Maleny Weather

It was on the 12^th November 1878 when the Lands Department received an application from an Englishman, Isaac Burgess, when he became the first selector to acquire land in Maleny. His property extended over 790 acres. His main interest was logging, although he did have a gang of men to grow sugar cane for his bullock teams, and maize and oats for his horse teams.

At that time Red Cedar trees grew in abundance at Maleny and after felling it was often the heavy rain and mud that prevented removal from site. A huge log from one tree was shipped to England where it won a prize at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition that was being held in London from May to October 1886.  A team of sixty bullocks was needed to haul the log off the Range. The centre of the log measured 247 inches (over 6 metres) in circumference. After the exhibition the log was cut in half. One half was polished and exhibited at the British Museum and the other half, after attempts were made to sell it entire, it was sold at a ridiculously low price and reduced into billets with explosives.

Two other logs from the same tree were shipped to Melbourne.

The story goes that another huge Red Cedar was felled on a boundary line with Crown Land and during an argument about its size Isaac Burgess made a bet of five pounds with a Mr Graves that he could turn a horse and dray on the stump without falling off. Cedar flitches were used to get the horse and dray on and off the stump. Isaac Burgess won the bet.

In November 1896 over 445 mm of rain was recorded at Maleny. Flash floods and mud slides made logging difficult and dangerous. Due to the steep terrain stretcher cases of anyone injured often had to be manhandled to Landsborough or Peachester.

The timber era of Maleny began to expand, gradually merging from timber to pasture. Sadly, Isaac Burgess was denied another first in the Maleny settlement. In 1905 Isaac had just secured the first contract for the cartage of butter from Maleny to Landsborough railway station when on 1^st January 1905 the family home caught fire.   Mrs Burgess died in the blaze and although Isaac escaped he died from his terrible burns later in the day.

 In 1911, Bill Walker at the age of 17 joined the Ambulance Service at the Anne Street Centre, Brisbane and recalled his first job was to push patients on a two-wheel litter from Northgate to the Brisbane Hospital. Fourteen years later he became Superintendent of the Landsborough Ambulance Centre, covering the area of Mount Mellum, Maleny, Caloundra, Beerwah, Peachester, Kilkoy, Woodford and Mooloolah. In 1925, a butcher’s shop was moved from Glasshouse to Landsborough to serve as an ambulance garage and workshop. The casualty room was down in the corner of the yard between the Memorial Hall and the old Council Chambers. There was no telephone and communication was by the railway station telegraph. The Beerburrum Hospital – the hospital on the hill – built for ex-servicemen wounded in World War 1 – would wait to receive patients to arrive by Bill’s Dodge Four ambulance or by train. Most common accidents in those days were broken limbs, tree felling accidents, axe cuts ~ and there were several confinements in the ambulance. Bill also attended the Traveston train derailment disaster. This was on the 9th June 1925 when, at 2.00am in the morning the mail train from Brisbane became derailed 2½ Miles north of Traveston. One of the passenger carriages and a luggage van bound for Rockhampton toppled over the bridge known as 96-mile Creek between Traveston and Tandur railway stations. The carriage was literally smashed to matchwood on the rocky creek bed below. Another passenger carriage fell over on its side on the northern bank also adding to the mortality rate; which consisted of nine killed outright. Fifty-five were injured, many seriously. The disaster was caused by one of the wheels of the bogies of the luggage van jumped the rails on a curve about half a mile from Traveston. In this condition the wagon travelled two miles, and over two bridges, before the final crash came. Bill records vividly the scene that met his eyes on that tragic day.

Catherine Tucker

A few weeks ago I came across an article by Catherine Tucker describing her early life in Maleny and I quote a few extracts:-

“I was nearly four years of age when my father in 1890 took up a 160 acre selection on the Range at Maleny. We were living in Brisbane; my older sister had died of diphtheria on her sixth birthday. I left Brisbane with my mother, father and brother George and we took the train to Landsborough as the railway line from Caboolture had been recently opened.

We spent a few days at Mt. Mellum hotel waiting for a horse drawn dray that was arranged to meet us and never arrived. As father was the only one who knew anything about horses it was mother’s idea that we should start walking; not knowing what she was taking on. The road was little more than a track and took one steeply and directly over Bald Knob. We walked on the side of the road to escape the deep and muddy holes that never dried up because of the dense canopy of tree tops. We often got caught up in the ‘bush lawyer’ canes that left their mark on skin and clothes. There was no fresh water other than from a spring on a bank above the roadside, about half way up from Landsborough.

We arrived at our new home at dusk. We had taken all day to travel on foot the thirteen miles from Landsborough to Maleny We found comfort in seeing our familiar furniture which had been sent by train to Landsborough and transported up the Range by bullock wagon and positioned by father before he left for Brisbane to collect us.

The cabin was built of split hardwood slabs and lined with hessian to keep out the wind.  We had two bedrooms, a kitchen-dining room, and a verandah. There was also a recess with flooring of huge flat water-washed stones on which stood my mother’s pride and joy – a wood burning stove.

Our rain-water tank was unusual but very efficient, it never leaked and water drawn from it was always cool. It held about thousand gallons, square in shape like a ship’s tank and constructed of wide wooden boards lined with zinc sheeting.

Condensed milk took the place of fresh milk. But later my father decided to buy a house cow. This meant a ride to Kennilworth and a slow journey home with “Cherry” and she was the first cow to be kept at Maleny in an area that was to become known as a ‘dairyman’s paradise’, with pastures carrying over 16,000 cows.

On laundry days clothes were taken down to the creek. A fireplace was built on flat stones at the water’s edge large enough to hold two kerosene tins in which the clothes were boiled. After rinsing the men would carry the wet clothes in baskets back to the homestead for hanging on to the clothes line to dry.

Our larder had to be replenished several times a year. The supplies were always ordered in bulk and brought up from Landsborough by bullock team to be off loaded at the roadside nearest our homestead. Our father would use the horse drawn sled to carry it the rest of the way to the house. As children we were always excited looked forward to finding a bag of lollies, a customary gift from the grocer.

What’s round and bad-tempered?                —————     A vicious circle.

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