We gazed briefly at the murky green water of the Darling River from a bridge in the centre of Wilcannia. It was hard to reconcile the black and white photos of paddle steamers and rowing regattas on the interpretative signboards with the little swampy pools in front of us.
The 1500 km long Darling River is the fourth longest river in the land and is part of the Murray-Darling river system. Before there were roads and cars, trucks and trains, it was this river system that really opened up the Outback for settlers, providing a water source and enabling paddle steamers to ferry goods out of the countryside. Towns like Wilcannia, once known as the Queen City of the West, sprouted along the banks. But they’ve wilted now.
Unfortunately rivers aren’t always predictable on the driest inhabited continent – and the fortune of the town has mirrored the ebbing and flowing of the water. The steamers stopped operating between the two world wars, and the Darling was frequently unnavigable when it was open to traffic; it dried up forty-five times between 1885 and 1960. Drought hasn’t been the only problem, though. Too much water is syphoned out for irrigation, it is polluted by runoff from agricultural land, and because the whole catchment sits across state boundaries, it’s fallen prey to political wrangling. It makes for a great case study for getting rid of a whole layer of government! In 2007 the World Wildlife Fund named the Murray-Darling one of the “world’s top ten rivers at risk.” With any luck the Murray-Darling Basin Authority that was formed in late 2008 to provide a single agency for the system’s management will lead to an improved future.
We lurched back onto the dirt to follow upstream the flow of the Darling, the white flour-like bulldust sand exploded under our tyres as if we were driving through a minefield. Although we were passing through pastoral land, there were few signs of life. It was blindingly bright, with scant vegetation to soften the screaming sun.
Since moving to Australia I’ve often looked at a certain page on the map and wondered about one of the towns marked on the Darling. Many other places along the river took names based on the indigenous languages, or were named for prominent people of the era, but this one has the same name as the town where I grew up in England – Louth. It’s hardly unusual for colonialists flung far from their home (and unlikely to ever return) to seek comfort in naming their new patch of dirt for their old one. Australia’s full of such place names. Yet as this name is so familiar, and I have a keen interest in historical geography – how could I stay away?
I sought connections between my sleepy hometown Louth, nestled with its Georgian architecture, soaring church spire and markets at the base of the Lincolnshire Wolds, and this Outback Louth. Of course I knew that the Australian Louth would look quite different: one thousand years newer at least, it would be small, down at heel and stuck to its source of life – the river – like a limpet. Dirt roads would lead in from all directions and only a short central section through the settlement would be bitumen sealed.
I wanted to find out more about the naming. Had the founder chosen Louth simply to remind him of home or was it aspirational; had he hoped to recreate a bustling market town on the banks of the Darling?
Like Wilcannia, there’s not much left of Louth. The solid square-cornered brick house that is the former post office speaks of past prosperity, although there’s none of the sandstone splendour we’d seen downstream. Apparently there were many pubs in town at one time, but now there’s just Shindy’s Inn. It seems like the place to find out more about the local history.
When we get there it’s empty, but open. Clad in corrugated iron, it has the hallmarks of an Outback Pub. In all three rooms photos, jokes and poems are plastered like wallpaper. We get chatting to the woman who runs the pub and discover that she and her husband left a farm to take on the pub. The drought moved them on, but they’re glad they made the decision. She doesn’t seem too interested in my historical fascination, so I start inspecting the walls.
As I scan the faded photos of floods and droughts and the halcyon days when steamers were loaded with bale upon bale of wool from the surrounding farms, I wonder if I can see something behind these images, read something between the lines. Back in Lincolnshire they stopped using the little 11-mile canal at the beginning of the last century. First it was closed for the duration of the First World War, and then in 1920 a massive flood hit the town claiming 23 lives and damaging the infrastructure. That was the death knell. I guess that it would have become unviable by then anyway, out competed by train and truck. And that’s precisely what happened to the Darling at this end of the world only a few years later. Compared with the Louth Navigation, shipping on the Darling was massive and its steamer- towed barges could manage the same load as twenty of today’s semi-trailers. Such tonnage would have dwarfed the British boats.
And then I see him. In a small frame on the wall amongst the other bits and pieces, hardly in pride of place, is a Victorian photographic portrait, sepia tone but less weathered by the sun than some of the photos from this decade. I immediately know who it is – Thomas Matthews, the founder of this town. He’s posing, sitting upright with a stern and serious look on his face. It’s the same expression that has convinced generations of people that Victorians had no sense of humour. At this point I’d like to be able to report that the image in the photo winked at me and whispered the name of a pub or a street in my hometown, but I don’t look into his eyes, I move on to read the inscription below:
“Thomas Matthews, known as the King of Louth. Born in County Louth, Ireland.”
Oh, yes. County Louth, Ireland.
Wonderful post with an elegiac tone. Great pics to go along with it.
Louth
Tiny service town on the Darling River
Located 132 km north of Cobar and 836 km northwest of Sydney, Louth is a tiny and insignificant little settlement on the banks of the Darling River which was established in 1859 when T.A. Matthews built a pub to cater for the passing river and land-based trade. Louth was also a stopover on the Cobb & Co run and Matthews’ son was a noted driver for the coaching firm. Today it has a population of under 50 and, for most of the year, is a sleepy little hamlet. So what is so special about this place?
In 1959 a man named Bob Horten decided to form the Louth Turf Club and to hold an annual race meeting on the first Saturday after the August Bank Holiday. The first meeting was primitive. The toilets were made of corrugated iron and the horses were stabled in the open. Thirty years later, in 1989, over 60 horses came to the event, there were over 24 bookmakers, and the turnover was $294 000. In the interim the lowly Turf Club had enjoyed such success that they had installed electric starting stalls and a photo-finish machine, the prize money exceeding $31 000, and the event had become so popular that the local airfield usually played host to upwards of fifty aeroplanes.
Apart from the races the town has little appeal. In 1888 the Dunlop property to the south of the town became the first sheep station in the world to use mechanical shears. So important was the event (it was a true revolution in sheep shearing) that the shearing shed was visited by the Governor of New South Wales.
Thanks to Sidney Morning Herald