Australian Stories from our Past

E24 - Off to the Rush - Crossing the Murray

Greg and Peter Episode 24

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 31:31

Send us Fan Mail

A river in flood can be a teacher and a judge.  We open on the Murray–Darling Basin’s split personality—winter-and-snowmelt-fed Murray versus summer-storm-fed Darling—to explain why our 1852 trek met a swollen Murray while the Darling ran lower.  From there, the story flows to Gundagai, a town mapped neatly between a big river and an anabranch despite Wiradjuri warnings.  Earlier floods wrote clear messages in mud, yet officials kept the town on the plain until the Murrumbidgee rose in June 1852 and carried away lives, homes, and any illusion that tidy grids beat water.

At the heart of the tragedy are two names more people should know: Yarri and Jacky.  In bark canoes, they moved through wreckage and current to save at least 34 people.  We talk about why their recognition arrived late, how memory gets made, and why First Nations knowledge is not a footnote but the backbone of survival along the river.  Their skills—choosing landing trees, reading the pull of the main channel, timing the ferrying of loads—echo downstream in the practical rivercraft that helped our gold-rush convoy cross  the Murray at Gol Gol.

Then the journey turns mechanical, muddy, and mesmerising: empty hogsheads lashed under drays, a five-gallon keg on the pole for lift, long ropes ferried by canoe, and bullocks chest-deep on the inner floodplain dragging frames toward higher ground.  Plans to speed things up with a midstream buoy meet a firm no from the experienced river workers, and for good reason.  We sit with the friction between haste and safety, track a rogue horned bullock a mile downstream, and keep flour and port above four feet of brown water across a swamp one and a half miles wide.  Nearby at Euston, another party uses near-identical methods, proof that river wisdom travels faster than roads.

History adds a twist: Joseph Hawdon once crossed the Murray on a marked sandy bank “without much trouble.” Same river, different stage. That contrast underlines the theme running through every scene—hydrology sets the conditions, but listening to Country, choosing where to build, and respecting those who read water decide the outcome.  If you love Australian history, disaster lessons, and ingenious problem-solving, you’ll feel the pull of this story from the first eddy to the last rope knot.

If the journey resonates, follow the show, share this episode with a mate, and leave a review telling us the moment that stuck with you most. Your words help others find the story.

Contact us at todaysstories101@gmail.com or watch recent episodes on YouTube.

Setting The Scene In 1852

SPEAKER_03

G'day, I'm Peter.

SPEAKER_06

And good day, I'm Greg.

Why The Murray Flooded, Not The Darling

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to today's Stories from Our Past, a podcast about a history of Australia from about 1800 onwards. So, in the last episode, it's September 1852, and our hardy trekkers are on their way to the goldfields. They had just crossed the Great Darling Anna Branch and the Darling River itself, and now we're at the River Murray crossing. Here they found that the River Murray was in a major flood. But before we tell the story of how they crossed the Murray, as with previous episodes, a warning here. Along this and the next sections of their journey, our party and other Europeans encountered groups of First Nations people. As usual, we will use diary entries from those Europeans who are involved in our story. The language used in the diaries wouldn't be appropriate today and may be offensive to some listeners. However, we don't want to filter or alter the content of those diaries. So, throughout, we are quoting from the diaries verbatim.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, so they reached the Murray, and it's in major flood, but only a few days previously they crossed the darling with little effort. So why was the Murray in flood but not the darling?

SPEAKER_03

Well, we need to have a brief discussion about the Murray Darling system. The total catchment area of this river system is over one million square kilometres, or 16% of the continent of Australia. At the point where the darling enters the Murray, the Murray-Darling Basin essentially consists of two vast but quite different catchment areas. The Murray catchment includes all the southern rivers, the Lochlan and Murrumbinji in New South Wales, as well as the rivers that flow into the Murray from Victoria, such as the Golban and Ovens rivers. The Darling catchment includes the northern rivers, being the Macquarie, Castleray, Namoy, Guaida, Border Rivers, Mooney, Condamine Ballon, Warrigo, Paru, Barwen, and Lower Darling. The big difference between these catchments is rainfall. Put simply, the Murray River catchment has winter dominant rainfall and snow melt in spring. The Darling catchment has summer dominant rainfall. Thus it's possible to have a major flood in the Murray with little flow in the Darling, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_06

Well that makes sense. So you're saying that in 1852, when our trekkers had reached the Murray, there must have been lots of rainfall and or snow melt in the Murray catchment, but not so much in the Darling. Do you have any proof of that? After all, the Bureau of Meteorology wasn't keeping records back in then.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you can't easily find good quality rainfall records in those days. But you can find newspaper reports of floods. And for 1852, there are numerous reports of a major flood in the Murray system that led to a significant loss of life.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, where was that?

SPEAKER_03

Gundagay.

SPEAKER_06

You mean the Gundagay that is known for something other than a dog sitting on a lunchbox and a track winding back to an old-fashioned shack.

Gundagai’s Floodplain Gamble

SPEAKER_03

Now, various PhDs and books have been written about this incident, but we don't have time to go into great detail, so this will be a quick summary. Gundagai is an inland town about 400 kilometers southwest of Sydney. It sits astride the Murumbiji River. The Gundagai area is within the traditional lands of the Warajari people. The floodplains of the Murumbiji, below the present town of Gundagai, were a frequent meeting place for the Warajeri. Now, I don't mention the Warajeri people here just for political correctness. They play quite a role in this story. The story of European settlement around Gundagai is typical of many inland towns in Australia. The first Europeans to visit the area were the explorers, Human Hovel in 1824. Next, Sturt travelled through the area in 1829 at the start of his voyage in search of an inland sea. We covered that story in episode 21. On the return leg of his journey, Sturt again passed through Gundagoy. He returned in 1838 in company with the Hordon and Boney overland parties. At the time of Sturt's 1829-30 journey, he found several squatters in the district, all beyond the limits of location.

SPEAKER_06

Well, we all know about Hordon's overland party.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So the squatters arrived. We briefly discussed squatting when we talked about Ned Baggett in episode 22. In 1830, the squatters had just lobbed onto the land and claimed it. One of those squatters was William Broadrib. Soon, the future town of Gundagoy became the crossing place for the Murumbidji River. As often happens, beside a crossing place, a small pub was established. In 1834, Broadrib petitioned for a punt over the Murumbidu River near his Gundagai hut, and in January 1838, Deputy Surveyor General Samuel Perry reported in reference to Gundagai that, quote, a better site could not have been chosen for a town of the first class. In 1838, Gandagai was gazetted as a town. It was situated on the right hand bank of the Murumbidgee River floodplain, at a place colloquially known as the Crossing or Stuckey's Crossing.

SPEAKER_06

So are you saying that the town was gazetted by the government on the Murumbidji floodplain?

The 1852 Disaster And Its Toll

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Now I need to briefly discuss the layout of the area. The Murrumbidgee River floodplain lies between two hilly areas. As with most of the inland rivers, the main stream meanders backwards and forwards across the floodplain. As often happens, anabranches develop across the floodplain, and these only flow during floods. In the infinite wisdom of the government surveyors, they laid out a nice, orderly, rectangular set of town lots between the Murumbiji and an anabranch called Morley's Creek. Warnings from the local Warajari people that the area was prone to flooding were completely ignored.

SPEAKER_06

Oh great. The town was laid out in the middle of a floodplain.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, strange but true. Then, the town was hit by damaging floods in 1844, 1847, and 1851. During the 1844 flood, the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Murumbiji District, Henry Begum, praised the heroic actions of the Warajari people at Gundagai in rescuing settlers from the flood. Bingham also requested a reward for the local Warajari people. However, despite the Warajeri warnings and the previous floods, no efforts were made to shift the town.

SPEAKER_06

It sounds like trouble brewing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Because on 25 June 1852, a massive Murumbidji flood swept the town of Gundagoi away, killing at least 78 people, perhaps 95, of the town's population of about 250, making it one of the worst natural disasters in colonial Australia's history. The catastrophe was widely reported in newspapers at the time.

Yarrie And Jackie’s Heroic Rescues

SPEAKER_00

One report said The flood at Gundagai. One of the most fearful catastrophes which it has ever been our lot to record will be found reported in another column. The village of Gundagai has been almost entirely destroyed, and it is supposed that at least 70 lives have been lost. Gundagai is, or we may more truly say, was, situated on the north bank of the Murambiji. Most of the allotments were on a tongue of land between the river and a creek which separated it from the high land. When the creek and river rose together, as has generally happened, the unfortunate people were cut off from any means of escape. This appears to have been the case in the present instance, when the residents were convinced there was danger and saw the raging river rise to their very doors. The creek prevented them from getting to the highlands, and they were compelled to remain until the floods attained sufficient height and strength to wash away their dwellings and launch them into eternity. Many of the unfortunate individuals who have gone to their long account are much to blame for building in a place which they must have known was liable to be flooded. But the government officers who laid out a township in such a position have a most serious responsibility in this matter. After the township was laid out, application, on the ground of its being exposed to floods, was made to the government to shift the site and allow those who had purchased allotments to change them, but they were sternly refused.

SPEAKER_03

Only three houses were left standing after the flood waters receded. However, once the cleanup was completed, another flood hit in 1853. Gundagoi was then rebuilt on higher ground on the surrounding hills of Mount Parnassus and Asbestus Hill to save any similar incidents in the future.

SPEAKER_06

It seems that the government officials were slow learners. A third of the town population was lost, and it was totally avoidable.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and the losses would have been much greater if it hadn't been for the efforts of some of the local waraduri men. Reports of who did what vary over time. But a recent report by Jeff Birch gives some insight. Birch has scoured every reference he can find, and he came up with the following conclusion. Two waradri men, Yari and Jackie, and possibly others, rescued at least 34 people during the flood by going out in their canoes and retrieving stranded Europeans and prevented them from drowning. But it was years before Yari and Jackie received any recognition for their heroic acts. In 1875, they were given an engraved breastplate each. The fate of those breastplates is a long and confusing story. The two breastplates are now in the Gundagoy Historical Museum. Also, a headstone was erected in honor of Yari at the entry to the Gundagoy Monumental Cemetery, and a plaque marks the spot where Yari debarked those he saved in the 1852 flood. Then, in 2017, on the 165th anniversary of the Great Flood, Gundagoy unveiled in Sheridan Street a bronze sculpture of Yari and Jackie with a bark canoe.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, all you've convinced me that the Murray system was in a major flood in 1852. What do our trekkers' diaries say about the situation?

Finding A Crossing At Gol Gol

SPEAKER_03

Well, before we get into the diaries, let's talk about the crossing place. As we said in an earlier episode, the Murray was an uncontrolled river at the time. So, during periods of drought, there were exposed areas where crossing the river was fairly easy.

SPEAKER_06

I assume that the crossing point had already been identified by people before them.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. On 17 March 1836, Major Mitchell set out on an expedition from Burrie Station, that's west of Orange, with 25 men, two boats, a train of bullock trays, and a herd of at least 100 cattle, which were to be used for food when wild animals were scarce. On his arrival at what would become the Murray Crossing Point, the local First Nations people informed Mitchell that the area next to the Murray was called Golgol, meaning meeting place. Apparently Mitchell generally used First Nations names when marking his maps because he felt that a map was more useful if settlers could ask the local inhabitants for help about where they are. When Mitchell returned to his base camp on 4 June 1836, he passed on the name of Golgol to his superiors as a suitable crossing point on the river. The settlement of Golgol was established in its existing location due to the ease of fording the river there during low water. Crossing the river was usually by rowboat, but was possible to cross on foot or by horse and sulkie in times of drought.

SPEAKER_06

So Golgol was the crossing point. Do you know anything about the characteristics of the Murray River there?

Anatomy Of A Wild River

SPEAKER_03

Well, there are numerous aerial and satellite images of the site nowadays, and they are available during periods of both drought and floods. However, as we have stated in earlier episodes, the Murray today is a controlled stream, not the Wild River of 1852. Today, there is permanent water at the previous Golgol crossing point due to the downstream Mildura Weir. Similarly, flooding is mitigated. However, by examining these images and combining this with the diary entries of our trickers, it is possible to come up to some conclusion about what they faced. Golgal is situated on a bend in the Murray. This town is on the outer side of the bend, and the bank of the Murray there is quite steep. The width of a moderate stream, that is flow confined within the Bedan banks, appears to be about a hundred metres. On the southern inner side of the bend, there is a wide floodplain. Today, there is no development there other than a golf course, as such development would be impacted by flooding. Satellite imagery of a flood on 1 February 2023 shows the width of this floodplain to be well over a kilometer. So this means that our trekkers would have to get their cattle, horses, cows, bullocks, and drays firstly across a deep, fast-flowing stream about 100 meters wide, and then across a wide, shallow, slower-moving floodplain. As we all hear, they say that the floodplain was about four feet, that's 1.2 meters deep, and 1.5 miles, that's about two and a half kilometers wide.

SPEAKER_06

Well.

SPEAKER_04

Camped and found 16 Dreys waiting to get across. The natives were perfectly independent, knowing we could not get across without their assistance.

Drays, Hogsheads, And Rope Tactics

SPEAKER_06

So when our group got to the crossing point, they found a lineup of bullet drays waiting there before them. That's hardly surprising as many others would have had been going to the gold fields. They had to wait their turn. It's clear that no one would cross without the assistance of the local First Nations people.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. James's uh diary entries for the next few days are not all that surprising. He wrote.

SPEAKER_04

Friday, 24th, September, camped. The water still running very fast. Saturday, 25th, September, the water still rising. Three more drays came up this day. Sunday, September 26th, almost devoured by mosquitoes and sandflies. The natives very lazy and would not cross more than two or three drays in one day.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, that must have been frustrating. How much longer before they can start crossing their drays?

SPEAKER_03

Well, sooner than might be expected. Now, for some reason, James O'Donohue's diary entries become quite short for the next little while. Perhaps he was just very busy and tired getting everything organized. So we'll use Bill Emmett's diary for the whole of the River Murray crossing.

SPEAKER_05

The next day, Bill Emmett wrote Monday, 27, September. O'Donohue men and blacks commenced to cross the Murray River, which was done by fixing two empty hogsheads which were brought on purpose for crossing rivers. The hogsheads were placed over the axles in the empty drays, and five-gallon keg tied onto the end of pole, which caused the drays to float. We had sufficient rope to reach across the river, but one canoe could not hold all the rope, so we made use of two, coiled half the rope in each canoe, put the dray into the water, then put two blacks in each canoe. One canoe held to the dray, the other started for the other side, and when a little more than halfway across, the other canoe left the dray and commenced to pay out the rope, which allowed the first canoe to go on, and they gained a tree on the other side and fastened the rope, by which means the dray warped into or near the bank. Another short rope and some spare chains reached the dray in the water, which was pulled out with a team of bullocks, which were kept on purpose of this work. The dray went down the river about six miles per hour. The drays were put into the water at least one mile above the landing place.

SPEAKER_06

Well that sounds like a plan. They say that the Murray was about three times its usual width. That doesn't help us to understand the situation much at all.

SPEAKER_03

No. But as I've uh previously said, I think the main stream of the Murray, bank to bank, was about a hundred meters wide. So each section of rope would have been about fifty meters long. They say that the rope was fastened to a tree on the other side. That tree must have been on the top bank of the southern side of the Murray, but surrounded by floodwater. At that landing point, some smart entrepreneur had a team of bullocks waiting there, in about four feet of water, ready to drag the drays across the inner floodplain out to dry land.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, well that sounds like a plan. What happened next?

Friction, Patience, And Authority

SPEAKER_03

Well, before we let Bill tell us more, there is something that he has omitted. Once they got one dray across the river, how could they get the next dray across if the rope and the hogshead barrels that they needed for a crossing were on the other side of the swollen river? After each tray crossing, they must have had to coil up the hundred meters of rope and unleash the two hoghead sparrels that were under the dray that they'd just got across the river, and somehow get them across to the Gol Gold side. I assume that the local First Nations people did this task. But by the time they had crossed a dray and then returned with the barrels and rope, they must have been a fair distance downstream from the initial crossing place. Hence, the rope and barrels would have needed to be hauled back upstream, and this was probably a considerable distance. All in all, this would take a long time.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, so getting one drawer cross and then returning the rope and barrels to the starting point would have taken quite a long time. And it's it's no wonder that they could only cross two draws a day.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Bill Emmett thought he had a better plan. He explains.

SPEAKER_05

Tuesday, 28th of September, put down a buoy, anchored it in the middle of the river, and tried to work the rope. But the natives not liking the plan allowed the rope purposely to get away, and after a great trouble, we recovered the rope. If we could have made use of the buoy, we would have crossed all the drays in two days, but this mode did not suit the natives. Two drays per day is all they would attempt. Wednesday, September 29th. Understood the drays would all be across this day. Thursday, September 30th. Only one dray crossed this day.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, and it seems the local First Nations people were in charge of the situation. They clearly had taken many drays across the river before our group turned up, and they've learned from their mistakes. And they haven't devised a system that we're comfortable with. So there must have been three of their six drays across the Murray then.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, they'd got that many across. Bill Emmett then continues the story.

SPEAKER_05

Friday, October 1st. We were very glad to see the bullocks and horses safe and prepared to cross by running the drays near the river. Commenced crossing the stores in the canoes, and one dray crossed as much as possible. Charlie left us, got a chance to ride. Expected to finish, but the natives allowed one dray to go a great distance down the river below the proper landing place, which gave us a lot of dangerous work getting the dray back. Got nearly all the bullocks over, but five of them seemed determined not to cross, and after trying them two or three times gave it up for this time, put five bullocks in the old stockyard belonging to Jenkins cattle station.

SPEAKER_06

So Charlie, the French lad, took the opportunity to leave the group and get going by horse. He would be likely to reach the gold fields much more quickly than if he stayed with the bullet draws. They have a fourth draw across. Do you know anything about Jenkins and his cattle station?

Bullocks, Swamps, And Lost Gear

SPEAKER_03

Well, the area we now know as Mildura was first settled on 1 March 1847 when Francis Jenkins, who had a property in the upper Murumbidge, swam 900 cattle and ten horses across the river from New South Wales to the side of Mildura. Believing he was now in the colony of South Australia, Jenkins travelled to South Australia to register his selection. He also put up 260 steers for sale in Adelaide, which seems to imply that he left about 600 cattle behind near modern-day Mildura. However, because he thought the land was in the colony of South Australia, when he tried to register his claim there, he was unsuccessful. Learning of his blunder, he retraced his steps to appeal to the authorities in Melbourne. Unfortunately for Jenkins, at the same time, the Jamisons acquired a lease for land, calling it the property Year Year, which was later amended to Mildura in 1858, meaning red earth in the local First Nations language. Jamison made inquiries from the New South Wales authorities, and he found that Jenkins had neglected to secure any tenure to the land he occupied. This was because the whole of a colony now known as Victoria was at that time still part of New South Wales. So, when our trekkers say they held some books in the old stockyard belonging to Jenkins cattle station, they mean the station that never belonged to Jenkins.

SPEAKER_05

Well, Bill Emmett can tell us. Saturday, October 2nd, commenced crossing the goods in the canoes. Sunday, October 3rd, crossed as much as possible. Charlie left us. Monday, October 4th. Expected to finish, but the natives let two drays go for a great distance down the stream. Oscar, a horse, kicked Dick. All crossed the river and slept in Mary's Dre.

SPEAKER_06

It sounds as if Bill is getting a bit frustrated with the locals, but there's not much you can do about it. Without the First Nations people, they could never have crossed the river.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Bill then continues.

Another Trek’s Method At Euston

SPEAKER_05

Tuesday, 5th of October. After breakfast, brought down the five bullocks, got round them, and put them into the river. Had the other bullocks kept close up on the other side so that the five bullocks could see them. When the bullocks were in the water, they all swam up the stream, a steep bank kept them from trying to land. Frequently they all took across, and four of them evidently meant going over, but the fifth one, with high horns, tried all he knew to get back and took off down the stream. But we had two canoes in the river close by, and directly they saw the cocked-horned bullock make a way down the river, quite away from the others. The blacks took after him, two in each canoe, and on coming up to him, he turned sideway on as if to face them, and as good luck would have it, his head faced the right way. That is, towards the opposite side, and the canoe coming up went clean across the bullock's back, and they each gave him a very hard hit with their long sticks passing him, and Mr. Bullock made straight for the other side, but landed at least one mile lower down than he should have done, and a job it was to get him back. William Emmett and Abe got two horses saddled and drove down six bullocks. It was all water about four feet deep, and we were likely to drop into a hole or ride over a stump. Got round the bullocks and drove all back safely. Meantime, we had a big swamp to cross, one and a half miles wide, with the water four feet deep. Had to load all our goods onto the frames of the drays to keep the water from spoiling the goods, two tons of flour being part of the loading, six hundred and weight of port, and the same of corned beef. Tull Wednesday, the 6th of October, finished crossing everything and went across the swamp, which was one and a half miles of water, about four feet deep. The water above the bed of the Dre crossed the horses. Jackie and Oscar, horses, not to be found. Thursday, 7th of October. Mr. Blackmore found Jackie about eight miles on the road and brought him back. Natives stole the long rope belonging to Fitzgerald Party.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, so our party is now over the mighty Murray. I wonder if anybody had similar difficulties when going to the gold fields from borough.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we have said previously that our group were not the only band of gold seekers heading towards the gold fields. Another group, led by Thomas O'Shaughnessy, left South Australia at about the same time, and with the same idea. Here is what O'Shaughnessy wrote about his preparations.

SPEAKER_01

We then commenced to gather up all our working bullocks. I had three teams of working bullocks of my own. John O'Brien had a team, James Holden had a team. We put twenty bags of flour on each team. This was the beginning of winter. I hired men to drive my teams. A man named Tomney joined us. He had two bullock teams. He had twenty passengers and their rations at ten pounds per head to bend a go.

SPEAKER_03

As with our party, Thomas and his group followed along the northern side of the Murray. However, they went past the crossing at Golgot and continued on up to Euston, which is opposite modern day town of Robinvale. The following is their description of crossing the Murray.

SPEAKER_01

We followed the Murray River to Euston, one public house and a store. A Crownlands commissioner stationed here. This place is a little below the junction of the Murrumbidgee with the Murray. We had to cross the Murray River here, it was a banker, no boat or punt. The blacks took all our loadings across in canoes and floated our drays across with two empty casks, lashed downwards in the centre of the dray, a long rope tied to the hind part of the dray, the rest of the rope coiled up in a canoe. One black fellow pulls the canoe standing up with a long pole, and another black fellow sitting behind him paying out the rope. As soon as the black starts with the canoe, the dray is run backwards into the water. When they reach the opposite bank, twenty or thirty blacks get on the end of the rope and float the dray across.

SPEAKER_03

Clearly the First Nations people along the Murray system had done dray crossings many times and had perfected their methods.

SPEAKER_06

But there is something you've m omitted. Throughout their trick you have been comparing their experiences with those encountered by Joseph Horden. What did he say when he crossed the Murray?

SPEAKER_03

You're not going to believe this. The following is Horden's full account of his crossing the Murray.

Teaser For The Goldfields Journey

SPEAKER_02

February twenty eighth. A bank of sand stretching across the Murray. I determined to cross over to the right bank of the river, marking a course for the drays through the water by means of stakes. Having got all safely over, we found a good supply of water grass and reeds and halted for the day to refresh the stock. Thus one of the greatest of my expected difficulties, that of getting the cattle over the river Murray, had been surmounted without much trouble. I suppose the river was much larger at this point than I found it to be.

SPEAKER_06

So anyway, what's next for our happy band?

SPEAKER_03

You'll have to wait until the next episode, when we see how they fared on their journey down to the gold fields. So it's goodbye from me.

SPEAKER_06

And it's goodbye from me!