EXACTING LIVES

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 April 1937, Page 3

EXACTING LIVES

WATCHERS OF WIRES’

Australia possesses two of the lone- . liest telegraph lines in the world, says • a writer in the “Adelaide Chronicle.” One is that portion of the overland . . telegraph route which bridges the big gap in Central Australia, between Alice Springs,, the terminus of the railway from Adelaide, and Bii’dum, \ the terminus of the railway from Dar- . win. The other is the line which runs from Cooktown (North Queensland) through the wilds of the sparsely-popu-lated Cape York Peninsula, to Cape York, the most northerly part of the mainland of Australia. From Cape York the latter line runs across by submarine cable to Thurs- . ' day Island. Little has been told of ‘ the work of the men who maintain these services in some of the wildest, loneliest, and most inhospitable country in the whole of the Commonwealth. Without their devoted labours those outback telegraph routes could not be carried on. The overland telegraph route actually extends from Forth Augusta to Darwin, a /toa.l distance of approximately 2230 miles, and is the longest line of its kind in existence. For more than sixty years it has spanned the continent.’ Originally constructed at a cost of over £300,000, it was erected only with the greatest difficulty. During the twenty-three months of its building approximately 60,000' miles of copper wire, weighing several hundreds of tons, and more than 36,000 telegraph poles,. weighing about 5000 tons, were used. Most of this, material had to be carried from 300 to 400 miles for erection, for very little of the ’ country through which the line passes- had any timber suitable for poles. A considerable portion of the line, too,, runs through swampy country, and here, iron poles had to be used, and. all of these had to be transported by camel teams for distances between 400 and 500 m’tles. Soon after the erection of the line, plans, were ipade for the construction of a railway across tfye continent, following the telegraph route. In 1886 a beginning was made, and so far a railway has been constructed at the northern end from Darwin to Birdum, and at the southern end from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. Between the two railway termini there are about 900 miles of lonely, sparsely-inhabited country which is served only by the Overland Telegraph. At strategic points along this lonely line there are huts. The wires run into the hut, come out and .lead on north once more. At these huts live the relay telegraph operators and linesmen, whose job is to pass the messages along, and to tend the line and repair it when necessary. These lonely workers carry out their duties in a vast territory, where they very rarely see another white man. Until the recent introduction of wireless communication with the rest of the world, the whole of Australia was dependent to a great extent upon this overland telegraph for a direct link with Asia and Europe. Even today the line is of the greatest importance, for it connects with the overseas cable at Darwin, and is also the only means of communication of the interior of Australia wiEli the outside world. Lonely residents rely on it, and the telegraphists and linesmen never fail them. Cyclonic gales, severe

storms, lightning, .floods —all the forces of the elements have tried to break down the line, but it still carries on.

About once every month an intrepid mailman sets out from Alice Springs in a motor truck to deliver supplies and mails to the men who tend The line, and also for the lonely stockmen, prospectors, and others in the surrounding country. The telegraph operators and linesmen seldom see anyone but the mailman. Their solitude in normal circumstances is broken only by the ticking of the “sounder,” which brings word from the next lonely station or from the “outside,” as the civilisation beyond is called. , A NARROW ESCAPE They are lonely men, these operators and linesmen of the outback, and the lives they live are practically unknown to the outside world. But now and again some tale concerning them comes out of the outback. There was one operator, for instance, who, while attempting to swim a flooded . river with an urgent message for a settler living some miles across the stream, was. carried away in the fast-flowing waters and was severely injured by being hurled against a rock. He managed to clamber ashore, but collapsed oh reaching the bank. The whole of the next day he lay there, too weak from loss of blood to move, and he doubtless would have perished}, as he was, many miles from the station, but for the timely arrival of some aborigines, who carried him back to his- station.

A heavy fine 1? the usual reward for anyone who deliberately cuts a telegraph line. But in the outback such penalties have been suspended on numerous occasions when desperate travellers in the desert country have cut the line to bring out help. Several years ago the overland telegraph line was cut some miles north of Powell’s Creek, and when a linesman hurried out to repair the break he found on the ground nearby a man’t hat and an empty billycan with “Water” scratched upon it. But the. man who cut the wire could not be found, until some months. later his bleaching skeleton was discovered out in the desert, some miles west of where the line had been cut. (J On another’ occasion the telegraph service was, interrupted for nearly ten hours when a prospector who ran Short of water cut every one of the wires to get assistance. Two parties qf linesmen went out from different stations, and the man was found in a bad state, delirious from thirst and from the intense heat. But about twelve months ago, when two motorists “earthed” the wires thirty miles north of Alice Springs, they were heavily fined, because their car was within four miles of water, and because they had neglected to carry sufficient water supplies for their journey.

Another time the cutting of the line was responsible for saving a woman’s life in the Alice Springs area. She fell dangerously ill, and being unable to leave her to get a doctor from Alice Springs, 140 miles away, her liusbajid cut the telegraph line, and when the linesman came out to mend the break he heard the story. lie, of course, carried the usual portable telephone outfit used for testing the line after a. break, and with this he summoned medical aid from Alice Springs. The doctor set out from that centre immediately

and arrived just in time to perform an operation, which saved the woman’s life.

WORKERS AT CAPE YORK

The work of the men on the Cape York Peninsula telegraph route differs greatlv from that of -the men on the Overland Telegraph. The Cape York line, which was erected fifty years ago at a cost of over £67,000, runs for nearly 500 miles through some of the wildest country in the whole of Australia, -where there are no recognised roads, and where the only safe and sure ipode of transport is by packhorse. The line traverses country which has never been surveyed, crossing rugged mountains of the Great Dividing Range, crocodile-infested creeks and rivers, and dense jungle country swarming with dangerous wild pigs, snakes and other pests. The linesmen on this isolated stretch of telegraph lead very strenuous lives, as may'- be imagined. When the line breaks they set out, regardless of the weather. Many weary miles they trudge, through the uninhabited, wild country—sometimes in fierce tropical thunderstorms—to find where the line has broken and stopped the traffic. Often the wires are broken by the fall of some jungle giant during a storm, while on other occasions trouble is. caused by tree-climbing kangaroos and acrobatic opossums, which delight in swinging about on the Wires. Once the trouble in the line was found to have been caused by a large python, •winch was entwined /half round the telegraph post and half round the line, enjoying-a long sleep. The reptile was killed, and measured 25ft in length. During the “wet” season (November to March) these Peninsula linesmen have a very trying time, and many a man has had a narrow escape from a terrible death when crossing a flooded crocodile-infested stream in search of.a break in the line. On one occasion a linesman had his horse taken from under him by a crocodile when swimming a flooded river. Wild pigs, too, are another menace, and have at times severely wounded and even killed telegraph men. Like their confreres oh the Overland Telegraph, the Peninsula operators and linesmen rely solely on an intrepid mailman for their supplies and mails. This man travels through the Peninsula once a month with a pack-horse team, covering each trip over 800 miles. The “letter-boxes” on his lengthy route are often several days apart, but he is rarely late. Such is the work that surrounds the lives of the men who maintain Australia’s loneliest and longest telegraph routes —routes which are of the utmost value to the whole of the Commonwealth. These “watchers of the wire” are all bush-bred men, for only such men can endure the strenuousness of their work, and it is only their labours that keep the “tickers” operating, continuing to break the silence of the far northern jungles and of the outback plains.