where ‘good is to be done’—that is, where work was easier to obtain, and wages were higher. Moving by easy stages, on 10th May they had reached Brewarrina, some 200 miles from Mullah, on the main stock road from Queensland. Here they ‘spelled’ for a few days, proceeding then towards Barringun with an eye open for a job with travelling stock. And on 16th June Boake writes from Thylungrah, in Queensland, saying that he is going with a drover to the Diamantina to bring back a mob of cattle.
On 11th August Boake writes to his father from Currawilla, Q., reciting some of his first droving experiences—
. . . We are kept going so continually that it is with great difficulty I can snatch these few minutes to let you know I am alive. We are on the road now with eleven hundred head of cattle for Cunnamulla, from Devonport,[1] Diamantina river. We were five weeks mustering on the station.
. . . The cattle have to be watched all night . . . I am lucky, and have the first— from six to eight. Still, as we are going from before daylight of a morning, it makes the hours pretty long. Fourteen hours a day I reckon I have in the saddle, straight off.
. . . Still, this is the only life worth living that I see. No more New South Wales for me, except for a visit. This is the only place where a poor man can get a cheque together in a short time . . .
And the letter closes with ‘love to Grannie and the girls.’
- ↑ Apparently Davenport Downs.
