Clowning Around NZ & Australia: Cherbourg, Monto and Goovigen.

On leaving Gayndah we managed to contact an open Men’s Shed and here it is.

I walked in (12.30 pm on a Saturday) and introduced myself...the usual Men’s Shed banter took off, it was smoko and they were finishing for the day.

This is a pretty new shed with about 40 members, only about 5 guys here today!

That’s our Apollo rental through the doorway...see how dry the ground is, and this is winter!

The pool table gets a lot of use after work time.

This shed (all metal) was destined to be shipped to Vietnam, but never actually got there and somehow the blokes got onto it!

We had heard about the Aboriginal Settlement of Cherbourg and decided to check it out

The Ration Shed has quite a story attached.

Cherbourg is an Aboriginal community in South East Queensland. It was established by Salvation Army member William Thompson in 1899. Barambah/Cherbourg was taken over as a Government Settlement in 1904. Under the “Aboriginal Protection Act” tribes from all over Queensland and New South Wales were moved here.

On the settlement, the government administration controlled almost every aspect of Aboriginal peoples’ lives; the language they spoke, what they ate, what they wore, where they went, for whom they worked and, in some cases, whom they would marry. Aboriginal people, removed to Cherbourg were either placed in dormitories or lived in camps. Large numbers of boys and girls, men and women were brought up away from families in the dormitories. Anyone breaking the strict laws were severely punished – locked up in jail or sent away to other reserves like Palm Island and Woorabinda.

Traditionally, Aboriginal people ate food they hunted and gathered from the land. They ate food like kangaroo, wallaby, porci (echidna) goanna, snake and fish as well as fruits from native trees, plant roots, seeds, berries and leaves. The government controlled every part of their lives even the food people ate. Small amounts of food were handed out from a shed. Tea, sugar, rice, salt, sago, tapioca, split peas, porridge, flour and meat, were given out in small amounts as rations. Today that same shed has been restored and is called the Ration Shed Museum and is a standing memorial to those days.

In 1968 Aboriginal people started to gain more freedom and rations ended in Cherbourg.

There are approximately 2000 Aboriginal people living there.

We took the tour, the only ones that day so we had James, a 30ish aboriginal guide, to tell us about the history of this settlement and answer all of the many questions we had.

This was quite a sobering experience and had us reflecting on NZ’s treatment of Maori and how they have been treated!

The graphic below showed the many Aboriginal tribes that were sent from all over Queensland and told they could only speak English and were given food rations once per week. We learned that is wasn’t until 1967 that Aborigines were give the right to vote in Australian Government Elections.

Two Aboriginal guys were working on this table in Red Gum, not sure what the center timber was, but it was going to be carved with a crocodile with a large bird over head (near the man).

At Monto on the A3 highway “The Australian Country Way” the town is RV friendly and we stayed in the Only $5 per night parkup near the railway line with other Grey Nomads. Happy hour was in full swing and stories went around the camp fire. We met some Kiwis who have been travelling in OZ (doing what we would like to do) for 18 years so they were full of great information and simply said “Do it”.