A Glimpse into the Past

As seen through the eyes of pioneer, Eliza Ellen Fuller (1886 – 1983)

(Eliza was featured in the September 22 edition of this paper.)

The journey by coach from Bowen to Proserpine in 1900 – A Wild Ride

As we got to the hotel yard in time to leave for Bowen by six o’clock that Sunday Morning, a chap asked the coach driver, Henry Amos, to get him to Bowen that afternoon in time to catch the “Inaminka” which only stopped at the jetty for about three minutes to throw off mail and pick up mail and passengers.

Henry yells, “All aboard” as he jumps into his seat. I got up alongside him with my grandmother while the men took the back seat.

Four yardmen each brought out a horse, hooked the first two on to the pole and the other two ahead, rearing to go. The two men jumped aside and grazing the gatepost we went galloping off down the street. We clung on all the way to the river crossing then up Crystalbrook way which the coach crossed in about three terrible leaps. Somehow, we made it through the wild bush track until we almost reached the Halfway Hotel that used to stand along the track.

Just before the hotel there was a gully at the bottom of which the brumby leader propped then leapt forward and, in his propping and jumping, managed to unhook the lead pole and Henry couldn’t hold the bolting leaders. He threw the reins of the first pair to one of the men and told him to drive on to the pub while he tore off after the runaways which, because they couldn’t see properly with winkers on, ran different sides of a tree and smashed a coupling strap.

One rolled over into the washaway in the gully and Henry was on to him.  Just as well it was the quieter one of the two. Henry rigged the winkers into a sort of bridle and off through the timber he went after the brumby, somehow over a fence and into a paddock. We made it to the hotel where Heny harnessed up another four horses. We all had a bit of food at the Homestead Hotel but not Henry as he was rushing to get his new team going.

As we galloped into Bowen, Grandma said the Henry, “We get out at the corner house.”

“Not yet you don’t,” yelled Henry as he went galloping right through Bowen and down to the jetty where the horses got scared but Henry kept talking to them. The boat had begun to move out with the gangplank up but the men on the coach threw the chap’s luggage across the ship’s rail and practically threw him over too. The boat left at four in the afternoon, so it was some trip.

When Henry drove us back to the house on the corner my aunt, who lived there, asked what had been the matter. She had seen the coach go tearing by.

With a big grin, Henry said, “I told him I’d get him there in time and I did.” There are not many like Henry now. I made several coach trips to Bowen, sometimes getting in as late as 8 o’clock - but none as fast as the one with Henry.

Photo courtesy Proserpine Historical Museum and story extracted from “Proserpine Guardian” December 22 1948.

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