​There are some things that become indelibly burnt into your brain. Like the towering green bull bar of a greenfreight log truck coming at you on a sharp bend of a mountain road; or the huge legs and paws of a polar bear sweeping it along as it races across the snow at your sledge. Although they are memories that will live with me forever they were quickly dealt with, therefore not really a matter of courage.

It’s the insidiously little things that lurk in the back of your mind. One of my first memories is my sister saying that she was frightened of heights. I know that for me it’s not natural to be uncertain of my ability to handle heights. Its irrational learnt behaviour and I don’t know when it will strike.

It came into my adult life unexpectedly.  After a freezing cold night camped in Victoria’s high Alps we were sitting in the sunshine on top of a range they call ‘The Crosscut Saw.’ It was just a narrow path with a drop on either side. I was happy, until I stood up and froze on the spot. My companions said “How did she get up here, if she can’t get down?” It was irrational.
​
Irrational fear of heights presents itself suddenly when balance and confidence are required, like having to walk carefully across a narrow plank to board a ship that is anchored on the far side of another.

At Oban in Scotland, the tide had gone out and it wasn’t possible to use the gangway to board the ship. They called up to me from about three metres down in the bows, “You will have to Jump.”  There was no time to think, just do it and land like a baby elephant.

But be careful of what you say, it will come back to haunt you.  In North East Greenland I was known as an experienced dog sledge traveller, but the rot set in when I travelled with Jonas Pike. He was a lithe young hunter with a good team and he could place those dogs anywhere.

I made the mistake of telling him that his sledge was a magic carpet and for the next week he did his best to prove it. We would stop for our lunch break on the top of a small island frozen in the pack ice of the Greenland Sea or beside a steep drop onto the fjord below. The other sledges would be facing the path down again, but Jonas’s team and sledge would be facing a cliff.  “Why aren’t you eating all your lunch?” I would answer that I was not really hungry!

When we leave Jonas leaps onto the back of the sledge to balance it. The dogs need no urging, they have no fear of heights. With a sudden burst of speed they propel themselves joyfully out over the edge. Bodies tense and twisting in mid air, tails held out for balance, legs and feet reaching for the snow below.  The fast moving sledge is propelled horizontally until gravity takes over and we glide down behind them. Paws taking hold and the dogs are away, racing downhill.  
​
One memorable occasion occurred when we were going to board a helicopter that was out on the sea ice. “Bev, go with Ziggy.” I get on the back of the skidoo and he heads for the cliff edge! He stops and says “I don’t think I can do that.” That was close!


Bev Morton
October 2021

In the spirit of adventure, my parents emigrated from England to Australia in 1926. They had been married just three weeks. My father Ben, a Gloucestershire salmon fisherman, was only 20 and Dorrie who had been a governess to the children of a well-to-do family, two years his senior.
Australia House in London painted the picture of a land ‘flowing with milk and honey;’ of a country where you could make your fortune in a few short years.
​
As new settlers, Ben and Dorrie are granted a “settlers block” at Katandra to be paid off at low interest rates. Life was tough as a new settler. The block allotted to them was wet and swampy and had no internal fences or sheds. Ben had to take timber from the framework of the roof of the house to build a cowshed.
 
As well as dairy farming, he turns to cropping and has a team of eight draught horses. The horse yard has only three sides. Dorrie is the fourth side. They are young freshly broken in horses. She approaches them cautiously with a pan of oats when they come in from their days work.
 
A daughter, Maureen is born while they are at Katandra. After the birth Dorrie develops septicemia and hovers between life and death for three weeks. There are no anti-biotics. Three other women at Mrs Fitz’ hospital at Numurkah die from the infection and the hospital is to be closed but Dorrie, the remaining patient, fights on.
 
The quest to seek their fortune takes them to a bigger property out beyond Tocumwal.  They live miles from the nearest neighbours; there is not another house in sight.
 
Once their crop is in, Ben’s work as a share farmer takes him a long way from home. He lives in a tent where he is cropping and only comes home at weekends.
 
Life in Australia is both a shock and a challenge for Dorrie. Gone are the comfortable days of her last employment with dressing for dinner and domestic servants to take care of everything. She finds herself living in the isolation of the bush... alone, with a small child. She sleeps with a loaded revolver under her pillow at night.

Sometimes when the wind is in the right quarter you might hear the sound of a distant train. This is her only contact with civilization, apart from the fortnightly drive in the old ute to the nearest town for supplies, or the occasional phone call on the party-line from distant neighbours who become anxious about her after severe storms.

The only people who call in are swaggies looking for food. On arrival they ask to speak to the boss.  She tries not to reveal that she is alone and gives them whatever food they ask for. They are always very courteous; say, “Thank you Missus” and move on.

Dorrie, the city girl who never loses her English ways, learns how to milk the house cow and to endure the loneliness. There is nothing to do on hot afternoons while the baby sleeps except play with the goannas. She rolls a stone along the ground and they come down from the trees to investigate and then go back up again watching for the next stone.

The seasons are tough. They had come to seek their fortune, but instead of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they found the heat, dust and drought of the Riverina.

They decide to return to England. Dorrie and Maureen, who is now five years old, sail from Port Melbourne. Ben will join them after the harvest which he anticipates will give them enough profit to farm in England.

After several months staying with family during the summer, Dorrie is feeling the cold of the approaching winter and missing the Australian sunshine. When she receives a cable from Ben saying, “Crops failed. Come back for another two years” she is happy to return.

When Dorrie was ninety she said “I have had a wonderful life. There are no regrets. We didn’t return to live in England, but we came here in the spirit of adventure and we had plenty of that.”
                                                                                                        

Bev Morton
October 2020