Red Dust Tapes rocks and rattles back into the early days of Australian rail.

You’ll hear:

A 1914 account of the flies, the dust and the mind-numbing isolation, by a man who was right there with pick and shovel for the building of the 1,710 kilometre Nullabor Railway, the Transcontinental.

We visit the tiny railway settlement of Cook, in the middle of that desolate track, in the later days of diesel. It’s deserted now, but back in 1970 when I recorded there, it had a school, post office, a lock-up, and a handful of houses.

We’ll hear of the Tea and Sugar train that would pass through these isolated settlements, with its butchers’ van and other reminders of civilization. And of the railway fettlers’ camps along the line, which featured the occasional murder.

And I record my brief encounters with steam, standing on the clatter-bang of footplates on the last smoky shunter in Perth, and then Port Pirie in South Australia, sitting in a coffee place in Port Pirie’s main shopping strip, being startled by the hiss-choof-whoof of a passing steam train.

It was in Port Pirie where I encountered the quirky level crossing that featured three separate rail gauges, a testament to the pig-headedness of our colonial transport planners.

Also, social and musical historian Warren Fahey, shares why the railways were a godsend to the shearers, prying them away from the money-hungry publicans, so they had a chance to visit their far-away families.

I’ll never forget roll-yer-own, coughing, cursing, tell it as it was, Nicholas Tallack. He was a bushman of wide experience, and with a swag of stories for every one of them.

Nick Tallack was my favourite yarn spinner, and in this episode of Red Dust Tapes Nick will wax lyrical about camels and donkey teams.

And later, we’ll chuff/clunk/whistle our way at a leisurely pace in the boiler room and wheelhouse of Murray River paddlesteamers, in the jolly good company of stokers and captains, and hear stories of the river in flood, to when the blazing sun turns the flows into mud.

Then let’s go from fresh water to salt, to the ‘mosquito fleet’, the coastal ketches of South Australia, in the company of a man who was a deck boy, and had all manner of rough and tumble humorous tales to tell.

But let’s return to those bullocky stories … ah, the romance of travel by bullock wagon, with a mob of (mostly) docile bullocks, two-abreast, 28 or 30 of them yoked up and plodding serenely along a dusty road, while you just lean back against the bales of wool piled high above you, content under the warm sun, taking the occasional sip from your canvas waterbag …

Yeah, right mate. Pull the other leg.

That well-known colonial-era song, ‘The Old Bullock Dray’ makes it sound like being a bullocky was an idyllic life. But as we’ll find out, the reality was about mud, sand dunes, broken axles, sweat and curses.

I’ll bring you all manner of stories, including of a 13 year-old bullocky who would do his homework by lantern light, and after hauling loads through the Victorian goldfields, saved all his cash and returned to give it to his dear old mum.

From there we’ll go further south, to Tasmania, to meet an old bloke who will teach us bullocky language, as he describes the muddy job of hauling logs out of those deep and dark forests.

So let’s go slow slogging, with Red Dust Tapes.

Hop on your horse, let's go. And be warned: your bottom will be rubbed raw after just one a day in the saddle. And you could be heaving and swaying up there for several months.

I have some fascinating people to introduce you to. Like the late, legendary Bill Gwydir, who used to drove thousands of cattle thousands of kilometres, through the sweaty monsoonal mud of Queensland, then through the heat and cold and endless sand of South Australia. Bill's stories, of a childhood raised in the saddle, and of horses going blind in sandstorms, are riveting.

Then there's Aboriginal singer-songwriter Kev Carmody, who was also just a young boy when he first accompanied his parents. He recalls the hardships endured by his mother, then sings of it in 'Droving Woman'.

Another Aboriginal woman, a decade earlier, had an even harder life. Evelyn Crawford recounts this life with clarity and humour, in her book, 'Over My Tracks.'

This, and many other adventures await you, in 'Our Andy's Gone With Cattle', the story of the Drovers.

In this chapter:

The convict who tried a ‘fool’s gold’ trick – twice;

The real gold rushes and the birth of the swaggie;

The arrival of the Chinese goes off like fireworks, so here comes the White Australia Policy;

Grog and mayhem on the goldfields;

Duck for cover! It’s the bushrangers;

Defiance, death, and Justice – the Eureka Stockade;

… And to finish, a delightful interview I had with an old bloke who in the late 1890’s used to tramp up through the snow, past the gold mining camps, to the top of Australia’s highest peak carrying the mail.

Now Red Dust listeners, I have no interviews to present to you this episode. Rather, let’s head back in time, to before recording devices were invented.

Australia, as with the rest of the world, right now is in the midst of turmoil, over the significance of immigration. Our first Anoriginal immigrants trickled in while in the midst of the last Ice Age. But much, much later came a flood, of the second wave … ah ha! So here we go … In this episode …

The Great South Land is dumped with rubbish from Great Britain!

There’s ALSO space for some nice refined English people. (Free settlers).

There are Hangings.

Protests.

And we finish with a dramatic escape!

Music this issue comes from:

Warren Fahey's Australian Bush Orchestra: 'Pioneer Scottisch'

Warren Fahey: 'Jim Jones Of Botany Bay'

The Dingo And The Crow: 'Botany Bay'

Richard Glover, 'Moreton Bay'

40 Degrees South: 'The Catalpa'

It was a tremendous pleasure sharing with each of the women in this chapter.

Auntie Kath Nichols, who lived in what was destined to be a ghost town in the northern South Australia with Twiggy Minupus, a kitty Aunty Kath claimed was affected with radiation from atomic tests to the west.

Maud Close, with stories of working in tin mines with the Chinese in 1907, the Top End railway, and the bombing of Darwin.

And The Goat Lady of Bulong, Hilda Jarvis, living with hundreds of goats in Western Australia in what, without her, would be another ghost town.

Now I want to present to you a time capsule.

It’s a radio documentary I prepared in 1972, for the ABC.

Back then it’s title was, ‘The Urban Aborigine’ , and you’ll find the word 'aborigine' features strongly thoughout

For many Aboriginal people, that word is no longer considered appropriate.

Because of historical connotations, to use that word for indigenous Australians seems to lengthen the distance between ‘them’ and ‘us’, between me the white person, and you the black person. It’s considered dehumanising.

Personally, since it was the common term right up until the 50’s and 60’s when I grew up, I still have to remind myself to be more considerate.

I witnessed so many appalling interactions between our two races in the bush. And I’m dismayed in recent years, sensing the undercurrent of disinterest through to outright dismissal from so many of my fellow Australians.

So I feel it’s increasingly important for every step that I can take to be more in keeping with the feelings of my brothers and sisters, the descendants of the oldest living culture on earth.

But yes, keeping this 1972 time capsule historically accurate, the word aborigine does feature.

My subjects were reflecting what they saw as a change coming, back then in 1972, to how the larger Australian society perceived the Aboriginal people.

The voices yo’ll hear are: Mrs Olga Fudge, who moved to Adelaide from Point McLeay mission, in 1912; Mrs Elphick from Point Pearce, who was then working with the Adelaide Aboriginal Cultural Centre; Adelaide born Mrs Natasha McNamara; a lecturer in Business Studies; Bert Clarke, former stockman, then with the Adelaide Aboriginal Cultural Centre; university student Gloria Brennan, born outback Western Australia; Mrs Lela Rankin, formerly of Point McLeay Reserve, who was researching Aboriginal music at the University of Adelaide.

And weaving throughout this presentation was the work of singer-songwriter Bob Randall, otherwise known as Uncle Bob.

Bob, an elder of the Yankuny-tjatjara people of Central Australia, was widely respected for his vigorous community work, in various parts of Australia, most especially in education.

This episode has everything:

A road trip. (Well, on mainly dusty tracks) across three quarters of Australia.

Memorable encounters with remnants of Aboriginal tribes – two of whom were the last speakers of a number of ancient languages.

The horrifying squalor of a fringe dwellers' camp, and the grief of young parents whose children were taken.

The endless, almost bendless Nullabour Railway,

A fascinating interview with an anthropologist – Kato Muir – who is also the descendant of some of the last Aboriginal people to emerge from the desert, into the world of white man.

Ah, but there’s more! And it’s bizarre! In the same spot where the last of the Aboriginal people emerged into the 20th Century, a Japanese terror group would later prepare for their deadly nerve gas attack on a Tokyo subway.

So this episode of Red Dust Tapes stretches you from cultures going back to the Iast Ice Age, to malevolent use of modern technology.