Traveling to Brisbane – Rockhampton, to the families in 1873 must have
been a bit of a disappointment as they decided in a matter of days that
this area was not for them to settle. In those days, Rockhampton had a
population of about 7,000 people and serviced a huge area of Central
Queensland, but was still relatively isolated from the rest of Queensland,
as the railway had not reached that far north. Shipping had to unload all
passengers and goods on Keppel Island and go up the river in barges and
smaller crafts. The Quarantine Station was also on Keppel Island. Migrant
ships in those days landed passengers up and down the Coast wherever
settlements were beginning to start as the Government wanted people to
open up the country. The type of land the families were looking for was
not available in the area, as the pastoralists had Leases on huge areas
and objected to having them cut up in small blocks for closer settlement,
thus the area lost the hard-working Germans who were capable of clearing
the land for cultivation and dairying. It is assumed that the families
spent a short time in Rockhampton as older family members are quiet
adamant that they traveled to Oxley by horse and dray. If, by some chance,
we may think that they went by coastal freighters, there is no record
available on passengers carried. It is not had to believe that they did
travel by horse and dray, as there would have been movement to the south
with large land owners and squatters sending their own wagons to Brisbane
for supplies. The route taken will forever remain a mystery as no records
are available. A number of routes could have been taken, but it is
probable that an inland route was taken, as the major coastal rivers were
unbridged which made travel impossible. The Inland route taken by the
Archers in 1855 when they settled Gracemere Station was the most
favourable. This route was from Rockhampton through the Callide Valley to
Gayndah then Nanango. From there to Petrie or through the Brisbane Valley
to Ipswich, passing very close to Tarampa which eventually became their
home.
With no roads, only a bush track and the constant fear of attack from some
still unfriendly aborigines and the bushrangers that operated in the area,
the ordeal they had on this trip can only be imagined. With the advent of
summer storms, the bush tracks and creeks would have become impassable and
this trip would have taken anything from 6 to 10 weeks. It is quite likely
that their first Christmas in Australia was spent in a bush shelter on the
track, very different to the white Christmas of their homeland. Imagine
their rejoicing when they reached Oxley and moved to the dairy farms where
they worked for 2 ˝ years, having a roof over their heads for the first
time in months. The families took a liking to the land and soon decided to
seek land for themselves and this was soon to come about when the
Government was opening up land in the West Moreton District for closer
settlement. The families had saved enough money to qualify for one of
these blocks. Mr James England settled on a large portion of land about
the year 1850 and his selection extended from the hills of D’Aguilar Range
near Mt Brisbane through to Glenore Grove and from Prenzlau to Coominya.
Eventually Mr England sold Tarampa Station and later Government Policy
became such that large selections were repurchased, subdivided and would
be offered for selection under the provisions of the Agricultural Lands
Purchase Act. The selections ranged in size from 25 to 330 acres. All this
was still virgin scrub, as the big land owners had not cleared one stick
of timber. They used the land for grazing purposes only. Clearing had to
wait until 26th May 1876 when the German immigrant families
arrived.
(Details from book -
DARGUSCH 1873-1983 from Stolp, Prussia to Tarampa Australia by Bevin John
Bliesner, Toowoomba at the John Oxley Library, Brisbane Qld)
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