Maleny Weather

1 Langley = 11.622 Watt-hours per square metre

Tsunami Vigil

Wednesday 15 July 2009, 7.22pm; Senior Meteorologist Steven McGibbont, in the Bureau’s Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre (NMOC) works on routine analyses when a severe earthquake shakes the sea bed just southwest of New Zealand.

 7.30pm alarm bells rings as the quake’s location and magnitude is estimated. NMOC’s automatic systems indicate that parts of the Tasmanian, Victorian and New South Wales coasts might be affected by a tsunami within two hours.

 7.46pm: Steven issues a tsunami watch to emergency services, media and the public.

Over the next five hours the Bureau issued warnings and updates based firstly on information from deep ocean buoys in the Tasman Sea that confirmed a small tsunami,; then tide gauges that confirmed the tsunami’s continuing impact along parts of the Australian coast for about three hours from 9.30pm

Teachers in Bygone Years

I was reading this week about schoolteachers in the early days of Maleny and the problems they experienced.  Especially during the ‘wet’ season when they had to be at the school before the arrival of the first pupil in those pre-school bus days.

I also came across two ‘Guidance for Teachers’ documents that were hardly guidance but more like Conditions of Employment.

The first was dated 1878 and comes from the NSW education archives

1. Teachers will each day fill lamp, clean chimneys before beginning work.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully; you may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the children.
4. Men teachers may take one evening a week for courting purposes or two evenings for to attend church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, you may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum for the benefit during the declining years so that they will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool and public halls or gets shaved in a barbers shop, will give good reason to suspect his worthy intention, integrity and honesty.

The second document is from Burpengary School archives for Women Teachers dated 1915

1. You will not marry during the term of the contract.
2. You are not to keep company with men.
3. You must be home between the hours of 8pm and 6am unless attending a school function.
4. You will not loiter down town in milk bars
5. .You may not travel beyond the city limits without the permission of the Chairman of the Board.
6. You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.
7. You may not smoke cigarettes.
8. You may not dress in bright colours.
9. You will under no circumstances dye your hair.
10. You must wear at least two petticoats and your dresses must not be any shorter than two inches above the ankle.
11. To keep the schoolrooms clean, you must sweep the floor at least once daily, scrub the floor with hot soapy water once a week, clean the blackboard once a day and in winter start the fire at 7am so that the room is warm when the children arrive.

 On 9^th March 1880, Francis Dunlop selected 160 acres of land in Maleny and part of the property is where the Maleny State Primary School now stands. His mother – Jane Dunlop – an early Maleny pioneer – died and was buried on the property. The site of her grave is under the Tennis Courts. The headstone of the grave can be seen on the boundary fence of the school in Bunya Street.

 In March1917, Maleny Obi-Obi Creek Bridge was re‑built and opened. The builder went bankrupt during the bridge’s construction.

 In March 12^th 1956, a severe tropical storm blew the roof iron off a house at Witta into the scrub – never to be found again.

Charlie Porter’s house blew off its stumps and there was a landslide in Bridge Creek Valley, where 40 acres of scrub slid down after a month of heavy rain when 1,556 mm (62 inches) was recorded

William Hayes. On 22^nd December 1879, William Hayes made application to the Commissioner of Lands for a selection at Maleny of 160 acres.  If successful, the rent would be 2/6 an acre, equivalent to $40, but a lot more than that in today’s values. Of course, as with any Government contracts ‘conditions apply’ and briefly they were:

1. Payment of an annual rent by 31^st March each year or forfeit the property
2. Reside on the selection continuously for a period of five years.
3. Spend at least 10/- ($1) per acre on permanent improvements.
4. If required by the authorities, make provision for a roadway two chains wide through the property. (66ft x 2 or 40m)

At end of the 5 year period, and within six months, prove to the Land Commissioner in an open court that all conditions had been adhered to. Failure to do so meant the land and all its improvements revert to Her Majesty. If all conditions were fulfilled the selector was entitled to certificate Deed of Grant on payment of a Deed Fee.

On 26th July 1799 Lt. Matthew Flinders made the first inland exploration of Glass Houses Mountains.
First sited 29 years earlier by Captain Cook who named all the mountains in the group of volcanic cores as Glass Houses as they apparently reminded him of the glass making 100 ft. high kilns or cones of his childhood in Yorkshire.
Matthew Flinders anchored his sloop “Norfolk” in Pumice Stone Channel and by longboat rowed up as far as he could go in a waterway now known as Glass House Creek. He then climbed Mt. Beerburrum to take sightings for his maps.
An attempt the following day to climb Mt. Tibrogargan for triangulation failed.

Beerburrum Pioneers
Walking down Anzac Avenue, Beerburrum and talking to locals I found it hard to imagine this wide quiet residential road, with a splendid avenue of trees down the centre, was once the main street of a bustling country town.
It all started during World War 1 when the Government of the day decided the area would be suitable for small scale farming with its rich sandy soil and subtropical climate.

‘Diggers’ returning from Flanders shell shocked and wounded were rehabilitated in a new hospital constructed on a high knoll overlooking Anzac Avenue.

Over 500 selections of varying acreages had been surveyed and were offered to ex-servicemen by ballot. A pick of a marble decided the location and acreage for the settler.

The government provided basic tools including a spade a wheelbarrow and a long crow bar for clearing the property of scrub. Pineapples were to be the first crop with a promise of a guaranteed market at a canning factory to be built in Brisbane, in time for the first harvest in three years time. However, a change of Government and plans for the canning factory were dropped.

Some settlers found new markets; others were enterprising in growing alternative crops. For instance there is the story of one settler, asked to experiment in the suitability of growing groundnuts on his property was given six sacks of peanuts to sow. Due to a shortage of peanuts the price was high and the settler could not resist the temptation for some quick cash flow. After selling the seed peanuts at market he had to explain to the departmental officers come to inspect his crop that the bandicoots had eaten the lot!

On Tuesday June 22 the sun rises at Maleny at 6.38am and sets at 5.04pm, giving 10 hours and 27 minutes of official daylight. This is our shortest day of the year when the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer.  Known as the Winter Solstice or Mid-winter’s Day, it is when a ‘night’ lasts for 24 hours on all places within the Antarctic Circle,

The question often asked is if the winter season in Australia covers the months of June, July and August so why isn’t our mid-winter’s day in July?

In many countries of the world the seasons are defined by the solstices and the equinoxes. For example our winter season is from June 21 to September 22.

The reason our mid-winter‘s day s near the beginning and not the middle of the season is due to the lag of the season – the time-lag between the movements of the sun and temperature and response of the land masses and oceans. In northern Australia the four seasons are of little relevance because the length of day doesn’t vary a great deal and at midday the sun is always high in the heavens. Here they have’ wet’ and ‘dry’ seasons – the monsoonal climates.

With all the rainfall we have had so far this year 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

The beach at ANZAC, by Frank Crozier. 1919. Oil on canvas, 123.4 x 184cm. (Australian War Memorial (ART02161).

I saw a kid marchin’ with medals on his chest.
He marched alongside Diggers marching six abreast.
He knew that it was ANZAC Day – he walked along with pride.
He did his best to keep in step with the Diggers by his side.

And when the march was over the kid was rather tired.
A Digger said “Whose medals, son?” to which the kid replied:
“They belong to daddy, but he did not come back.
He died up in New Guinea on a lonely jungle track”.

The kid looked rather sad then and a tear came to his eye.
The Digger said “Don’t cry my son and I will tell you why.
Your daddy marched with us today – all the blooming way.
We Diggers know that he was there – it’s like that on ANZAC Day”.

The kid looked rather puzzled and didn’t understand,
But the Digger went on talking and started to wave his hand.
“For this great land we live in, there’s a price we have to pay
For we all love fun and merriment in this country where we live.
The price was that some soldier his precious life must give.

For you to go to school my lad and worship God at will,
Someone had to pay the price so the Diggers paid the bill.
Your daddy died for us my son – for all things good and true.
I wonder if you understand the things I’ve said to you”.

The kid looked up at the Digger – just for a little while
And with a changed expression, said, with a lovely smile:
“I know my dad marched here today – this is ANZAC Day.
I know he did. I know he did, all the bloomin’ way”.

Poem by: D. Hunter (A veteran of Shaggy Ridge with the 2/12 Battalion in WW2)