DEATH OF A MATE.

SIMBA AND DAD. Source: Personal Collection.

Uncle George took horse eventing very seriously, whereas Dad treated it as a holiday from the station. There were plenty of parties with the other riders and Dad was particularly friendly with Jimmy Sharman and his boxing troupe, who also travelled the show circuit.

Dad and George did often compete against each other. They rode in camp drafting, hack, show hunter and show jumping events. Dad won many events and he once won overall champion at one show. However, when they competed against each other and Dad and Simba won, Uncle George wouldn’t talk to my father for a day or so. 

Dad’s show-riding days ended when he met my mum at the Brisbane show. She was also a keen horsewoman and a pretty talented rider. They were introduced to each other by Mum’s sister, Betty, who was riding the shows with Dad and George. At the time, Mum really stood out. She’d had a fall off a horse and was in plaster from neck to tailbone, having broken her back.

Even after his eventing days were over, Simba remained Dad’s stock horse and they rode musters together. He and Simba were one when they galloped. Dad used to carry a pistol and he often shot wild, scrub cattle off Simba at a gallop. When other horses lost their nerve with the sound of a shot going past their ears, Simba never once lost his rhythm.

I remember Dad telling me how, on one occasion, when they were on a muster, Simba stepped into a hole at full gallop. He stopped short, fell and rolled right over Dad, and the only reason why Dad wasn’t killed that day was that there was a depression in the ground that Dad’s body just fit into. It wasn’t his time that day, he reckoned.

They had such a special bond that no-one else, apart from Dad, could ride Simba. My half-sister Janice unfortunately found that out when she tried to ride him one day. She ended up thrown from Simba and rushed to hospital with a broken jaw.

Simba was a special horse. He was never found after disappearing in the 1958 flood, and Sparrow Lavery never said what happened to Simba that day. For months after, Dad searched for his body without success.

 To Dad, Simba’s loss was the same as losing a best mate.

More stories of stock horses, cavalry horses and royalty to come.         

SIMBA AND THE LOVE OF HORSES

SIMBA AND DAD. Source: Personal Collection.

In an earlier blog, I briefly mentioned the love of Dad’s life. No, not my mum (although I like to think she might have been that), but his horse, Simba. I’ve already talked about Simba’s disappearance during the 1958 flood. Before I tell you exactly what happened to him, I’d better tell you more about him.

In the days before motorbikes and helicopters replaced horses, most graziers had a special connection to their horses. They were transport as well as workers. My family had a unique bond to their horses. I’ll reveal why as I tell their story.

When I was younger, I remember seeing my family’s stud books that went all the way back to the 1860’s. I’ll post a picture of them on my blog, if I ever find what I did with them.

 Anyway, Simba was bred on my family’s Mount McConnell station. He was part Arab, part- thoroughbred and descended from the bloodlines of stallions that my great grandfather, John Clark had bought in horse sales in Sydney and Melbourne in the late nineteenth century. John Clark was keen on having the best bloodlines in the north and clearly wasn’t short of a quid, as several stallions he bought had won major races in Sydney and Melbourne.

Dad picked Simba out initially as a stock horse, but at the time Dad was keen on riding in the horse events at the shows with his brother, George. For the uninitiated, a show is an agricultural fair, held in nearly every city and major town in Australia. Dad noticed that Simba was a good jumper and so that is what he was trained primarily for. 

When Dad and George weren’t working hard on the family stations, they would ride the show circuit around Queensland. They travelled from town show to town show, competing and having a good time. 

Back then, horse people didn’t have the luxury of having a four-wheel drive with a horse float, as they do now. Instead, they travelled on a steam train with their horses in the horse carriages, even sleeping in the stall with their horse. In this way, a special bond developed between man and horse. So much so that Dad and Simba would even have a beer together on a hot day. Before you ask—not at the pub or out of the same bottle, of course.

To be continued.

TRUE TALES OF THE OUTBACK. THE FLOOD. PART ONE.

Source: Personal Collection.

This is a photo taken during the 1958 flood at my uncle's property, Cranbourne Station. The waters got to the front stairs.

About two weeks before I was due to be born, it was decided that Mum would leave Lornesleigh and travel five hours to Townsville on Queensland’s northern coastline.  A caretaker named Sparrow Lavery (I have no idea what his real name was) was left to look after the place, since Dad had driven Mum there, to wait out the final stages of the pregnancy.

 Mum was brought up on a sheep station near Julia Creek, so she knew better than to wait around for labour to begin, before making her move.

 And just as well. I was in a hospital getting born when my parent’s station went underwater after a massive downpour of rain. 

Not just once, but twice within a week.

Homesteads were always located near rivers for ease of getting water, so flooding of a homestead was going to be inevitable. Our homestead was situated near the junction of the Suttor and Cape River.  They were two major rivers that fed into the larger Burdekin River. After weeks of rain, it was the Suttor that flooded first.

Old Sparrow had been watching the levels of the rivers rising but would not go on the transmitter radio to get any further information. He was scared of the thing, and no matter how hard Dad tried to teach him how to use it, he refused to learn. That turned out to be a big mistake. 

 Sparrow was in the homestead kitchen one morning having breakfast, when he heard an ear-splitting rumble that sounded like thunder breaking overhead, coming towards the homestead. He knew what it was. 

  It wasn’t thunder but a massive wall of water breaking the banks of the Suttor and crashing towards the homestead. All Sparrow had time to do was grab one of Dad’s rifles and rush to saddle up Dad’s precious horse, Simba, before the homestead went underwater.

 Exactly what happened next remains a mystery to this day. Sparrow went missing for a week before turning up at Harvest Home station (the property adjacent to ours) and Simba went missing. Sparrow never was the same again and he never ever said precisely what happened that day to anyone, not even Dad

.

More about the flood and Simba later.