Flood and Famine at the Peak

Western Mail – Perth – 3 June 1937, page 11

The Peak and the Flood.

Dear “Non-Com.”  The early days of the goldfields can never be written up fully except with the aid of official records and the memoirs of the experiences of individuals. Looking back about 40 years I often wonder at the stamina of the old prospectors. The Murchison is looked upon as a great stretch of the country even today with air, motor, and train transport, but what of 40 years ago when camels, donkeys, horses, and very often ‘shanks’ pony’ made distances appear what they really are.

In 1899 I arrived in Cue with a young mate. We were looking for work and when we were told that there was plenty of it in Peak Hill, 175 miles away, and that transport by coach for three days was £5 each with 2/6 per meal and bed on the way we counted our cash. We had

£2 1s 6d between us, so we decided to walk

my mate arguing that we could do it in a week, thus earning the fiver we would be paying the coach. And walk we did. Being November and the wells far apart it was a long way, especially as at almost every well we met men coming down who told us that we could get work all right but that very few stuck it over one or two pays.

It was not a very cheery prospect but as my mate had a brother at the Peak we decided to go on, and eventually got there inside the week. We met the brother who had just got the sack the day before. Having indulged in a game of two-up he was not too helpful as he had backed tails when there was a run of heads.

The Murchison Club Hotel Cue 1897

However, nothing daunted, we saw the boss and got a start, going to work that night. Monthly pays being the order of the day and we nearly broke, provisions were the next thing to be thought of. The brother’s camp was available and we took it over and set out to seek a boarding house. Putting on my best grin we tackled the owner of the Club Hotel and were agreeably surprised when, in the middle oí my hard-luck tale, he said: “Stick your feet under the table.” Such was the spirit of the goldfields men.

In March 1900, it rained as I have never seen it rain since, and within half an hour there were 30 feet of water in the shaft. It continued to rain off and on for nearly a month, the Murchison being 12 miles wide and Peak Hill isolated, the consequence was that we were soon short of the necessities of life and to make matters worse four of us had started batching the week before. We were soon on bread made of one part flour and the rest bran at 1s 3d a two-pound loaf, meat in plenty, but everything else impossible to buy. But our luck held as we heard of a camel team going through to Marble Bar camped about two miles out, and we purchased a 50lb bag of flour for 50s and 30lb of sugar for 35s. Being good cooks we were then “home and dry.” Cartage was £6 a ton from Cue to the Peak at normal times, but it had now gone up to £50 a ton with no takers.

By this time there was talk of having to leave the town owing to the shortages when word was received that two teams had got through. They duly arrived loaded with beer and whisky! However, the men drowned their sorrow and were bucked up a few days later by a load of potatoes and onions, and so ended the famine of the Peak.

It was just after this, having won three bike races out of five in the one day, that I conceived the idea that I was a world champion, so nominated for the Day Dawn sports, and getting what I thought was a good mark rode 175 miles to the Dawn with a view to cleaning up the card. Stripping the second night I was there I got on to the track and after a few laps hooked on to two of the then Murchison champions. For a few laps, I thought I was the real goods, but then they suddenly shot out and left me all on my lonesome.

A prospectors camp

Having some sense of proportion left, I went off to the recruiting depot and enlisted for the South African War. Here I again had trouble, as the doctor told me that his orders were to pass no one over 11 stone 6lbs and as I was 13st. 101b it looked blue. He was good enough to tell me to be over at the store opposite the next morning and he would weigh me as a matter of form. At 10 a.m. the next morning I weighed 11stone 61b exactly with my boots and coat off, much to the surprise of the doctor. As I had had a long chat the night before with the shop assistant who did the weighing, neither of us was particularly surprised, and so ended my aspirations of becoming a world champion bike rider and the start of my career as a soldier.

by A.H.P. North Perth, WA