Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 - 1954), Wednesday 7 June 1950, page 3


BACK TO COACHING AND

TEAMSTER DAYS

Interesting accounts of the carrying and coaching days were obtained by a "Bulletin" representative from Jim McEvoy (Mt Lucas, Boongarry), Jack Kearney (Walmul) and Louis Stock (Mt. Morgan).

It was not until 1898 that

the railway was built. Up to

then the communication was maintained by coach and team. Both ran from Rock-

hampton at first, but later Kabra became the terminus for the coach services, and with

the installation of a railway crane much of the team load-ing was picked up there.

The company had a big store in Quay Street (now the Peanut Board depot) and here the early wagoners loaded up. There were two routes to the Mount, one via Crocodile (now Bouldercombe) and the other through Kabra - Boongarry -Moonmera.

The state of the weather often dictated the road to be taken. On the Croco-dile there were a couple of miles of blacksoil known as the Gluepot, which were avoided in the wet.

With the load aboard the popular starting point was Bullock Flat, near the Ulster

Arms (now a cricket ground). According to the road taken, the teams would make Bould-ercombe or Huff's, Moonmera, on the first day. They spelled overnight to be fresh to tackle Razorback in the morning. Here all the horses were un-yoked, and as many as 40 hitched to each wagon for the climb. On top. the teams were reformed to complete the easy stage to the town or mine. On the return journey the overnight stop was at Moonmera, Rockhampton being reached next day. Three trips a fortnight per team was the

average.

The first Mt. Morgan carrier within the recollection of Mr McEvoy was Jim Graham, who who used to transport sugar from the Farnborough mill to Rockhampton by bullock wagon. When the Morgans were still associated with the mine he did the whole carting from Rockhampton, travelling via Bouldercombe. He un-loaded at the foot of the Range, and the loading was taken on by three-horse drays from Mt. Morgan.

Tom Semple was a most ex-pert driver in getting the drays up the hill and built up quite a reputation in this regard. He afterwards lived at Piebald, down the river. Dan Morgan and W. Crewe were two dray

men who also carted for the Mt. Morgan syndicate at this time.

RAZORBACK ROAD

J. Scott began working for the company by carting ore from the mine to the mill. By 1885 the inflow of goods and plant demanded better trans-port from Rockhampton. The company had the Razorback Road made and Scott launch-ed out into eight wagon teams which he later sold to his sonin-law (Nelson). Scott pur-

chased Emerald Downs.

At this time the company was paying £3/10/- a ton on freight from Rockhampton to Mt. Morgan. Seeking a cheap-er rate tenders were called and Jack Davis, who up to that time had had one or two teams on the road doing general car-rying, secured the company's contract at £2/5/- a ton.

Besides the company's con-tractors there were a number of carriers with one or two teams on the road. Those that can be recalled included Bill Dwyer, Bob Bunt, ---Barry, Tom Fenlon, Bob Pat-kins. Egan's bullock teams used to haul timber from their mill at Raglan to the Rock-hampton yards and then on to Mt. Morgan to supply the local store, which did a big trade in building materials.