Jottings in an Oarsman’s Journal.

(Some of you may know that The Marne River I describe in this idyl could not in most years float even a cork from the hills face all the way to the Murray river..but then, if a butterfly can dream of flying through space to visit the moon, why not row a skiff the full length of this gentle stream?…”…For men may come and men may go . . .”)

Jottings in an oarsman’s journal.

My name is Ambrose Quint.

I come from a long line of ships chandlers. Now, in my fifty first year, I have passed the oversight of the company, formed by my grandfather in the early days of the province, and sited at Port Adelaide to service the Line ships and public of this state, to my younger brothers who have greater enthusiasm for the trade of chandlering, while I take time to pursue an ambition I have nurtured in my heart for many years of travelling by rowing skiff down many of the delightful rivers and streams of the state..

I qualify myself for this task from my years as an oarsman racing sculls for both my college team and myself on the Torrens Lake. In these later years, I have taken to spending my leisure hours, of which, considering a bachelor life sans wife or children, I have many such extra to devote to my pastime of pleasurable rowing my hand-built ( by yours truly) wooden skiff along the coast of Semaphore and Henley Beach to Brighton and back..a truly delightful experience on those balmy summer days, cruising a couple of hundred yards off the brilliant expanse of white, sandy beaches. A leisurely stroke of the oars enough to push this light, swift skiff quietly and softly through the sea. It must be one of the greatest pleasures of man to be able to both work away at a necessary chore, as one does when rowing, and at the same time to allow the conscious mind to traverse the wide, open plains of the imagination. I always make it a point to take a pint or two of aged red wine with me to give me a boost of strength when a feeling of tire comes on plus that encouraged enthusiasm of elan which can accompany a good wine..a feeling, if I can quote the late lamented poet Henry Lawson; “a feeling that one gets which one should feel all the time!”..of company, I have found that the best companion one can entertain is more than likely oneself.

The construction of my rowing craft was a project of exacting precision vis selection of length, draft, beam and materials used. For the body of the craft I chose to use native red cedar from New South Wales..a most light and durable timber which cut to suitable width and thickness, lends itself beautifully to shaping the smooth lines of the hull giving strength along with lightness that allows the boat to be handled quite satisfactorily by myself. The frame and gunwales I personally chose “joiners grade” Douglas fir, called Oregon, for its un blemished strength and colour, for the seats and rowlock blocks, I chose a deep, dark redgum to contrast with the Oregon and give an attractive colour scheme to the finished product.  I chose a medium length oar to accommodate the sometimes narrow channels I expected to face as I travelled downstream, these items along with a nice set of brass oarlocks, gave the craft an artful finished look..I say “artful”, because I hold the belief that any craft work done well and finished well ought to be equally considered alongside other works of art..and I have often considered on the subject of quality craftmanship whether such be a work of art..or rather; the art of work. The length of the boat is twelve feet, the beam three foot six..I gave it an extra few inches in the beam to give the craft just that little bit more stability in rougher waters. it has a shallow draft which I purposely designed for the use I intended. The finished product has drawn many compliments on the polish and practicality of the vessel, but I can assure you, dear reader, that vanity was not the primary objective of my ambition, but rather to show myself and no-one else the discipline and attentive skills that needed to be applied to complete this craft and perhaps it could be said..ANY project worthy of durability and sense of permanence in this world..to this end, I feel I have achieved a most satisfactory job.. I am well pleased.

Which, by virtue of circumstances mentioned above, brings me to this delightful location on the banks of the Marne River at the foot of the most Eastern slope of the Adelaide Hills overlooking the flatlands of the Murray Mallee plains.

The Marne river which I am about to attempt to row down, has its beginnings in two separate locations..There is the one head near Springton south of The Barossa Valley, and there is the North Marne head near Moculta East of The Barossa Valley this gives it a large catchment area which in this year of 192*, being a particularly wet year for the Adelaide Hills, sent a tremendous amount of water coursing down the river, opening up and filling the floodplains and emptying vast quantities into the Murray River approx. 40 miles East of where I now stand. I have to tangent off here to tell you that this river, along with numerous villages and roads, being in the majority settled and developed by the German pioneers brought here to the province in the first years of settlement, gave the river and district a Germanic flavour with their naming..hence, The Marne, as it is now known, was once; The Rhine…both in the upper reaches and the lower..the villages in this region also suffered the falling out of favour of all things Germanic with the war…Kaiser Bill was not liked and a “Department of Nomenclature” set about re-naming all those locations that had any distinctive German flavour about them…So “Blomberg” became Birdwood, “Steinfeld” became Stonefield and so on..”Hahndorf” : Ambleside..with one fool in the Parliament demanding that Tanunda also suffer the same fate, not being aware that “Tanunda” is a local native name..So there you go.

It being late October, the waters have in part dissipated and the flow now much diminished, leaving still so much water residue in the floodplain that wide reaches of the river can be navigated with my shallow draft skiff..I am much looking forward to the journey.

This journey will be made more pleasurable thanks to the diligence of a local German farmer named Greatz, who in securing a regular and sufficient supply of water for his crops and stock, has managed to construct a sizable dam across the Marne right at the foot of the Eastern Hills where the river bursts out onto the plains in a time of low water and as such, has contained much rapid flow of water so that what now comes out from between the steep hills here, is a regular but much quietened flow..and thence it slows into a gentle sweep across the Mallee Flats plain to the Murray River in the horizonal distance.

As I said, it is Spring here, in late October..and what can one say of a clear, bright Spring day?…How does one describe a feeling of utter delight and contentment? To me, as I stand here with the morning sun warming my face so I have to shut my eyes against the glare, I can recall that age of youth when on one of my first unaccompanied trips to Semaphore Beach in the summer, and the sense of that freedom was so liberating as to be almost intoxicating..with the fine mist of the sea water on my skin and the cry of the gulls filling the air above..the glistening of sunlight dancing off the tips of small chop on the water , my feet skipping through the sissing small wash of waves as they scurry up the sands..The wobble of the distant scenes in the rising waves of heat as the promise of a brilliant day overwhelms me and I just cannot absorb nor embrace the whole of it..the joy and laughter of the moment rolling through my head..Standing here on the banks of The River with a whole week or more of a pleasure I have been promising myself for more years than I can remember is like finding the treasure of Croesus..NO!…better than that, it is like the promise of a first kiss!

Let us depart on our journey.

For the first mile or so on my journey, I found that while the surface of the river showed a placid and tranquil appearance, there were stronger currents below the surface that compelled me, for the sake of comfort and direction to reverse the usual position of rowing so I had the bow of the craft pointing back upstream and I edged the boat whilst facing forward so to have better control of the direction and to avoid striking any possible snags or otherwise. This situation only lasted, as stated, for the first mile or so then the waters calmed and I was able to return to the usual operation of the craft..and in delight, take in the passing magnificent red and blue gum trees..a truly magnificent plant…both wild in its growth, so that its thick trunk and boughs carrying that heavy, voluminous leaf load, gives it that instantly recognisable big, blowsey grand look about it.

There were times in this early phase where I could stand while controlling the skiff so as to see any difficulties ahead and to plan my route better..foresight is the best preventative of disaster, I would say. In this consideration whilst contemplating my future plan for my journey, I was simultaneously reflecting on what happenstance brought me to this present situation…re; my upbringing and the stepping down from the company directorship..a very, very successful business, I might add..the war requirements for shipping and sundry supplies boosting the company earnings to the best it has ever obtained. The foresight of my father in this measure of doubling or even tripling the reserve stock of supplies allowing the company to both deliver on time and quantity of supplies throughout the war years, making my father a quite wealthy member of the Adelaide establishment and a regular participator of the social programs out and about the city. The family home at Semaphore regularly the centre of entertainment for the gathering of friends and social connections.

This memory gave me pause to question the behaviour of my father after the early passing of my mother with that epidemic of influenza that was going around at the end of the last century.

It was after the suitable period of mourning that I began to notice an increased presence of women at these evening soirees that my father held at either our Semaphore home or in the Norwood house where my father spent most days of the week. I remember mentioning this unseemly bevy of attractively dressed women now so predominant at our residences to my father one evening as we sat near the fire…my uncle was there with us and the three of us were sipping a small glass of port wine as we conversed..

“Why are we suddenly entertaining so many women at the Saturday gatherings?” I asked my father as we sat. I recall him shifting in his armchair uncomfortably and then gazed in a confederacy way to my uncle Desmond, who took this opportune moment to bring his glass of port swiftly to his lips..

My father paused a while before answering, clearing his throat as he did..

“Ambrose…you’re a grown man now…albeit on the younger side of grown man…so if I was to say that with us men, it is sometimes a case of “needs must”..I am trusting even your.. limited experience of the world would inform you of the answer to that question.” My uncle too must have contracted a frog in the throat, because he then coughed several times in a delicate manner…

“Needs must?” I naively enquired.

A good deal of shifting and adjustment followed my query until my father settled upon a suitable analogy in his mind that I suppose he thought I could relate to…

“A man must tie a good number of knots before he gets the perfect hitch…isn’t that right, Desmond?” he looked to my uncle for approval in his analogy and getting a silent nodding of the head, let the question rest there, and in seeing my uncle Desmond agreeing so redily and compliantly, I began to understand why he was often but quietly referred to behind his back as “simply Desmond”. But I believe it was the continued exposure to the sometimes devious machinations of public and private courting by both genders witnessed by myself in those times that instilled a sense of overcautious abeyance to join in the marriage game.. and indeed, as the years passed, I found I would rather enjoy the company of women at a limited number and connection, rather than becoming attached in a permanent manner. I suppose I don’t have the need or capacity to co-join another human in any sort of shared confederacy, but would rather enjoy my own company.

However the analogy sufficed for my father to “get the perfect hitch” and a sudden second marriage brought my younger step brothers into this world, a set of twins that I have, I suppose rather viciously, nick-named..but to myself only ; “The Browning Twins”, after a popular firearms maker of double barrelled shotguns that my father is very fond of..perhaps less vicious than perspicuous?.. which as a consequence, delivered me an escape from running the company after delivering my father to his own maker, presumably from the stress of keeping a younger woman happy..parents can be a troublesome burden..However, in my case, I believe it was their lack of attention to my emotional needs as a youth that caused me to grow up with a certain narcissus outlook. I say; outlook, because while I do tend to assess the world and people around me from a centrist personality inside my own self, I do have some empathy for the lives of others I come in contact with…like in my position as ship chandler during the war years, where I met and heard many gripping stories about the life at sea for sailors of the merchant marine and even some from the navy who would come to the store to purchase personal items not supplied by the navy stores..little comforts like warming underclothes and hats..gloves and such or tobacco pipes etc…and they would with little prompting on my part tell of harrowing rescues at sea of crews of sunken ships and other dramatic events of the sea roads..but since there was little I could do about any of these wider world events, I just listened, made appropriate comment or grunts and let the tales slip from my memory. Perhaps it was my religious upbringing that gave permission to “see to my own salvation” rather than plead the mercy of so many other unsalvable souls.

After most of the day spent adapting cautiously to this new venture of navigating a swollen river, I became aware of the need to find a safe place to land the skiff and make a camp for the night.

I was well stocked with provisions and shelter to camp out under the stars. The stores of our chandlering company supplied everything I needed to “bunk down” in warm comfort, and with the weather being what it was in this late October, there was no need to break out the tarpaulin as a cover, but rather just to lay an oilskin tarp on the ground then to lay my swag on top. I also brought along a nice sized “Dutch oven” to knock up a pot of stew if I needed it, but since this was the early days of my venture, I had no need to go to such trouble as I had plentiful supply of cured meats and cheeses and other delights that I had purchased from the Italian delicatessen a few doors down from the store in Port Adelaide..The owner was a cheerful Italian from the North of Italy who had come to the province with his young bride in the late part of last century..He opened the shop and stocked it with smallgoods prepared and cured by himself and his hard-working wife in their home behind the shop. Hams, bacons, salamis and so many other unpronounceable eateries that I had wrapped in clean, new muslin and made ample use of for the stores of my venture. Cesarino Serafino, for that was his name, also took interest in my skiff when I was building it out the back of the company store..so much so that I did name it after his compliment for the finished job…

“Ah!..signore Ambrose…Questa e’ una bellisssima barca!” he exclaimed on first inspection of the polished and as yet unused craft..” and may you have many good journeys in her…” and he ran his hand along the gunwale in a gentle caress..” E’ una fine craft..” and he looked to me, eyes bright with genuine enthusiasm..” May she bring you buona fortuna!”…and so I named her after that last comment..”Good Fortune”.

I found a good place to pull the skiff ashore and tie it to a sapling. I had set up my swag for the night, lit a small fire to boil the billy and had settled down on one side in quiet rest and was chewing away on one of Cesarino’s delicious salamis along with bread and cheese…a bottle of red wine lay next to my elbow ready to be opened when out of the distant low scrub I saw a stockman come riding toward me…He approached at a casual walk of the horse and greeted me with a polite..

“Would you mind if I share your camp and company for the night?”..and so I welcomed John Esau to my camp.

(To be continued).