Brian The Bush Man

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Brian The Bushman  

by Paul McCann

Brian lived an interesting way of life after escaping from the city to have a go at clearing some land that the Australian government offered cheap in their effort to open up farming in the bush  .

People like Brian stepped forward and pushed his way onto a large property with plenty of work to be done . After he clearing the land he built a little home on a dusty property where the work was hard and thankless . He decided to buy some farming equipment to grow wheat for export . Now and then he would get a visit from some pioneer .

People would sometimes go walkabout around the country looking for gold or silver .

Brian was used to strangers dropping by . He never minded because usually there were stories to be told about people and places on other bush farms . Now and then in return for Brian’s kindness one of the bush pioneers would leave a small gift.

One of those gifts was a map to the site of a gold mine .

 

Brian lived alone and kept in  touch with life on the radio .
What he loved most about the bush was there was no one to dictate to him about he had to do and how to achieve that .

 

Brian’s tractor became a white elephant but he tried to keep positive about the struggle with drought as he watched his crops surrender to the dust and his sheep die from hunger . It was cheaper to buy a bullet than a bale of lucerne .  So one he had enough and opened up the gate to his property and let the sheep go . He soon followed with a pack on his back and his best companion , an old  fiddle that he loved  .

 

On the map there was a area marked that had a gold mine with no one mining there anymore due to an accident  .  Brian was offered a share in any gold there by the drifter who was in need of help to do some digging . It was a few days walk to the site but Brian though it might be a good idea to give it a go .

 

Living in the bush often taught you to be resilient and inventive.

Brian’s parents were native aboriginal and taught him many of the secrets of surviving in the bush . He had a wealth of knowledge about how to find water and what kind of food the bush offered .

As he made his way along through the bush he saw an aboriginal man sitting on a hill with a didgeridoo and went to join him , They both sat there watching a few kangaroos in the distance . Brian started singing a little song he knew about a possum and the aboriginal man played along on his didgeridoo .

When the song was over they both had a laugh and the aboriginal man asked if he could have a look at the fiddle because he had never seen anything like that before .  Brian haned it to him and said ,

“It’s a fiddle “

The aboriginal man replied ,

“Fiddle , diddle daddle “

Brian burst out laughing .

Brian decided he would camp there for the night and collected some twigs and set up a fire .  The aboriginal man stayed with him and they shared a few stories about the River Murray and how the people from Mount Kosciusko used to swim in the Murrumbidgee stream long before white settlers came .

The two were enjoying gazing at the landscape before them and they shared a mug of billy tea around the campfire glow , As night fell the shooting stars raced across the sky and Brian took his fiddle once and began to play.

The aboriginal man began to smile and sang a silly song ,

“A fiddle diddle daddle in the middle of the bush , it’s just a  little fiddle faddle’

They both slept under the stars around the campfire in land where there fore fathers had done the same . They belonged there and they smiled because they knew . It’s a feeling only native people get and it makes everything worthwhile . Brian started to yodel .

“With a little yodel dodle and an odle dodle do”

 Morning came and they went their separate ways .  He caught side of a few wild brumbies and whistled in their direction , A few of them raced over and Brian ran his eye over one of them before mounting the horse . It reared and bucked and raced off like a bullet shot from a gun with Brian sitting on its bare back . The best horsemen are aboriginal people , Quite often when city folk want  a horse broke in they would pass it over to an aboriginal who would return it weeks later with a new attitude and now much easier to ride .

The journey on horseback made it a lot quicker for Brian to get to the place where the gold mine was . He gave the horse some water and bread from his tucker bag before going to have a look around .

He took out his fiddle and started to play and old Bush man’s song .

The drifter who gave the map to Brian emerged from the entrance to the gold mine . He was very happy to see Brian and rushed over to greet him saying  .

 

“I never expected to see you again”

Brian replied

“Well I’ll tell you how it is . I’ve nothing better to do so I thought to myself Brian why not try my luck at prospecting.”

 

“Your names Brian am I right ?”
The drifter asked  and Brian replied .

 

“That’s correct “

“You’re very welcome here Brian , you now I never told you my name did I ? Well people know me as Starlight .”

He reached out his hand and Brian shook it and said

:”Please to see you again Starlight “

Starlight then smiled and  said

“ Where did you ever learn to play the fiddle like that ?“

Brian answered ,

“Well Starlight ,it belonged to my Father . He said it was given to him by an Irish convict he had met in the Silver mines in Victoria and he taught me how to play it .“

Starlight responded .

“I hope you’ll stay here for a while Brian . I have enough provisions in the shack there for maybe six months or more . I’ve been working this site for a while and I know there’s gold here . Will you work along with me Brian and whatever we find we will share .”

“You’ve got yourself a deal Starlight “

Every day both of them dug deeper and uncovered some opals and as yet there was no sign of any gold . Fortune favours the brave and they never gave up digging and searching . The months passed with no luck and they both were almost drained of their strength . They had worked so hard with no reward but almost at the point of collapse they stumbled upon a gold nugget about the size of Brian’s fiddle .

Starlight reckoned it must have been hidden by the previous owner of the site who had lost his life when the mine he was working in collapsed . Originally the mine was said to have been  an opal mine but Starlight had been told a story about a gold nugget in this area but to as far as he knew no one ever look in this old opal mine . That’s what made him suspect that maybe the nugget was hidden in this old opal mine .

They were to walk away from the bush as rich men with a story no one would hardly believe ,

 

 

The End