Cape Woolamai – How It Shaped Our the History of Queensland Placenames

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Cape Woolamai – How It Shaped Our the History of Queensland Placenames December, 2002 A paddock with a salinity Free gift enclosed! nclosed with every mailed copy (while stocks last) of problem Ethis issue of Placenames Australia is a very special fter reading the article by Chris Richards on the subject of seasonal gift for each of our readers — the video CD ACape Everard and its subsequent renaming as Point Hicks What’s in a Name: Australia’s geographical names. (Placenames Australia June 2002), I was reminded of another ‘naming’ that involved the same area. This 10-minute presentation, introduced by Ernie Dingo, describes the importance of Australia’s placenames and the In 1967, I started working on Australian coastal ships as a navigator. My initial trips were mostly around the south-east work of the nomenclature authorities in assigning and corner of the country, and I was confused at first by references to standardising them. It combines a humorous narrative with ‘Crossing The Paddock’. Gabo, yes; The Prom, yes; but there was many impressive shots of locations across the continent. no sign of The Paddock on my charts! The CD is a joint initiative of the Committee for I soon found out that it was a marine reference to the stretch of Geographical Names in Australasia and the Intergovern- water between Wilson’s Promontory and Gabo Island. No-one mental Committee on Surveying and Mapping, as a result could tell me why; it was The Paddock, and that was that. of whose generosity we are able to distribute the disks. Certainly any farmer who owned a paddock that resembled that stretch of water in any way had serious problems on his farm! The disk can be played on virtually any computer with a I left the sea in the early ‘90’s, and over that period of time the CD-ROM drive. Minimum system requirements are name seemed to have fallen out of use - at least on the cargo Windows 98, ME or 2000; 32mb RAM; 4 x CD-ROM ships plying the area. I believe that it is still used by small boat drive; 16-bit Soundblaster or Windows-compatible sound owners. The usage seemed to me to begin declining at about the card. In addition Internet access is needed for the link to the time when the oil rigs were built in the area, but maybe that was CGNA website and email response. On most computers the coincidental. Today, with Australian merchant ships in severe video will begin automatically when the disk is put into the danger of extinction in favour of foreign flag ships, the term will no doubt only be kept alive by yachties and perhaps fishermen. drive — it can take a little while to load. Another stretch of water with its own name in that general south In a few cases of slower machines, the audio may be out of eastern area was ‘The Horror Stretch’. This was (and probably sync with the video; to work round this, in File Manager still is) the leg between Cape Northumberland, near Mt.Gambier in double-click on the file tvc.avi listed on the CD-ROM drive the west of Victoria, and Backstairs Passage, between Kangaroo (or for even better results copy it to your hard disk). It Island and the Fleurieu Peninsular in South Australia. should open in a normal Windows Multi Media player (if installed), and in this application the presentation runs fine. CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 On Tuesday 17 September the ANPS audience about the ANPS database, History Week, participated in the part of the particularly with Chris Cunneen, one of programme which was held in the the editors of the Australian Dictionary of NSW History Department at Macquarie Biography. Given that many placenames in University. Dale Lehner, ANPS Research Australia are named after people, there is istory Week is the annual, state- Associate, gave a presentation called certainly scope for the ANPS Hwide celebration and promotion of ‘Naming where we live’ based on collaborating with the ADB. history organised by the History Council research for her thesis on the of New South Wales. This year it ran 14- Darling Downs (Qld). Her talk was 21 September and organisations all over about the kind of choices that NSW showcased their work by hosting were made when features in events, talks, lectures, tours, exhibitions, Australia were named (in the case films and book launches. The theme for of features such as settlements) 2002 was Changing Landscapes, and renamed (in the case of exploring movement and migration, natural features such as rivers travel and tourism, place and space, which already had Indigenous identity and meaning, the built and names) at different points in natural environments, the urban and the colonial history. It also covered the rural: the landscapes of our past and respective roles played in present (http://www.historycouncilnsw. placenaming by Indigenous people, org.au). explorers, squatters, surveyors and ordinary settlers. A condensed version of this talk will appear in a In this issue future issue of Placenames Australia. During the same session Flavia Free gift enclosed!..................................1 Hodges, ANPS Research Fellow, A Paddock with a Salinity Problem.....1,3 talked about the ANPS and there History Week, NSW .............................2 was an interesting exchange of I Quote ....................................................2 ideas with members of the Placenames in the News ......................2 An ANPS Research Friend – Denis I Quote... Placenames in Gojak .......................................................4 CGNA Spot: The NSW GNB Visits the At a time in the 1930s when it appeared that much information would be lost, Prof. H. the News Tweed .......................................................5 Alcock from the University of Queensland The Sydney Morning Herald (Saturday, New Publications.....................................5 expressed in strong terms the need to preserve October 5, 2002) reported on Keith Cape Woolamai – How It Shaped Our the history of Queensland placenames. He said Smith (who is studying 18th century History ...................................................6-7 that they ‘tell the story of the changing Sydney Aboriginal language and life for landscape, of settlement, of success or his masters degree at Macquarie ANPS Victorian State Committee disappointment, of hope and achievement’ and University) and his unexpected finding activities ...................................................7 embody the ‘human side’ of history. of Aboriginal placenames on a faint map On the Web ............................................7 of Port Jackson on the inside cover of International Contacts ..........................8 Alcock, H. ‘The Cultural Value of the the 1790 book by first fleeter Lieutenant QPNC’, in Queensland Place Names William Dawes. Upcoming event ....................................8 Committee Bulletin, no. 3, June 1938, p2. UN Training Course..............................9 Cited in Lehner, Dale ‘Placenames and Aboriginal Languages of Northern History: an example from Queensland’s Have you seen an article about placenames in NSW Poster.........................................10-11 Darling Downs 1827-1859’, Locality, the the media which you’d like to share with our Community History Magazine, Winter subscribers? Send a photocopy of the article Mapping Victoria Exhibition ..............11 2002, University of Technology, and/or email details of the publication, date Placenames Australia Mailing List and Sydney, p20. and a brief summary of the article to ANPS Volunteer Research ................12 [email protected] for inclusion in a Placenames Puzzle No. 4 ..................12 future issue of Placenames Australia. A paddock with a salinity problem CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The course to traverse this stretch of water is either north west or south east. Of course, out to the west is the Great Australian Bight and an unbroken stretch of the Southern Ocean all the way to Argentina. The Southern Ocean is notorious for storms - perhaps everybody has heard of the ‘Roaring Forties’; then there are the lesser known ‘Screaming Sixties’. Thus, the swells originating from storm fronts in the Southern Ocean sweep uninterrupted across the Bight from the south west and the west - which means that any ship on passage between Cape Nelson and Backstairs Passage gets these swells right on her beam. The distance is approximately 150 miles, which at (say) 10 knots gives 15 hours of heavy rolling, unless you are lucky enough to strike a smooth passage - a rare event. Two ships that stick in my mind were sister ships - the ‘Kooliga’ and the ‘Kooyong’. Long razor blades now, they were both on a regular trade between Port Kembla and Adelaide carrying steel to Adelaide for the Holden works and gypsum from Stenhouse Bay back to the east coast. The trip to Adelaide was always dreaded in these ships - the low weight of the steel cargo made them very stiff, so they rolled rapidly and violently. The roll wasn’t big in terms of degrees - southbound, View from the Kooliga’s bridge in rough weather in The Paddock. they could reach a 35 or 40 degree roll Photo: Bernie Turvey quite easily - but the 15 to 20 degree roll that they achieved northbound was so Horror Stretch and The Paddock. The from Cape Nelson or Cape rapid that (unless well secured) chairs simple answer would be that they vary Northumberland to Backstairs Passage. No would literally be thrown across your from ship to ship, I think! doubt there are many local variations, and cabin. Sleep was a memory untill the probably many more unofficial local names blessed moment when the shelter of Broadly speaking, and limited to my own for these and other stretches of water. Kangaroo
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