A Story From My Ole Curmudgeon From Down Under ~~~

Stuart / aka EMU eater  

I wrote a story, a bit juvenilistic(new word I made up),it is how it was written so errors and omissiions are excepted,(what ever that means)
History lesson by Stuey Cummings
This is my yarn may be inaccurate may be right that is for the readers to ponder. Will be a bit long so take your lounge out into the sun grab a glass of wine, make sure you take bottle with you, also grab a plate of thin cucumber sandwiches that the English gentry seem to prefer. Ok so away we go.
Way back a century or two ago there were many naughty boys and girls that deserved to be put into prison, why for just picking your nose in public was an offence, just imagine the horror if you were caught pinching the lords pet rabbit
For such menial crimes the gaols were soon all overfull so the big boys decided to use old navy ships that lay idle on the Thames river, but soon these were all full too, so with much scratching of their heads it was decided to send all the naughty boys and girls to America.
But before this could take effect some rascal tossed all the tea into Boston harbour, the Americans took a dim view of this and told the English to vamoose or else, the English what is this or else, so they both had a bit of a barney, the Americans won and the English all went home, so all this put the Kybosh on sending the naughty boys and girls to America, so what now, the navy was running out of ships to house all these naughty nose picking people.
Along comes a bloke named Cook , James Cook, a captain in the royal navy, he said he would go see if could find a place to put all these criminals, so away he sails in his ship which these days would be about the size of a dinghy, on his way he called into , I Think ) beaunos Aries? That place in south America. Went to the shops and bought all the tinned food he could then off he sailed again eastwards.
Onwards and onwards they sailed until eventually they sighted, Whew!! He was beginning to get a little worried , they sailed into this nice little bay and he thought now here is a good place to send all those miscreants, any way he thought better have a look at the country first before tearing back to good old England.
Hopped into I think they call them gigs landed on beach and here there was a welcomeing committee of very dark people and they were unclothed too they had spears and clubs and th
ey were intending to use these implements but the intrepid james cook held up his hand and said g’day fellas, so they all sat down and had a yarn , cook swapped his tinned food for some fresh kangaroo steaks, goanna and snake fillets, so every one was happy.
So Cook stuck the union jack flag in the ground and proclaimed this place English and called it New South Wales, he no sooner done all this when another ship sailed into the harbour, a French Ship too, so all us Australians were nearly French citizens ,would have had to learn French and all that.
Cook sailed home said hi to his dearly beloved wife ,then told all the big chiefs that he had found the ideal spot to unload all or at least some of the naughty boys and girls.
The powers to be then got together 7 old rotting ships loaded them up with the prisoners and sent them on there way, after many months sailing they arrived at thes bay that Cook had called Botany Bay, but the head fellow reckoned it not good enough so sent some blokes searching for better place, lo and behold just around the point was this magnificent harbour, it had a bridge over the bay too a bridge that looked like a coat hanger, the big boss called this harbour Sydney Harbour and set up home there.
He had the convicts build a government house first then a few more houses for other bigwig, he even sent out men to explore the countryside , but the explorers could not go all that far as there were these impregnable mountains to cross, eventually after many tries one bloke found a way through and what he saw made him shout with glee, acres and acres of plains ,by these time the gaols in England were nearly empty so now the better boys and girls could get their release, these were called ticket of leavers.
While all this was going on some of the prisoners were sent to Tasmania, Victoria,
Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia ,and even a little island in the paxcific called Norfolk Island, that is the end of that story, now for my state South Australia.
South Australia is the only state in Australia that never had convicts.
There was Bloke called Matthew Flinders he was the captain of a ship called the ‘investigator’ he sailed from East to west along the STH Aust coast, in the meantime a French fellow was sailing from west to east and they met in a bay that they named Encounter Bay, don’t know why. This is why on the west coast there are some French sounding names. After having a rum or two or maybe a cognac they each continued on their way. Flinders sailed through the investigator Strait, named for obvious reasons, up and down one gulf and blow me down if he didn’t find another gulf just around the corner, he had ne hell of job naming these gulfs plus all the islands that were in them too but he managed quite well, he sailed around the next corner then into what is now known as the great Australian bight naming islands and landmarks left right and centre. Until he eventually run out of territory to name, on his way back to England he called into this island that was in French hands not knowing that England and France were having a barney over some thing or other, so poor young Flinders was kept a prisoner for 7 long years
Now the big wigs in London sent out a bloke called Hindmarsh ,he was going to be the first governor of this state was to become South Australia, he call into a bay on Kangaroo Island but was not satisfied with that, he next sailed to where Pt Lincoln is now, a really beautiful harbour but a lack of water decided him to seek elsewhere.
At last at the end of December 1936 he landed at what is now Glenelg, so named because it spells the same backwards, under a broken down gum tree he declared the state of South Australia was open for business.
Now along comes the surveyor William Light to map out this new city about 7 mile inland from Glenelg, this city was to be named Adelaide after some lady in the royal family. This city was laid out in a square and had parklands surround the city which seems to be unique in this world. While all this was going on there was a bit of barney in Germany over some religious stuff, so the minority ground decided to go and settle in Sth Aust, well they brought with them cuttings from the best grape vines in Germany.
There was this scoundrel here waiting for all these arrivals ,thinking I am going to make a quid or two here , his name was Wakefield, so when these new arrivals came he would ask them what they worked at in Germany, if one said he was grape grower he was sent the Barossa valley others were sent into the Adelaide hills, this why in the Barossa and the hills many of the towns have German names.
As more and more people came they found that they had to go further a field, most travelled north and found that the country was good farming country, but they ventured too far and got into the drier part of the state.
A bloke named Goyder ,a surveyer reckoned that he could make a mark across the country separating the better country from the poorer, and blow me down this line he drew was spot on.
The country north of the line apparently had a couple of wet years and the people here built towns and such, but after two or three years nothing would grow so the population declined and today there are all these ghost towns scattered all over.
In Melbourne there were these two fellas , Burke and Wills were their names, they reckoned that they could explore the country from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria a distance of quite a few thousand miles, but this story is not about them .
Meanwhile a Scot by yhe name of John McDougal Stuart said that he would try and go to where Darwin now is , so he set off with his crew but came across this big lake and could not find a way around it so went back home.
Not to be deterred he set off again went a little bit south from last trip, but still not find a way through, so home again.
He tried again but this time went further north and by crikey he made it all the way to the ocean near where Darwin now is, but poor old John was suffering badly with flie bites and a few other disorders that made things unpleasant , but he and his crew eventually made it back to Adelaide to a welcoming populace of the city .
Now another bloke by the name of Eyre reckoned that seeing how Burke and Wills went north from Melbourne until sighting ocean near now where the town Burketown is, and also that Stuat had travelled west of north until sighting the ocean near Darwin is now, that he would go from Pt Lincoln to the west coast of Australia.
So away he goes with two or three companions and three Aborigines two of the blokes died and two of the blacks done a bunk so that left only Eyre and a blackboy name of Willy after travelling hundreds of miles they eventually staggered over a hill more dead than alive and saw all these ships in this magnificent harbour and a town in the process of being built, Eyre and Willy staggered into this town that would become Albany, aand that was as far as he went, the government thought that he deserved a coushy job so made hime Governor of Jamaica.Meanwhile the more adventourist of the sttlers thought that maybe it was sheep country outside of this line that Goyder marked out and it was too, but the dingos thought by jove some easy meals here so the government thought that they would build a dingo proof fence , this was in the 1880S, this fence was 3.488 miles long, so now if the dingos wanted to get an easy feed tey would have to swim around from one side of fence to the other, and the other end would have to travel through more closely populated places..
Meanwhile south of the dog fence the cockies (farmers) grew crops with success and also other farm animals. On the Eyre Peninsula apart from an area near Port Lincoln was as yet not inhabited, but in the 1850s Price Maurice who at that time had leases on much country in the north , took on the Lake Hamilton lease which covered much of the Peninsula.
As more people wanted to settle on land the government cut up this lease and so the development began ,and a prosperous one it was too, but this was mostly grazing country, so in the early 1900s the country inland from the coast was settled by farmers ,but there was a lack of water and no means of sending their produce except carting to nearest port , so the government built a railway line which was very well serviced, as there was a lack of water the government built many tanks that were a help until the government built a pipeline following the railway line, now all Eyre Peninsula has been settled and became the most productive in the state.
reckon I may get nobel prize for litirature?