Down By The River - Chapter 21 - Condobolin to Bowning

DOWN BY THE RIVER

Chapter 21 – Condobolin to Bowning

Its time to make the final legs home. Its Saturday and we aim to be home tomorrow night but in the meantime there is one more stop to make and that is to my youngest brother’s place in Bowning just near Yass. On the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne along the route more or less once trekked by Hume & Hovell once Blaxland Wentworth and Lawson found a way for the white settlers of early Port Jackson over the Blue Mountains, my fathers family were part of or just after that expedition, liked the area to the west around what is now known a Pudman Creek and settled there.

Once the faring life got too much, my father and mother retired to Bowning and on their passing my brother Graeme settled in the house.

First we need to get moving from Condobolin. The caravan is back on the Cruiser, the goodbyes are done and the we are off. Normally the trip to Bowning would take us along the Lachlan Way to Yarabandi, take a right through Gunningbland and then to forbes. But there is an alternative route and we have been intrigued by the revelations of all sorts of “attractions” along the alternate road to our first major town.

Aunty Kerre has told us of these attractions, being much similar in vein to the Utes in the Paddock display at Condobolin. Every now and then something would appear as a point to stop and admire, much like the golf course on the Nullabor, seeking to break the trip up somewhat, relieve the monotony and perhaps in the extreme save a life.

Long trips along roads, long and lined with the same trees guarding the wilderness or agricultural pursuits beyond boundary fences spreading shadows across the bitumen strobing the light in an almost hypnotic frequency, that once locked in can be a dangerous partner for the weary traveller.

First one we recognise is a statue of an Aboriginal hunter. It is past us before we recognise what we are seeing. Roadworks and a farmer moving a large tractor and implement between paddocks has our attention on the road as the majestic artwork is passed.

A little further on, with enough time to pull in we come upon “A Bird in Hand”, seemingly chainmail structure of a hand as a resting place for a bird in a tribute to the significance of wetlands poignantly suggesting their future is in our hands. We are in no real hurry. The normal “hop” from Condo to Bowning is about three hours, today it will be a little longer but I suspect much less boring.

The next stop we make is at something Amazing. Very tongue in cheek, this structure is simply the word “Amazing” in red letters on posts, several metres high. The accompanying plaque talks of the great stock routes (there is an amazing display of them in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach which not only maps them in detail but discusses the perils of missing the water and the feed along the way), it talks about the floods and the great vastness of golden grasses and red river gums. We are travelling along the Lachlan River and its tributaries as we head upstream toward our destination. There would be times when this “Amazing” sign would be under water along with “as far as the eye can see” when the floods from the rains of the central west and south west slopes pours into Wyangala dam and beyond.

In the urban and coastal areas we have floods but they normally are associated with local rain events. Out here the river can simply rise as the after effect of something that happened many hundreds of miles away. The significance of the Dorothea MacKellar line “of droughts and flooding rains” from the poem My Country are brought to mind by the accompanying plaque

Still more to see. The next one that catches our eye and encourages us to stop is Road Kill. Its an abstract without too much to consider to unravel the significance. A kangaroo holding one end of a road littered with vehicles and shaking it much like you might dust a rug, smoke and stars emanating from a crash. Again poignant in its visualisation

There are 10 of these stops we could have made but we only stopped at a few, we do have a destination and a purpose to this leg of the trip so – onward.

At Forbes we are back on the track more travelled as far as I am concerned. Many was the time we would travel from home on the farm at Mt Buffalo between Yass and Boorowa on the Wargeila Road (many timers being picked up from school at Rye Park as we finished on a Friday afternoon – sometimes as a “treat” at lunch time), as opposed to the direct route between those settlements, Boorowa, Cowra, Forbes, Condobolin via Yarabandi along the Lachlan Way. Mt Buffalo was home, Condo was where mum’s roots were and to get back there as often as she could was her treating herself.

Having wasted so much time statue chasing on the “bypass” alternative between Condobolin and Forbes we pull into Cowra McDonalds for a bite. Again the Lachlan here brings back memories. First as we move along the last few kilometres into the town past where the old Edgell Farms used to be and then the showground where we had competed (although not very often) and then along the majestic Lachlan. 

Cowra for us meant seeing Uncle Harry, dad’s oldest brother, but we rarely did on his farm. He had a gate you could drive over, quite the novelty in the day. In his family unit were three older than me children, one my age (we called him Charlie Horse for long” – cant remember how he got the nickname but it stuck) and Gregory, a much younger brother. The road out of Cowra before the turnoff to what was their farm in the direction of Reids Flat brings back all sorts of memories of the infrequent trips there. More often than not Harry and the boys would come to mt Buffalo, particularly around shearing time to help out.

Mt Buffalo was the property of my grandfather Herbert, on his death it was willed to three brothers (including my dad). Because dad lived on the farm, Harry went to war, Uncle Karl pursued a life in the Salvation Army, he was charged with managing the farm for the then testamentary created partnership. I know this caused consternation amongst them but it was dealt with out of sight of the children. As far as we were concerned Mt Buffalo was our home.

When the farm was finally sold, I was asked to do the accounting for the dissolution of the partnership, where I got a much clearer understanding of the trials and tribulations the will of Herbert Banks had created.

With the arrival into sight of Boorowa (well Mt Canemumbola really) a whole new set of memories begin to emerge as I dwell on the 6 years of secondary schooling, mates I once had and those things youth might spring upon a growing lad. Rather than take the quickest wat through town, down the main street, I divert the Cruiser and van along Pudman street across the bridge that once separated Boorowa and Burrowa according to stories of my father. Past the Shire Council Chambers where dad spent 25 years as a Councillor and around Boorowa Central School.

The school has changed significantly to when I last wandered its buildings. Many of the old buildings are still there. The demountables are gone. During my tenure, the library was in a demountable but they built a then “state of the art” structure and moved and expanded the library there. The quadrangle appears from the road to be full encased now with buildings and the grounds opposite one a football/cricket field seems to have been taken over by the agricultural department that once had only a shed adjacent to it.

Enough of this nostalgia. We are only less than an hour from the final destination. Taking the Cruiser and the van the long way via Rye Park, the Wargeila Road past Mt Buffalo, is not an option today given most of it would be dirt roads and whilst in my Datsun 1000 Fast Back I held the record of the trip from Mt Buffalo to Bowning pub (a distance of 16 miles travelled in something like 11 minutes – yes it was rallying to the extreme) even though he van is meant for off road pursuits Robyn suggests I have enough nostalgia in me for one day and we have “work” to do at Bowning.

The reason we are in Bowning rather than having taken a more direct route home is a “family” meeting has been called to discuss my youngest brother’s situation. Having had a work accident that almost ended his life, there are decisions to be made. Even though he has recovered well enough to continue to work (of a fashion) there will be consequences to the damage done to his body.

There are concerns the generous compensation payment is being “blown”. The meeting is tense. Both my other brother and sister have taken the time to be here. Its almost an intervention. Emily and Bradley, Graeme’s children have their say, and they don’t hold back. Decorum is restored and decisions are made taking some of the autonomy Graeme has had to access capital placed with my sister Tracey and myself. I am charged with drawing up a suitable agreement which the entire family will sign as “the Plan”

The meeting over we settle into an amazing roast dinner cooked in a rotisserie designed and built by Paul, son of my brother Dave. Paul and Graeme have been building and selling drum type fire pits which can accommodate barbeque plates and in this case a machine for turning the roast pieces while they cook. The chefs have done a magnificent job.

The van is raided for a few bottles from our Trentham collection as our contribution to the melee.

Discussions continue long into the night before we wrap up with a view to meeting again across the road at the RollinonIn Cafe for breakfast.

Yes you could have called it an intervention and yes its his life and his money but on her dying bed my mother charged me with “looking after” the family. There will come a time where Graeme will be an invalid and before that happens we need to ensure he has an adequate place to live where he can be ferried around on a conveyor like contraption to get him for “Ghent to Aix” so to speak. He’s not a small person and the house “left” him by mum and dad is totally inadequate for that purpose – one might suggest it is way past “purpose” already, but its his house. Its how he chooses to live.