March 1898 was a very Wet Month
It was a very wet and muddy March in 1898 when 1289 mm of rain was recorded at Maleny and life must have been very difficult for the early settlers and navvies constructing the Landsborough section of the railway line from Brisbane to Cairns. The first train arrived at Landsborough Station in 1890 at a time when the next section to Yandina was under construction. Two tunnels were constructed, one between Landsborough and Mooloolah and the other between Mooloolah and Eudlo. Heavy rainfall made track-laying difficult. I thoroughly recommend the walk Kay and I did when we followed the old disused rail track from Mooloolah into the Dularcha National Park. A short 10/15 minute walk and you come to the Dularcha tunnel. There is no light at the end of the tunnel because of a slight bend. Stand silently in the middle of the tunnel and you can almost hear the steam locomotive puffing its way up the slight incline. In fact, it was this incline that limited the number of train carriages and resulted in a second tunnel being built during the depression of 1931, a couple of metres lower and with a less steep approach.
As we delve into past events covering the autumn month of March one marvels at just what the early settlers on the Range had to put up with when logging an area in deep mud. Before roads were built the Red Cedar trees were felled and hauled to the nearest ‘chute’. If you go along Maleny’s Mountain View Road to McCarthy’s Chute, ponder awhile to imagine how the logs were brought through the rain forest by bullock teams and rolled over the steep escarpment to the sawpit below. There they were either sawn into flitches or rafted down Coochin Creek to Bribie Passage. Sailing ships would then tow the rafts to Brisbane.
An old English traditional annual event called The Flitches of Dunmow in Essex where a side of a hog salted and cured and given yearly to any couple proving conjugal harmony for a year and a day