AUSTRALIA’S CONTRASTS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 October 1924, Page 4

AUSTRALIA’S CONTRASTS

MAILMEN OK TO-DAY. SYDNEY. Out. Australia is famous as a laud of contrasts, and there is no more striking instance than is provided hv its inland mails. In this continent is represented the most quaintly ancient and the most ultra modern. Jicsides all the intervenin'' grades of progress in the t ransit of mails—the swift horse, the lumbering mail coach, the snortin;' locomotive, which every day are engaged in the service of his Majesty’s most honourable Post Office, that august institution still relies on some of its far-llung routes upon that majestic monarch of the desert—the camel, and that same august institution has in its service one of the most successful long-distance air mail services to he found anywhere in the world. The clock-work regularity with which that line service has been carrying mails and passengers for some years now over a route some thousands of miles long over the huge tracks ot Western Australia has been described, but many people will share the surprise which Stefansson. during his recent inland tour, evinced at seeing the ancient “ship of the desert’’ still a valued servant of the King in so unexpected a place as arid Australia. Yet. with their Afghan riders, camels are a common feature of the landscape in some parts. Their service in carrying his Majesty’s mails is picturesquely described by a writer in tile “Adelaide Register.”

A letter, he says, is posted in the city, with a stamp to the value of Ijd on Lhe envelope, and the address is. say, Alice Springs, 'flic train journey to Oodnadatta is an uneventful one, being conventional and ordinary, but arriving at the railhead it is a cliflercnL matter. Not only letters, but parcels, boxes, and bundles, and passengers. go with the camels and the mailman on the long trek northward, starting in the yards ol the mail contractor at Oodnadatta.

’file camel's roar and bubble and froth N as the bundles and boxes are fixed on the crude but efficacious saddles made by the Afghans from thick sticks, straw, and sacking, and finally the letters, etc., are lashed into position. The passenger is not lashed, lint as the camel first unfolds itself from the ground, wishes he (or she) were. Lurch, jerk, lurch again, and the long-necked steed is upright, and stands waiting. With everything ready, the string ol animals, heavily laden, starts ofl I rom the town, and just a little ahead of the immensity of tiic journey is realised by the solitary traveller, swaying in the odd motion, and wondering at. the method of driving, from one peg in one nostril of the camel, with two reins from the one side. ’I he passenger becomes used to the swinging movement, and learns to adapt himself to the strange mode of progression. Oodnadatta vanishes, and a path is followed across a plateau, stonv and bare, but for a giilgee scrub. ’I he sky is cloudless, and has linen for many a long week, for this season has toiiud the interior in the grip ol a serious drought. To travel north with horses is impossible, owing to lack of Iced and water, and that condition sends the traveller to the camel mail. First stop on the way is for lunch at a creek bed, sanilv and hot. about six miles out from Oodnadatta. with the quart pot boiling behind a brisk lire of dead wood, and meat bags open. On again about 20 minutes later, and the same rate, roughly three miles an hour, is adhered to all through the day until dark. Sometimes (this season) there is no feed, and the mail goes on an hour or so until it is lounil. The camp lire is lit. and crackles loudly in the dry air. throwing a weird golden light on the figures nearby. and intensifying the pitch blackness outside. The quart pot boils again, while the mailman unloads the noisy camels’, dropping the bundles, bags, and boxes to the bare earth, and (hen the heavy saddles, ’lhe hobbles are then put on the fmnt legs, and the “ships of the desert” are turned loose for the night, to roam and find what feed they can. The night meal ol the mailman and his passenger is the one break in the monotony and labour of the strenuous journey, which could mil be attempted by a weakling or a coward. The mailman endure., ami ondlii os again, and travel, long distances over huge plains and sand tracks across wide, dry creeks, and through scrub.' past, waterlmles containing no water, and stops at bares to refresh the animals, lie walks at times, but mostly rides the leading camel, swinging evenly ami steadily, for he arrives and departs on schedule and loses no time. At present the way is hard, with nothing living for many miles but crows, whose raucous cries lend horror ta a scene ol desolation. Cattle lying dead here and there, and the heat rippling and winking over a silent waste of sand and stone. Sometimes the scene is anything but desolate, where the almost boiling wiltei gushes from the bores, and forms great pools and lagoons where reeds and rushes grow, and butcher birds and wild duck fly, and where camels, cattle and travelling parties pause fur water. And sometimes they are heavily-wood-ed creek beds, with white-trunked gums, boxwoods, red mulga, giilgee, and a hundred other varieties of well and little-known trees, throwing welcome shade, and sheltering birds. The mailman pauses at many places on the way, and talks with station managers, stockmen, householders, travellers, and many others travelling up and down, but never does he allow his mails to he late, or his duties to be neglected, ft is because ot such men that we are able to send a letter so many hundreds of miles in complete safety, and also human packages, but the world is very ignorant of those who keep the outback in existence.