Thursday 28 August 2014

Pirongia Bells in Australia Part Two



                                  Aussie Bells Part Two
                                                                    By David Bell

                                                "Sometimes I just want to throttle him!" 


Fine Dining at the Ravenshoe Pub: We left Colin and Beryl's farm at Topaz to stay a few days with Stewart and Myra at Ravenshoe. They also have a few acres in the rain forest. Both farms have bush creeks running through them. On the Topaz farm Steven has purchased an old monster excavator and scooped out three big ponds that have quickly become home to all kinds of Queensland frogs, water dragons (large lizards that live around water), platypus and birdlife. On the few occasions I went walking around the farm I easily spotted the iconic platypus' swimming about in the ponds. Stewart's place has no ponds but does sport a sizeable stream full of small yabbies at the bottom of the bushy hill. Both places are abundant with colourful parrots and many other beautiful birds of various descriptions. Myra has a collection of bird feeders outside the dining room that she keeps well stocked. Consequently, you get to observe the local birdlife from the breakfast table every morning. 

Colin's farm seems to have an over abundance of kurawongs, magpie-like birds that are constantly cawing and chortling from dawn to dusk. The good old kukaburra is also present in big numbers and Beryl even has a pet one she found injured on the road. Kukaburras tame easily and this one seems quite at home and regards Beryl as his mamma. She also has a pink galah she rescued (it had a broken wing) when they were doing missionary service at Griffiths near Canberra. That bird, too, regards Beryl as his mamma. She also rescued a clutch of water dragon eggs that had been washed onto the farm track in a rainstorm. She brought them home and hatched them in a box then released them near one of the farm ponds when they were big enough. She spots them now and again on her daily walks around the farm. She is becoming the Dr Dolittle of Topaz.  

One night at Stewart and Myra's we felt too lazy to cook  so Winnie suggested we go to the Ravenshoe Pub for dinner. Myra and Stewart seemed a bit shocked by the idea and we got the impression they don't eat out very often...after the dinner we left Stewart with the challenge to take his wife out to eat once in a while and get some of the old sparks flying again. 

                                                                The Pub at Ravenshoe

                                       A rare glimpse of a romantic moment Bew Road style

                                                                  Not to be outdone

Winnie, the city girl, wanted to be sure everything went well and insisted on ringing the pub to book a table for four. That done we all tootled off to Ravenshoe and arrived at the pub ten minutes later. As we walked up to the door the pretty little waitress was waiting outside on the steps and greeted us with a chirpy, "Are you the people who booked a table for four?"  Winnie and I were both surprised and delighted. Then, when we went inside the manageress was there to greet us asking, "Are you the four who booked earlier? Welcome and let me show you to your table." We have never been treated so royally before and we hoped the food would be as grand as the welcome and service.  When we later related all this to Jess she laughed and said the pub people were probably shocked that someone actually called up to book a table at Ravenshoe and were keen to see what planet we came from.

We set our orders and the food arrived in good time. We were not disappointed; it was splendid. All this good service and warm welcoming blended with being with family, put us in high spirits. We joked and laughed and just had a really good relaxing time. To record the event we took a couple of excellent selfies.

Above: Stewart's selfie; it was supposed to include all four of us.
Below: It was up to me to show him how to do it professionally.


The next day Myra flew out to New South Wales to help Kate move to a new job and new town while Stewart went back to work for a few days before having time off to visit Jess and the grandkids in Mareeba. We went back to Colin's for a few days and the weather set in; rain and fog all day every day for four days. During that wet spell we enjoyed ourselves watching old movies on TV and smoking some of the mackerel we caught. We ate smoked mackerel in cheese sauce and I pigged out on pawpaws and watermelon. The rain and fog were actually a blessing; it forced us to sit still and share family time talking about the old days and doing family history stuff.  After a few days we escaped the fog when Colin and Beryl drove us down to Mareeba to stay a few days with Jess and her family.

The Mareeba Mango Farmers: The story goes like this: In 2013 Jess and her husband, Matt, took the plunge and decided to pack up and take a gap year touring around Australia. It's an Aussie thing; everyone should take a year off to see the country. I can see why; the size and diversity of the place and the things to see and do are endless. Anyway, Jess and Matt packed their wagon, tossed in the kids, rented the house out and put rubber to the road. They were only part way through their adventure when they got a call from Matt's uncle in Mareeba. He had just purchased an hundred an fifty acre mango farm and desperately needed a good farm manager. He believed that with training Matt would be the man for the job if he wanted it. It was difficult to give up the gap year half way through but the opportunity to begin a new career and live close to both their families was an offer too refreshing and good to refuse. They turned off and pointed their wagon to Mareeba.

Winnie and I were amazed at the size of their mango orchard; it was huge, acres and acres of beautifully pruned mango trees. I was also impressed by the amount of work required to maintain the farm. It was obvious from the hours Matt put in (working non-stop from dawn to dusk) that it was a labour intensive life they had got themselves into. Nevertheless, I have never seen a man so happy in his work as Matt. He is out in the open air working close to nature, soaking up new knowledge almost daily, working with big machinery and managing staff. He's in his seventh heaven at the moment; every day a new accomplishment. However, the fruit business can be a fickle one and we all hope this new venture will prosper.

                                                    Above: Rows of mango trees
                                             Below: Mango blossom, July-August

It was not mango season when we were there - the trees were just coming into flower - but my mouth was watering just seeing so many trees and visualising huge juicy mangoes drooping from their branches. And while we there the job at hand was to spray the trees. The big farm tractor went through the trees towing a large tank that forced a chemical fog through the branches and leaves.

It was brought home to me how much work it took to run a big mango orchard. We were there in August which is, effectively, Queensland's late winter and the trees were pretty much dormant, the flowers just beginning to bud. However, it is by no means holiday time as the trees need regular spraying to ward off the myriads of tropical insect pests and fungi that could ruin the whole crop before the season even starts. Also, there are thousands of trees to prune and fertilise, weeds to keep down, new plots to prepare, and trees that have succumbed to a fungus or parasite infection to be cut down and burned. Matt is constantly studying about such things as new hybrid mangoes and new and better ways to control pests. I couldn't help but think how much harder it is in Mareeba to run an orchard than it is here in our cooler climate with fewer of natures little destroyers. But we can't grow mangoes, lychees, custard apples or bananas.

While I was sitting in the shade of Jess' outdoor dining porch, a flash car rolled up the drive and four well-dressed guys got out and started talking to Matt. After a while they handed him a business card and left. Matt told me later that they were fruit marketers from Sydney hoping to make a deal with him to buy his fruit to sell in Sydney. I thought this was a good thing but Matt was cautious. He said fruit merchants from all over Australia arrive at this time of year and visit all the mango farms, but one has to be careful in dealing with them. They promise a good price for the fruit but when it comes to paying send only half or less, claiming it was damaged on delivery or the market wasn't as good as expected and other sundry scams. A farmer can lose out big-time, especially when he also has to pay for the shipping. Matt was even sent to the city a while ago to see how the fruit markets operated and saw first hand how growers like him often ended up with the short end of the stick. He said you just had to find a dealer you can trust because there were plenty of sharks about who would rip you off in a heartbeat. Those four guys who talked to him on the drive looked a bit suspect to me.

Then there was harvest time in November and December which was particularly hectic and crucial to the profitability of the business. Mangoes all ripen at the same time which means a very busy two months. It also means that the money that keeps the farm going and the expenses paid all comes in at this one crucial period. Labour to pick and pack the mangoes is also hard to find, most of it coming from backpackers and itinerant workers.

Matt also told us that at harvest they only sold one third or less of the fruit grown. The rest was dumped as waste, even though it was of high quality and perfect to eat. The cause of this incredible waste was the market; people and shops only wanted perfect looking fruit. Anything with a spot or blemish, even though it was minute, was rejected. Consequently, over two thirds of the annual crop became a heap of compost; and this was just on Matt's farm, it's unimaginable what the waste must be across the whole state of Queensland. I was also left wondering why, with all this bounty only five hours by plane from New Zealand we have to put up with inferior Asian and South American tropical fruit in our shops. Darrell, Colin's son was also a bit perplexed when he visited his brother Steven in Hong Kong; he found Mareeba mangoes in the street stalls selling cheaper than in the shops of Mareeba. The market place is an odd beast indeed.

We had a great time on the farm and I ate to excess the winter fruits on offer: pawpaws, watermelon, and a couple I had never seen before. Out in the Yard there was a huge tree with round maroon-coloured fruits the size of an average apple. Inside they were pinkish-white in colour and quite creamy in texture. The flavour was sugary sweet. I ate heaps of them. We also bought a couple of custard apples and I soon found the reason for the curious name; the flesh was like lumpy custard in texture. It was not unlike the strange maroon fruit in flavour.

                                                             A delicious custard apple

                                The rich maroon coloured fruit from the big tree in the yard


                                      The soft sweet flesh, a bit like the creamy custard apple

                                        Stewy with Kip, the latest addition to his collection

At a beautiful waterfall near Tinaroo. Left to Right: Toby, a most thoughtful little boy
with a gentle and caring personality. Jack, very intelligent and studious. I think he will
be very academic. A great kid and incredibly mature for his age. Lexi, a little character
with a mind of her own but affectionate and a little sweetheart. Uncle David, not much going on there. Aunty Winnie, a smart Chinese cookie. Kip, everybody's favourite. A happy baby who smiles all the time. Grunda Stewart, like his brother, nothing to write home about.
 
Swiping sugar cane stalks from the side of the road
 
Quad biking up Blue Sky Produce driveway
 
We left The Mango orchard and went with Stewart back to Ravenshoe to visit Stewy's old tin mining sites. it would prove to be a delightful meander down memory lane. Myra was still in New South Wales so it was just me, Winnie and Stewart.
Stewy the Tin-scratcher: Another highlight on our Aussie hikoi was a day in the hills behind Irvinebank exploring the old tin mines. Stewart took us there to show us some bush country and revisit the old tin mines he and a partner had once worked. It was a most interesting and fascinating insight into not just the life of the old tin miners, but also a small and incredible moment in Stewart and Myra's lives. The following is Stewart's own words about his days as a 'tin scratcher'. 
 

Stewart sitting on a pile of rock he never got
around to mining 38 years before. 
A crusty old Irishman, Paddy Kerlin, and I formed a partnership and pegged a claim around an old abandoned tin mine called the Cardigan, this would have been around the end of 1978. Prior to this I had already pegged another abandoned mine called the City of Bagdad and Myra and I had spent some time camping out there  trying to put together 100 tons of ore from the old dump piles that had been left behind.

Stewart at Cardigan holding his claim stake
planted there 38 years earlier
 In the old days everything was done by hand and hauled out by mules or horses. It was excruciatingly hard work. The miners had to hack holes in the solid rock to get the best tin ore, and bear in mind that the climate could be blisteringly hot. After they had lugged all the ore to the surface, bucket-by-bucket, they then selected only the richest rock and left the rest in heaps nearby. They bagged up only the richest ore because it was a long, arduous, and dangerous hike back to the crusher plant and it was better economics to load only the best stuff onto the mules. The price for tin ore back then was high for the time so mining it became a viable occupation. But, eventually, the bottom fell out of the tin market and the miners dropped their picks and shovels and abandoned their mines which have remained as big holes in the ground to this day. When I got there the tin prices had become quite good and these old mines, once considered uneconomic, could now be turned into quite nice pocket money; the trick was to find some that actually contained some tin metal and not just 100 tons of red Queensland dirt.
After Paddy and I staked our claim on the Cardigan, focus centred there; it had more dump and it was a little richer than the City of Bagdad. We were aiming for a 1/2 ton of tin from 100 ton ore crushed. Paddy was an Irishman who worked on shift with me at the tin company. He was a bit older than me but we became quite good friends and being Irish he liked the odd tipple. I also enjoyed a drop or two so we would often spend a little too long at the local watering hole on the way home from work. This frequently happened when I was to take Myra out on some date or other and  I would end up arriving at Myra’s door trying really hard to behave in a proper and sober manner and hoping the half tube of tooth paste and the packet of peppermints eaten on the drive over would disguise the beer fumes from Myra’s Mum. They must have been good peppermints because Myra married me anyway. I remember  some witty advice old Paddy gave me at one of our boozy after-work stops. I’d just told him for the fifth time to drink up because I gotta go and pick Myra up! Paddy replied, "Just one more while I tell you a little truth lad. Now a young lass when she meets her man, and her good sense now clouded by love and passion, believes, absolutely, that once married she will soon sand those rough edges off him and polish out those annoying little flaws. She believes with all her heart that once under her control he’ll soon change. Of course he never does. The young fellow, like you right now, whenever he meets his breath-of-life, gets swallowed up in her perfume, her soft skin, her tinkling laughter, and can think of nothing but her soft, gentle hands. He loses, for the moment, his stout heart, and his good sense gets swept away. In this moment of enchantment he believes absolutely that she will never, ever change; that she will remain a goddess forever. Believe me, lad, they all change!" This pretty much shows Paddy’s character. He had many pieces of advice for me on all things and after a beer or two we would argue on everything from politics and religion to the beginnings of the universe. After three or four beers we would start singing, or Paddy would start to recite some poetry he had written; he had dozens of them, all, to me, beautiful works of art. One thing though, after that fourth beer you didn’t let Paddy sing for too long; he was bloody terrible so someone would quickly say, "Hey Paddy, give us a poem!"  and off he would go. He could hold us all, half drunk, spellbound for an hour or two. I never much liked poetry but I liked his; it spoke to us ordinary folk.

Paddy found it easier to work really hard at trying to find ways of making hard work easier. This is not necessarily a bad trait but probably wouldn’t make him first choice for a partner in a tin mine where a lot of pick and shovel work could be expected.  But he was my good mate and he gave a lot else of value and in those days I had enough muscle for both of us, anyway. It all seemed to work just fine.
                                                      Stewart mining tin the old way, 1976

So Paddy and I got ourselves a pretty good tin-scratchers mine and we rolled our sleeves up went to work on the weekends with boundless enthusiasm. I was under no illusions it would be hard work, but I was up for it. I have to say that I didn't jump into it blind; it took me a good year or more to research all the old maps and claims, make applications and learn everything I could about mining tin. I didn't even know what tin ore looked like or where to actually find it. I learned that once you got your material it had to be taken to the crusher to extract the tin, but before that it had to be assayed to determine the quality of the ore. Paddy and I didn't have access to an assay lab or jaw crushers so we had to do it the old fashioned way. I credit another old workmate called Graham Meritt for teaching me how to do this and giving me many other invaluable tips on tin scratching. He was our foreman at the tin company and a cantankerous old bugger if ever their was one. He was also an old miner and prospector so he was a walking library on tin. We became great friends but our
friendship had a peculiar start to it.

When we worked on the night shift company cars would come into town and pick the workers up at the local car park. One night there was a mix-up and for no other reason but old Graham was a nasty old mongrel, he started in on us; me in particular. I took exception to something he said and decided my honour had to be defended the only way I knew how, which was to smack the living daylights out of the old bugger; old being about forty. So there I was all fired up and dukes up ready to rumble. The old fellow just grinned at me said, "What a silly young bugger you are," and strolled off and got into a car and disappeared into the darkness leaving me standing by myself fuming and sputtering. I don’t know if I’ve ever before or since felt more foolish standing there in the dark ready to beat the crap out of someone and not a bloody soul in sight. I learned that night that fists are not the only way to sting someone, one of the many things old Graham was to teach me over the next two years. After this rocky start we seemed to get on just fine and Graham took me under his wing and shared as much of his vast knowledge if tin as I could take in.

Saturday mornings would often find me in Janice and Graham Meritt's kitchen sharing a coffee or breakfast and enjoying the Irvinebank sunshine. If it was right after night shift we’d jump in his old Holden ute (four wheel drives almost unheard of out there in those days ) and head into the bush for a days prospecting; the plan usually was to find some old abandoned mine, sample ore dumps, and check old shafts and drives for possible tin shows (seams of tin showing through the walls or floors). It was on these trips that Graham showed me how to methodically sample and prove up an ore dump.  The first thing was to take your hammer and shovel - two items we carried with us everywhere - and some water from your water bottle. Then you would grab a handful of small rocks and fines from the ore dump and place them on your shovel keeping everything dry. With a hammer you next ground it all up until it became fine sand, after which you emptied your match box. Everyone smoked back then so matchboxes were always on hand. Next, you filled the empty box with the sand you had just made, making sure that it was level with the top of the little cardboard match box tray. The sand was then tipped onto a clean shovel and washed in a circular motion with a little water using the dip and shape of the shovel much like a gold pan when panning for gold.

Tin is a very heavy metal so eventually you will wash away all the lighter sands and minerals leaving the heavier tin sitting in the dip of your shovel. Now here’s the neat trick Graham showed me - something any Tin miner worth his salt would know. You take the tin from the shovel and carefully place it on a one cent piece; If the amount of tin from that match box of ore dump neatly covers the one cent piece and builds into a nice little peak then that sample is running at one percent tin metal at around seventy percent purity. If it doesn’t peak up nicely it will have other sands and metals in it and be less than seventy percent pure tin, affecting the final pay out. Many an old prospectors' livelihoods relied on their ability to judge the worth of an ore body accurately and in time, so would Paddy's and mine. Though I didn’t know it then, these forays with Graham would hold me in good stead a bit further down the track. We would quickly do a few of these bush assays around an ore dump until we were confident it was worth further attention, or we were certain it was not an ore dump but just another bloody pile of rubbish. Finding a likely prospect is when the fun stopped and the work began. First the area had to be pegged and a claim filed at the mining warden’s office; again, Graham showing me how to go about all this. After the claim was registered work could progress further out at the mine. I was maybe nineteen or twenty when I registered my first claim and set pegs around an old mine called the City of Bagdad. I had grand dreams that this was the start of me becoming a mining mogul and was certain, as only a twenty year old can be, that I couldn’t miss.

And speaking of missing, it was around this time that a certain buxom, brown-eyed, brown-haired and utterly gorgeous new lab assistant arrived at work. I would see her about the place when I was on day shift or afternoon shift and if I thought she was looking, I would flex my muscles mightily (blue singlets and tight stubby shorts being the everyday work attire of the time), suck in my guts, puff out my chest, and strut about the place like a rooster outside a chook pen. But that’s about as far as it went. I could clamber around old mine shafts, play a decent game of rugby, stand up and scrap with a man if I had to, but when it came to making a move on a pretty girl I was a proper drongo. Things went on much the same for about six months or more and I had pretty much given up, thinking she probably didn’t even know I existed. Fortunately someone else took up my cause. I was just finishing my day shift on the loader and had handed it over to the afternoon operator. As I was driving out past the office and laboratory one of the married ladies who also worked in the lab waved me down. When I stopped she and the brown-haired beauty came out. The married lady introduced us and the rest is history. She was Myra Morris and ten months later became Mrs Myra Bell and somehow still is.
   
The brown-haired beauty, 1977
 
Back at the mine things were progressing. I had drawn crude maps of all the different areas of the ore paddock and had taken dozens of rock samples from all over the dumps, putting them in numbered bags made by my new wife. The bags were then given a number corresponding to the exact positions on the maps.

                                            A map showing the location of Cardigan mine

I had welded up a large dolly-pot out of half inch plate and five inch bore casing. I also made a dolly-knocker out off two inch round pipe. The samples were then placed into the dolly-pot one at a time and I pounded away with the dolly-knocker until that rock was dust. It took me weeks every night after work pounding away until dark to grind up all the samples. The sound of that thing must have driven the neighbours nuts; Bong! Bong! Bong! for hours on end. We were living in a house in Atherton at the time and luckily, we had a biggish back yard. One night the old chap who lived in the house behind us came over to the back fence and cooeed out to me. I didn’t mind the interruption, I was getting a bit sick of being a one man stamp battery. He asked me what I was up to and I explained, expecting him to have a whinge about the noise. To my surprise he said, "Hang about, I want to show you something," and disappeared into his shed. He was soon back with a small dolly pot and pestle, a beautiful thing and very old and wonderfully cast. The old chap was about eighty and he  told me it belonged to his grandfather who had been a gold miner on the Klondike in Alaska. He also pulled from his pocket a small leather bound diary about the size of a hymn book, opened to a page and said, "Here, have a read," and while I was reading he wandered off, returning a few minutes later with a couple of stubbies. The entry I was reading described the man’s journey to the Klondike. He wrote that it was something like thirty below zero and that there were sixty men all trying to fit around a pot belly stove in a very small hut and hoping they didn’t end up like some of the poor sods they had seen frozen dead in the snow on the trek in. We finished our stubbies and talked a little about other entries in the diary. He insisted I take the dolly-pot as I might be able to put it to good use and I could give it back to him when I finished. It was really too small for what I was doing but I took it to please him and gave it back a few weeks later. Our meeting was a wonderful little interlude that gained me a new friend and insights into the mining adventures of another place and age.  

Back to my donging. Once a sample was pounded into sand I put it on the shovel and worked out what percentage of tin it contained. That done I finally had a complete picture of how much tin there was, where the rich bits were, and where there was nothing but Queensland dirt. All of this came from the knowledge gleaned on my weekend forays with Graham. Months were spent piling up heaps of dump; sometimes with shovel and wheelbarrow, sometimes with a backhoe hired from work. Paddy and I would spend our weekends out at the mine heaping up rock. Sometimes it would be just Myra and me. Eventually, we had 100 tons of rock ready for crushing. This was done at the state battery in Irvinebank where you booked a hopper and given a crushing date; usually a couple of months after the hopper became available. As long as we had the ore in the hopper before the crush day everything would be hunky-dory. There’s not much to tell about this bit but I hired the loader from work and operated it myself. I also hired a truck when needed to cart the ore to the crusher; a good 100 ton or thereabouts. It felt good to see all our hard work sitting safely in the hopper and it should have been a simple matter of just sitting back and waiting a couple of months for them to crush it. But no such luck in the tin-scratching game. After a couple of weeks I started getting phone calls from blokes I knew who lived in Irvinebank. These were tin miners who had pretty much been in the game all their lives and they all had the same story. They had been down at the hoppers and came back with the advice, "Stew, I put a bit of that ore of yours on the shovel and can’t see any tin, mate. I think ya might do ya arse. Better dump her, mate!" We had already spent eight hundred bucks on trucks and loaders and things and it would cost another twelve hundred for the crusher. This was in 1980. While we wouldn’t lose a huge fortune, it was still a fair sum to kiss goodbye, especially for Paddy with seven kids. To give you some idea, I’d just bought a brand new car for six grand and was hoping the money from our tin would help pay it off. For me though, it was more about losing face, about what an idiot I’d been. It got even worse when the manager of the state battery rang and asked me if I was certain I wanted to put  that ore through. I was really starting to feel quite sick about it all. By this time I’d left the mining company and  taken a job at the Kairi Research Station, milking their cows and intending to tin mine on the weekends and holidays. Now, the mining wasn’t looking too good. I ended up ringing Graham and he simply asked if I’d done everything the way he’d shown me. I told him I had and to the letter. He told me to back myself because those silly buggers wouldn’t know tin if it bit them on the nose and that there hasn’t been any tin come through from out there for forty years so they don’t know what they are looking at. After giving it some thought and talking to Paddy, I rang the manager back and told him to crush it. Our crushing started at midnight and as Paddy was on night shift I would do the first watch; it was wise to be at the crushing to make sure it was done right. I must admit I was scared stiff. But by 1am there was a nice wide band of beautiful dark brown tin the colour of Myra’s hair coming across all the tables. My heart soared, just like the time I first met my brown-hair beauty.

"You bewdy!" I hollered for joy and Oh, the relief! My feeling of euphoria went with me when I left to go and milk the cows, and it was still there when Paddy arrived from work. It was still there until the last grain was crushed and washed to tailings ! Oh, so, so good. Such a bloody good feeling! I felt vindicated, relieved, and a little bit richer! Our tin from the Cardigan mine dressed out at point six of a percent, which meant that from the one hundred ton of ore crushed we recovered six hundred kilograms of tin, a bit over half a ton at seventy-four percent purity which is top shelf stuff. My bush assaying with shovel, match box, and a one cent coin indicated it would go about point five of a percent at seventy percent - close enough, I reckon!  Paddy and I, after expenses, each pocketed about $3500.

                                    The old crusher plant at Irvinebank fallen into a state of
                                    disrepair since the crash of the tin market

We sold our tin  at $145 per unit, the highest price ever recorded at the time! Tin prices rose to $157 per unit two days later. They fluctuated just below these prices for some months then disaster  struck; the bottom fell out of the tin market and prices dropped to below $40 per unit, eventually plummeting to around $20. That spelled the end of tin mining in Australia. Disaster also hit Paddy when his beautiful wife Pat passed away with no warning, leaving us all absolutely bereft and destroying Paddy’s and the children's world. Shortly after, our firstborn arrived bringing happiness and joy to our world at least.

 
We never went tin mining again and even if the prices had picked up I don’t think I would have had the heart or the will to do it all again.

So farming it was for me.


Stewy's ute that took us over the mountain roads to the mines
Above: Stewy standing at the entrance to the old Cardigan mine
Below: The old Cardigan mineshaft. The miners hacked through
solid rock to get down to the richest tin ore. It must been tough work

 
Quartz rock on a dump pile left by the miners about 80
years ago. The black streaks are tin . This rock is a reasonably
rich sample showing there is still plenty of good ore about.
 
 
The Irvinebank Tavern where we stopped for lunch. Stewart and I ate
a massive hamburger each and Winnie went for the Tin Miners Toasty
 
A couple of the biggest and best burgers we've ever eaten
 
Winnie is at the best of times sceptical about takeout fast
foods. On this occasion, however, she was very pleasantly
surprised at the toasted sandwich that came out. It was
massive and delicious!
 
  
We ended our Aussie visit with a breakfast at a seaside restaurant in the small suburb just outside Cairns where Colin and Beryl's daughters and granddaughters all live. It was a great way to finish up. In the picture from left to right, Elise (granddaughter), Colin, Sarah (granddaughter), Beryl, Renee (daughter) Vicki (Eldest daughter), Emma (granddaughter), and me. Not in the picture are Winnie who is behind the camera, Darrell who is at home on the Tarzali farm, and Julia who is at work in Malanda. After breakfast Colin and Beryl dropped us off at the airport and it was off back home to the cold Christchurch winter and the post holidays blues that would take a few days to get over. Never mind, the great memories will soon cure those.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 End Part Two
 
 
 






 



 



                                                
                                                             

 


Friday 22 August 2014

Pirongia Bells in Australia part One



David and Winnie's Visit to the Aussie Bells, July, 2014
                                                                      Part One
                                                                   
                                                                      By David Bell




Taken at Ravenshoe, Queensland, Australia
Introduction

Over time our Bell whanau (from Peter and Jean Bell) has been steadily growing  across the Tasman in Australia; so much so that the number now living there permanently rivals those resident in our native New Zealand. In July, 2014, Winnie and I spent two incredible weeks with Colin and Stewart and their families. We should all be immensely proud of our Australian connection and the great lives they have carved out for themselves in their adopted land. It's great to have family in such diverse places; it all adds to the richness and culture of our extended family and provides us with stories and adventures galore! This blog article will give the reader a glimpse into the lives of our Queensland Bells.

Our Aussie 'Pioneers'

The leaders of the drift west across the Tasman Sea were Colin and Beryl Bell who left New Zealand in 1969 to begin a new life dairy farming on the Atherton Tablelands, North Queensland, giving them their rightful place as the first of our family 'pioneers' to Australia.


Colin was born in Te Awamutu in 1941, and lived his early years in Pirongia. He was schooled at the Pirongia Primary School and Te Awamutu College. Upon leaving high school he took his first job at a clothing store in Te Awamutu before becoming a linesman with the Power Board constructing power lines to homes and farms in the remote areas around Kawhia and Hauturu. He later worked at the Kawerau pulp and paper mill for a few years before getting into the dairy farming business at Reporoa which lies about half way between Rotorua and Taupo. Upon leaving Reporoa he farmed at Ngarua in the Waikato and answering an add in the newspaper sold up to begin a new life dairy farming on the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland Australia. He was soon joined by his younger brothers Maurice and Stewart.

Maurice in Australia with Amanda and Carl (sitting)
Maurice went to work on a dairy farm but returned to New Zealand shortly after. Stewart travelled to Queensland on what was intended to be a short holiday with his brothers but it turned out to be a permanent stay. Both Colin and Stewart have remained permanently in Australia with no intention of returning to Aotearoa. Both have raised their children in Australia and while they recognize their New Zealand ancestry, they are now thoroughly Australian.

Colin married Beryl Johnson in 1963 in the Methodist church at Pirongia, New Zealand and produced two children, Vicky May and Darrell Graham before emigrating to Australia. Steven Bruce, Renee Jean and Julia Maree were all born in Australia. Their eldest son, Darrell, married Leslie Ann Scott on June 15th, 1989, and have given Colin and Beryl three granddaughters: Emma, Sarah, and Elise. A fuller account of Colin and Beryl's family history will be given sometime in the future.

Stewart was born at Te Awamutu in1955. Like his brothers, he was raised on the old Parihoro Road family farm and schooled at Pirongia Primary and Te Awamutu College. His first job after leaving high school was as a forester in the Kiangaroa pine plantations and later at Rai Valley near Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand. It was tough work which hardened him up for the adventures that lay ahead in the heat and dust of Australia; adventures he no inkling of at that early age.

At eighteen years of age he made the trip across the Tasman to visit with his brothers Colin and Maurice and while there took up what he intended to be temporary work as a truck driver at a tin mine near the town of Herberton. It was while he was working here he was introduced to Myra Morris, an attractive lab technician from the nearby town of Malanda. A romance followed culminating in the two being married which in turn put paid to Stewart's plans to return to New Zealand.


Stewart and Myra during their courtship
It was also while working for the tin mining company Stewart and another workmate secured claims to a couple of old abandoned tin mines which they worked on their days off in the hills behind Irvingbank. While this mining venture turned out to be a one-load endeavour ( his partner had to quit due to a family tragedy), it was, nonetheless, a marvellous experience and adventure from which he learned priceless life lessons as well as gaining a fascinating knowledge about mining tin. Additionally, his one and only load of tin ore paid off handsomely, grossing a pay-out of $10,000 giving him $5,000 in the hand after splitting it equally with his partner. All this while in his nineteenth and twentieth years.

After his mining career he and Myra took to dairy farming, believing it to be a more permanent and fulfilling career. They milked cows for many years in the Malanda-Topaz area and raised three daughters there: Jessica, Bethany, and Kathryn. Stewart and Myra are the proud grandparents of eight grandchildren. A fuller account of Stewart and Myra will be the subject of a later article in the Bells of Pirongia.


Jan in Perth
Jan, our baby sister, should also be considered as one of the 'pioneers' as she and her then husband, Mark Lear, made the trip across the Tasman; not to Queensland, but to Perth in Western Australia where they lived for several years. Mark, who took out his engineering degree from Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand, landed a great job with an aluminium company outside Perth. But, unlike Colin and Stewart, Jan and Mark eventually returned permanently to New Zealand. Their three children, Andrew, Steven and Matthew, were all born in Perth. Andrew and Steven have since returned to reside in Australia with Matthew living in Wellington, New Zealand.

Last but not least are Maxine and Kyle, the children of our older sister Glenda who both live in Sydney. Maxine and her husband Darren reside in Miranda and Kyle in central Sydney.

Our 2014 Holiday

Winnie and I left Christchurch early on Tuesday July 29th., a cold wintery morning,  and arrived in tropical Cairns around 4pm Aussie time where Colin was waiting at the airport to take us to the farm on Old Boongie Road, Topaz. The farm is about  two hours by road from Cairns; 130 acres set among the lush rain forest high up on the Atherton Tablelands. The altitude makes it considerably cooler than that of the lower regions around Mareeba and Cairns, both with decidedly tropical temperatures. The Topaz farm belongs to Colin and Beryl's son Steven who is an airline captain flying for Cathay Pacific based in Hong Kong where he has been living for many years. The original family farm is further north at Tarzali, about 300 acres and currently occupied by Darrel and his wife Leslie; their three children all now living and working in Cairns. While the whole area is good for dairying, these two farms are more lifestyle blocks with a few head of cattle on each.

It was wonderful to catch up with Beryl and Colin again; especially under more pleasant circumstances - we were last together in Pirongia watching Mac, our oldest brother, die. This time it was purely holiday and what a holiday it was! Following is an event-by-event account of the highlights of our two week stay.

Therapy with Dr Phil: First on the bucket list was a long awaited fishing trip on Colin's boat, Dr Phil, so named because whenever they start feeling depressed they consult Dr Phil who, being a big boat, invariably recommends a days fishing out on the ocean. It has never failed, the cure rate is one hundred percent!

When the weather was right and a good crew arranged, we all headed up to the old Tarzali farm where Darrell had the boat and fishing gear all primed and ready to go. The crew consisted of a few friends to help pay for the gas and other incidentals and someone with a good four-wheel-drive vehicle to tow the boat to the ocean. Thus it was on this day.

Colin and I set off in his little car behind the 4WD and boat to a small bay not far from Innisfail. It was a beautiful warm day with only a light breeze and a little rain off to the east but no threat to us. We launched Uncle Phil and set off over a lightly choppy sea to the fishing ground about twenty minutes away. I asked Darrell how he knew where the fish would be schooling and he said he did it very scientifically; he watched where the professional fishermen went and followed them. It had the added benefit of not having to buy all the fancy electronic fish-finding gear.


When we arrived at the spot it was quite crowded with boats of all descriptions from substantial cabins to small dinghies with a single outboard motor. Apparently, the professionals like this arrangement as well because all the recreational boats that soon surround them bring in fish by tossing burley into the water. You could distinguish them from the recreational fishers by their larger boats and superior equipment. They also seemed to have the knack of hauling in more fish than the rest.


Darrell chose a suitable place to park and we dropped anchor. From then on it was all action to bait our hooks and cast off. I got my line in and within moments had a massive strike. I hauled in a good-sized mackerel and earned the distinction of catching the first fish. This was a good sign because from that point on the mackerel threw themselves onto our hooks and our big ice chest began to fill up quickly.


Colin baiting up
Mackerel are a fast swimming, powerful fish that when in the mood take the bait without messing about. The result is a powerful thump on the rod followed instantly by the line singing as the fish pulls it from the reel. Fortunately, we were using heavy line so the objective was to hook and haul in as fast as possible. As Darrell our skipper said, mackerel was the 'bread-and-butter' fish and the sooner we met the boat bag limit the better. As it turned out we reached our limit in about two and a half hours which was an excellent result because it meant we could haul anchor and head home to clean and fillet the fish, a job that could take a few hours.

At one point during all the excitement I got a particularly powerful strike and I knew I had a big one on the hook because it took off  out to sea and I had a tough job getting it under control. At one point it went around the boat and I had to scramble past everyone to prevent it getting caught on the underside of Dr Phil. Eventually, he tired and I was able to pull him in close enough for the net. I was thrilled to see that it was a biggest fish of the day so I had the double distinction of catching the first and biggest of the day.

I also had the distinction of being the only one on board to get seasick. Since arriving in Aussie I had developed an ear problem; it felt like there was considerable pressure in my inner right ear which was making me feel a little uncomfortable at times. On the boat out I was fine and for the first couple of hours fishing seasickness was the last thing on my mind. Then, about two hours in I suddenly started vomiting over the side. Thankfully it was near the end of the expedition and I had had plenty of fun and success catching six or seven mackerel. Nevertheless, I was compelled to put my rod up for a while and try to recover a bit so I could start fishing again. My vomiting wasn't helped by the huge bacon and egg pie I had bought on the way over from an early morning bakery in a little town near the bay. Colin and the others pulled in proclaiming it to have the best pies in Queensland. When I saw them I had to agree and bought a large bacon and egg and a bottle of Bunderberg ginger beer, both of which I devoured before we got to the dock. It all came up and went over the side of the boat at about 10am. The worst part was looking at the bacon, egg, peas and corn floating about under the water in a big, milky mass and Tony, Darrell's friend next to me, pulling his fish up right through the vomit.

We hauled anchor and headed home just as I was thinking of having another go at catching more fish. Thankfully, the sickness happened near the end of our day when I had already caught some good mackerel and it disappeared the moment I set foot on dry land. We got home a couple of hours later and began cleaning and filleting the mackerel at the Tarzali farmhouse.

Thus ended a fantastic day fishing.



Checking the gear
Above:Trying to catch the good luck rainbow for good fishing

Below: The ice chest full of mackerel


Above: Colin showing how to cut a good fillet of mackerel

Below: The other fishermen hard at work


Above: a pile of fresh mackerel fillets

Below: Me with my first and biggest catches
 
 
 The Girls Go Walkabout: While the boys were out fishing, the girls decided to have an adventure of their own. Beryl, Winnie, Myra and Jess (with baby Kip) took
off to lake Eacham for a girls-day-out. It was sunny and a perfect day for a good walk. They walked and talked around the entire circumference of the lake which was quite a good distance. 
 

The Gang of Four

 
 
Walking the Eacham Trail
 
 
Julia's section in Malanda: In a few months a
new house will stand here
 
 They topped off their day with lunch at the Morris (Jess' parents) residence before coming home to check out how many fish the men caught. 
 
A panoramic shot of the three Belles at Lake Eacham
 
 
 
 
End Part One