"About 100 Years Ago by Harvey Bryce" The key role of the humble flying fox

About 100 years ago the humble flying fox played a large part in transportation of goods and passengers of the day.    No, they didn’t hitch a ride on the back of one of the winged varieties.    I mean man-made flying foxes, which traversed the many creeks and rivers.

		A rope or wire (either hemp rope or steel cable or eight gauge wire) was strung between two trees or poles over a river, creek or steep gully.    The rope ran over a pulley each end and was connected on the low side to each side of a box or gondola.    When a rope was pulled from either side the box would transport the goods, milk cans, hardware or people across this creek.   Joyce Newton had to use one to get to work when she lived in Baroon Pocket (under the dam) when the Obi was in flood in the 1980’s.   (Photo left - A flying fox "dead man" at the top of a hillside)

 

When the banana boom was on the Blackall Range, Mons Maree bananas were grown.    They required good soil, northeast slope and good drainage.

At one time most of Bald Knob and Mt Mellum was all cut up into small banana farms.    They were so steep that flying foxes were set up across the side of the hill to send bananas from the top down to the packing shed on the not so steep wire and caught be a man at the bottom.    These usually had no return loop and the bunches were attached in bags to hooks that ran down the wire.    Then they were lifted off and the hooks carried back to the top for the next lot of bananas.    And, yes, sometimes the bag was filled with rocks or snakes to keep the catcher on his toes. (Photo right:  Flying fox crosses a flooded creek)

When ‘bunchy top’ disease took over and devastated the crop all the plants had to be dug up and poisoned.    Lady Finger and Cavendish replaced the Maree’s as they were resistant and could be grown on flat ground.

 

One story (true of course) I remember my uncles Roy and dick were working the bananas at Wootha.    The patch grew on the slope down to Peachester (very steep).    A man of Irish descent was looking for work and was directed to the Cole’s property to chip bananas, when he arrived the boys were working at the bottom and still suffering from last night’s booze.    So he decided to wait and climbed into the flying fox box to rest.    When the boys came up to the top they found Paddy sound asleep in the box.    So they quietly moved the box out to the centre of the wire and left him there about 40 feet (12 metres) above the ground.    They say all the neighbours heard him when he woke up.

 

A post still remains on Ian Porter’s farm just past Moffat Court near the stockyards that anchored the cable of a flying fox from the dairy across the gully.    It was used to send the cream cans over the road to be picked up by the carrier.    In New Zealand they harvested the timber in a very complicated way of using flying foxes around the forest.    There they hooked the log onto a moving cable and carried it down to the winch and loading area.   But the Kiwi’s always did try to do it bigger and better.