LONG JOURNEY BY CAMELS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 3

LONG JOURNEY BY CAMELS

FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES TO SYDNEY FAMILY OF THREE ON ROAD FOR A YEAR (TEOtf ODE OWE COEEBBPOEDBET.) SYDNEYrDecember 15. Keeping house and looking after her husband and their’baby son on a 1500miles journey by camel has been the unusual life of Mrs Richard Jones for the last 12 months. Mr and Mrs Jones and Franklyn, who is 18 months old, arrived in Sydney recently with their four camels. A year ago they left their home at Innamincka, 200 miles from Charleville, Queensland, packed their luggage on two of the camels, and, riding on the other two, set off for ’Sydney. _ ~ . They travelled down to Southport and spent a few weeks there, crossed the border of New South Wales in March, and came down through Tenterfield, Glen Innes, Armidale, Scone, Narrabri, and Gunnedah. “If we liked a place,” said Mrs Jones, “we stayed for a few days or weeks as we did not intend to get here until a few weeks before Christmas. Franklyn was only five months old when we left, and 1 carried him as 1 do now, on a pillow on my lap. He loves riding on the ccjnois, and just drops off to sleep when he is tired. We carry a pram for him, and when he was smaller we also carried a basinettefor him to sleep in at night.” A petrol iron and a primus stove are also included in the large wooden boxes which are strapped to the camels. When camp is being pitched, one of the boxes is converted into a table on legs and here Mrs Jones serves the meals she cooks on her primus. “I can cook as good a meal on my primus as any woman can cook in her kitchen,” said Mrs Jones. “At least, my husband says so, and we often have visitors for a meal, and they are amazed at what I can do. What I want now is a camp stove. On the way down we stopped at rivers whenever I wanted to do the washing, and I can use my petrol iron anywhere. I make all baby’s clothes and most of my own, so that saves any bother about shops or towns. “We cause quite a little stir when we come into a town, and I think half the people we pass wonder if what their eyes see is true. When we came into Murrurundi the first person we passed was a woman digging in her garden. When she looked up and saw us her eyes nearly fell out of her head. She stared, took off her glasses and rubbed them, put them on and took another look, and then let out a shriek and rushed inside. In two seconds there were heads in every door and window gaping at us in astonishment.” Mrs Jones is a Newcastle girl, and after her marriage in Sydney three years ago her honeymoon was the long came] journey to Innamincka, where Mr Jones conducts an inland transport business, carrying wool and station goods, with a herd of 200 camels.