that the 7lb 4oz beauty that I caught this way, was actually already stunned by a half stick of Gelly. The young guys on Kybeyan were prone to a spot of 'quick fishing' and had thrown a half-stick of Gelly in the creek earlier in the day to get their catch - but it was still a thrill to actually catch one this size.
Talking of the creek, this was the way to the Green's property, next door to Kybeyan. Old Mr. Green (well he was old to us youngsters) had married this young nurse who was several years younger than him. At the time I was at Kybeyan there were, I think, about three Green children. I loved their place, totally laid back and out of control - AND, they had the most glorious Gooseberry bush that you have ever seen - you could spend hours eating from this bush and the fruits never seemed to diminish. When there were no gooseberries, Mrs. Green, always had fresh biscuits or cakes that she had just made - just
a wonderful place to visit across the creek. That reminds me of the log-crossing - great when it was dry, but in the rain I had a tendency to slip on this and end up in the creek - not a good idea when you can't swim!!.
The young hands on the station made up a rope that was knotted and attached to the large tree near the shearer's quarters; this was great fun to climb, until I fell out of the tree, luckily no broken bones.
That reminds me of shearing-time, with Mrs. Schofield as the cook (her husband ran the shearing gang, and her daughter taught me when I was at Cooma Primary School in year 3 for a while), there were always biscuits for mischievous young boys, and at morning tea there were the great yarns from the shearers, along with a whole new language for a migrant kid - SWEARING, struth those guys could swear!!
Snow was not unusual at Kybeyan in those days, and the only downhill run was from the shearing shed down towards the houses - not much of a run, but with six or seven inches of snow on the ground, a lot of fun.
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| 85. The stone house | 86. Skiing at Kybeyan | 87. The Woolshed Run |
Then there was the flood - must have been 1951 - river over the roadway, no school, and no play as there was so much water around, but it did the property much good. Ron Mould was really a man of wisdom, introducing many new aspects to farming on the Monaro. Ploughing was done on the Kybeyan paddocks, as soon as the trees had been felled by the bulldozer, and burnt. Then super-phosphate was spread from behind tractors pulling spreaders, to encourage rich grass growth. During the drought of 1952, Ron had used the bulldozer to sink a large dam, which filled up in 1953, allowing the property the luxury of water all the year-round in a drought season.
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| 45. The Floods | 46. The creek joins the river | 47. Kybeyan Creek |
Fencing and clearing was carried on at a hasty rate, with all hands helping out. There were several accidents at Kybeyan, luckily, the roll bar and wire cage that my father installed on the bulldozers prevented quite a few serious accidents from turning into tragedies.
There were several other kids there from 1951 on, some Dutch girls, Nancy and her two sisters, whose names elude me, whose father (Thijs Nijholt) eventually was in business with my father, moving on to own a service station in Yass. I do however remember the Keir girls (particularly Robyn), and Mrs. Thew, Tineka Koster, the van der Plaat boys, particularly Alex, Pluto and Stephie. Other than that, my brain has no recollection of names.
The little store, which at that time was next to the homestead building, was run by my mother. It mainly sold the necessities of life; toilet paper (although most of us used the old McPherson's or Anthony Hordern's catalogues), biscuits, sugar, tea, coffee, flour, and of course lollies.
Our first car was an old open 1920s beast that someone built a station wagon type rear end on. We took this on a holiday to Victoria at Christmas 1951 and had lots of tyre problems, ending up finding a brand new 'old' set in a garage at Bairnsdale, from then on all was smooth sailing. The caravan we towed was no bigger than a dog-box, and I slept in the rear of the car, much more comfortable.
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| 59. On Holidays in 1953 |
72. Peter keeping cool |
82. The Goed Family in their Sunday best |
My mother got rather homesick in 1953 and went back to spend some six months with her parents in Holland. At first this was great, until I found out that my father could not even boil an egg. When we ran out of meat, he asked Ron could he kill a sheep. Ron said yes, just grab one from that paddock and leave the hide hanging over the fence when you have finished. Not knowing anything about sheep, dad got the biggest one he could find in the paddock - a bloody great ram, with gigantic horns. It put up quite a struggle, and finally was overpowered, killed and slaughtered.
Well I kid you not! The chops from this animal were the toughest I have ever eaten, and dad burnt them in the process of cooking. Next morning Ron confronted dad and asked him was the hide on the fence from the sheep he had killed. Peter answered yes, and Ron broke out in a fury. It was only one of his prize rams that dad had unwittingly killed - I have hated eating sheep ever since!
My father decided that it would be best for me to spend some time with friends of his at a property owned by Bill Keys, near Ando. My fond memories of this property, which ran mainly cattle, are emblazoned in my mind. We all had chores to do before and after school, making this a wonderful time of learning some of the practicalities of life. School at Ando was a real culture shock. After Nimmitabel school with its enrolment of over sixty pupils, going to a one teacher school with only nine pupils was certainly different, but also very enjoyable.
Unfortunately the people I was staying with were offered a share-farming opportunity on Kameruka Estate and dad thought that it would be better for me to attend Cooma Primary School, boarding at the Monaro Presbyterian School Hostel in Sharpe Street.
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| 65. The boys have their Garden Party | 73. Peter on Silver |
84. Birthday Party at the Homestead |
The Hostel was different entirely from anything that I had previously been used to, and the atmosphere of, what seemed to me a gigantic school, was for a while quite daunting. I spent over three months at the School Hostel, until my mother had returned from Holland. Friends that I made at Cooma Primary, while I was there in grade 3, would again surface when I went to High School in 1956.
Now it was back to Kybeyan as a much changed person, having matured somewhat from my sojourn in Ando and Cooma. I suddenly went from being the worst 'bus boy', to winning an award in 1953 for 'best bus boy' (a propelling pencil and appropriate card - still have the card, but the propelling pencil bit the dust many years ago) and Ted Owers was no doubt very pleased that one little blighter had changed his ways for the better.
For more Kybeyan photos go to http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mould/kybeyan.rowlinson.htm
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Monaro
Pioneers