Postie on the water

Australia's early settlers were dependent on waterways for transportation and services. Today, mail and goods are still delivered by the mailboat up the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney. Paying passengers can ride along and the trip makes for a relaxing day on the water, glimpsing some of the homes scattered along the river's edge. Most stops have no other access except by water and most residents use a tinnie (small aluminium runabout) to go into a town to shop for supplies, but the mailboat makes stops with mail along the river as well.

I took the bus into central Sydney, then hopped a train on the Newcastle line to travel north to Brooklyn, on the banks of the lower Hawkesbury River. As the cockatoo flies, not that far from our home on the northern beaches, but the wildnerness of hilly Ku-rin-gai National Park is in the way. With my pensioners' pass, the roundtrip is only $2.50 Australian, about $2.20 US plus the time. I can get just about anywhere on my pass, from Blue Mountains to Newcastle, from south of Sydney to northern beaches, about the same area as Portland to Burns, to Eugene, Florence and back to Portland via Hiway 101. The pass is also good on ferries, so I can hop a ferry from Sydney to Manly, Watsons Bay or Parramatta too. It's a deal.

There were about 20 paying passengers on my trip, plus a whole pile of goods to deliver at a couple of stops, and the mail, and a family with a double baby jogger. It made for a cozy lower deck on the first part of the trip! The upper deck is fitted with chairs, but on this day the water was so calm that most passengers were standing as the watched the activity.

The mailboat departs from Brooklyn, accesible by car and only a few steps from the rail station. We offloaded mail and food supplies at Little Wobby Wharf, and the homes along this stretch of the river are apparently built by squatters. But no tin shacks here!

Dangar Island has about 250 residents, with regular ferry service plus the mailboat calling in daily Monday-Friday.

At most stops, dogs were always the first to greet the mailboat. No wonder: the mate tosses bikkies (cookies) to the dogs as the boat pulls alongside the pier! Sometimes, the mate doesn't even tie up the boat, but just pitches the newspaper to the pier.

Big surprise to me was the huge number of jellyfish in the water. Big, orange guys, about 12-15" across the top of the dome and about 8" long. No long stringers, so probably not dangerous. But I'm not ready to jump in the water to find out!

The farther upriver we went, the more isolated the homes. We turned around at Murray, not far from Spencer on the map above. On the lower Hawkesbury, the homes along the river are like Sausalito but upriver it starts to look more like the Alsea 40 years ago. Would Seja, Gandhi (the dog) and I like to live on one of the upriver plots? I suppose so, but getting a garden going would take some doing. The soil is thin and poor, so lots of work to get anything like our deep rich soil in Springfield. The critter count must also be pretty high. I noticed overnight even in our suburban garden the bandicoots or possums raided my tomato plants in the night and snagged the only remaining ripe fruits I was guarding so closely.

The mailboat makes for a fine day when the weather is as good as it's been this autumn, with just time for short nap on the train on the way home.

--30--