From Wiseman's Ferry to Brooklyn IP

When I was a little girl we often went on holidays on the river. This is the Hawkesbury River- approximately 150 miles North-west of Sydney.

Our place, that is, Uncle John’s place- Gould’s Bay, was situated a ways up the river- a 2 hour trip by Captain Cook’s ferry business; one ferry about 50 feet long and 15 feet from port to starboard. Captain Cook sailed his motor ferry all day long and way into the night from the little riverside township of Brooklyn.

One Spring there had been severe flooding of the Hawkesbury.
Come hell or highwater Mummy insisted and drove us up to Brooklyn and we boarded the ferry with our suitcases and food packages to last us a while.
The pier was under water and as we sailed down the river we could see how the banks had been flooded. Houses standing on poles on the banks had water almost up to the floorboards. The atmosphere aboard the boat was excited and everyone talked about the flood.

When we got to Gould’s Bay it was dark and the mounted stone path from the jetty across the swamp to the foot of the mountain was flooded. We had to walk very carefully in our gumboots so as not to fall into the muddy water. We all had something to carry of course. These holidays could easily stretch over several weeks. We climbed up the steep hill to the houses and the holiday had begun.

The following days we watched the river, how it ate into the banks and flooded the lower levels of land. All the debris that floated on the surface and the drowned animals, cattle, sheep and pigs all got caught up on the banks or were carried down the river with the flood waters, eventually out to the Pacific Ocean.

We kids made the most of it and made a game of it all. One day we went down to the flooded mangrove swamp - we sat on rocks on the bank and roasted a dead pig. We had built a fire and prodded at the dead pig with sticks and levered it over to our fire. We pretended that we were miles away from civilization and on a big adventure. We spent hours roasting the dead pig and telling each other tall stories. The whole day was spent this way giggling,, suddenly quite serious and generally having a tremendous time.
Our imagination was very vivid and we had read a lot of children’s fairytales and adventure stories so we wove it all into our day. We were fascinated by these dead bloated animals that had been swept away with the flooding and the atmosphere was dramatic with all the destruction and devastation the flood had caused.

Other times the countryside was host to raging bushfires and dry,dry droughts but that is another story.