HISTORY

A look backwards could give tourism operators ideas for the future. AUDIENNE BLYTH describes the adventures and beauty of early train destinations.

Passengers travelling along Petrie Creek on a weekend excursion. On week days the tram hauled cane to the Nambour Sugar Mill.

The proposed heavy passenger rail link from Beerwah to Maroochydore and light rail from Caloundra to Noosa, such is in the government planning.

It’s a great idea to get people once again going on an excursion by train.

One hundred years ago rail excursions on weekends or on public holidays such as Foundation Day or May Day were the magic carpet ride, often at specially reduced fares.

The Sunshine Coast, known then as the North Coast was most popular. Here was a chance to see green cane fields, to take in fresh mountain air and to enjoy magnificent panoramas of land and sea.

Day trippers from Brisbane, for a return fare of six shillings, could travel 100 kilometres to Yandina. Here the steam engine could take on water and be turned on a forked line. The cost was less if you detrained before then on any one of the exciting side excursions.

Leaving the train at Palmwoods visitors could buy a return ticket on the Buderim cane tram (completed in 1914) for an additional five shillings. One way took one hour through thick bush over bridges and through cuttings. Buderim was a sight for tired city eyes with prosperous farms, orchards and banana plantations.

Disembarking at Nambour visitors could take the sugar mill cane tram to Mapleton (completed in 1915), gloriously on high in the hinterland or they could take the cane tram to Coolum Beach (completed in 1922). Some visitors may have chosen to travel along the Petrie Creek tram line to take the launch service from Deepwater at Bli Bli and go to Maroochydore. Four to five hours were planned at any of the destinations, bathing, sun catching, rambling and, at Coolum Beach, tobogganing. Both town and city bands sometimes accompanied the holiday makers. They entertained with a program at the station or, as one report Terminus, Buderim stated, on the headland at Coolum in 1925. Some travellers may have stayed overnight for the moonlight excursions on the river or they may have liked a night time journey on the cane tram back to Nambour by 11 pm.

What an adventure it was for those formally-dressed city people to travel in a cane tram, some found seats in special carriages and others sat on six-inch planks in noisy cane trucks that rattled over a narrow line.

Sometimes so many people bought excursion tickets that two trains were scheduled from the city. On one occasion two hundred people journeyed to Yandina from where they climbed over Mt Ninderry enjoying the rugged slopes and waterfalls. By the 1930s buses met the trains and day trippers were able to cram in even more sightseeing. From Palmwoods a bus would take visitors over Buderim to Mooloolaba and Maroochydore and return in time for the evening train. Buses for Caloundra met the train at Landsborough. Similarly at Cooroy, buses carried passengers to Tewantin and Noosa. Sadly the little tramline extensions all closed as road transport increased.

With the opening of the Bruce Highway in 1935, people began driving themselves to resorts which became popular as guest houses and boarding houses offered visitors accommodation.

The very mention of an excursion by steam train brings a nostalgic smile to many of us. It was a leisurely way to travel and who knows someone may be there at the end of the journey offering us a cup of tea or at least offering some hot water to go with the billy and tea leaves we always carried. Rounding the curve, Buderim

ROBYN O’HARE recalls her attempts to keep calm under the pressure of a timepiece that was only doing its job!

Mum had just been released from rehab after a broken hip, so my husband Mike and I agreed to stay the night with her. As is quite usual for me in a strange bed, I did not settle down to sleep for many hours. I was just drifting off when I heard a distant American woman’s voice,

“It is 12 o’clock, precisely” repeated over and over. I thought this must end soon, so continued trying to drift off, only to hear the same voice, “It is 12.01 a.m., precisely”, followed by “It is 12.02 a.m., precisely”. After a few more minutes of this, I got up and started feeling around on mum’s dressing table for the offending talking clock.

I had an inkling of what Mum’s life must be like as a blind 90-year-old. I didn’t know what size or shape the offending timepiece was, or where she kept it. Mum got up, which I had been trying to avoid. She can only walk a few steps, and the whole reason for our presence was to prevent a fall, particularly in the middle of the night, which I knew for sure it precisely was!

Mum switched the light on, a very bad move in my attempt to remain drowsy enough to get back to sleep. She directed me to the drawer of her dressing table, where I found the object of my annoyance.

I took it out to the garden, where there was a little light, pressed a button which I was not at all confident would switch off the alarm, and placed it in the garden, hopefully far enough from my bed that I would not hear it. I returned to bed, forcing myself to relax into a state of unconsciousness for what remained of the night.

“It is 1 a.m., precisely”, came the now distant American drawl. Up I got again, out to the dew dampened grass to retrieve the object of my by now extreme ire. The birds were twittering and the sky was a pretty pink hue, leading me to believe my American foe was not even accurate at telling the time. What to do? The idea of placing it under the wheel of the car and driving over the top was shelved, only because Mike would have woken up and raced outside to foil an attempted robbery of his beloved car. Instead I stowed it safely inside the car and went back to bed.

I woke after eight to the reassuring tinkle of Mum and Mike enjoying breakfast and a chat together. Pretty soon, my American foe was taken in hand by Mike, who readjusted her settings. She lives on, silently I hope, except when asked for the time by Mum. *Sixty-five-year-old Robyn O’Hare has written her autobiography and selfpublished it. She has conducted memoir writing classes at U3A and facilitates discussion groups based on her memoir. Her big family, including three granddaughters and regular travel keeps her busy. *The above story relates to a night spent with her blind 90-year-old mother at her retirement village.

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