"About 100 Years Ago by Harvey Bryce" The Butcher's Cart

ABOUT 100 years ago when dairying started on the Range and people started to make a living, transport became a necessity and a problem.

The butter was carried to Landsborough Rail by bullock wagon, then horse team and then, when the roads were made – by truck.  There are a million funny stories about the horse teams being bogged and pulled out by the bullocks but the truck drivers were a breed of their own.   One driver could coast his loaded truck almost everywhere – to save petrol.   He had the record for the quickest trip down the old range road with a load of pigs to the station and became so good at it he claimed he could also coast from Landsborough to Maleny!

Another took a load of tennis players to Palmwoods. On arrival, he was asked by his dishevelled and visibly shaken passengers “why such a fast a trip?”.   He explained that he had no brakes and he couldn’t use the gears because if he didn’t coast he wouldn’t have enough petrol to get back up the range.

Our first bus from Maleny to the station at Landsborough spent most of its life, in the wet season, behind a team of horses (two horsepower bus. - See picture).

The groceries were usually sent out to the farms by the cream carrier and in the early days by horse sulky.  One such carrier had chicken wire hung under the sulky to carry the meat and keep it out of the sun. The old blue dog kept the road clean by licking up the drips.

In the 50s we went to school in the cream carriers’ trucks and sat on boards across the back of the truck. Plenty of fresh air, sunshine and had to put up with no air-conditioning.