Coach from Traralgon to Sale

Trolling through Trove, as one does, I came across the tale of a coach trip from Traralgon to Yarram in 1880. It was in the Gippsland Times of Monday February 28, 1887, and I admit that I spent longer than I should have reading the rest of that newspaper.

The issue was written in the rather verbose language of the times but the editor was obviously a man of some wit. I enjoyed the experience rather more than the riders of that first coach would have enjoyed their trip.

I’ll get to that, but bear in mind as you read this that comfortable buses, or perhaps I should say ‘coaches of the modern kind’, now make the same journey in about an hour, at a cost of two or three dollars a head.

In the late 1880s railways were being built at a great rate (Melbourne to Sale in 1879, to Mirboo North in 1886, to Thorpdale 1888, to Alberton and to Port Albert 1892.

There was a line into Gippsland and a line to the south coast but people in the Latrobe Valley wanted a link directly to the good country south of the Strzelecki Ranges, and they did not want to go round through Sale or Rosedale.

On Wednesday February, 23 1887 a virtual convoy left Traralgon to show that a good coach road could be built across the hills if one went far enough east to avoid the steep wall of the north side of the Strzeleckis. There was a four-horse coach with Jack Clues as ‘pilot’, a buggy driven by a Mr Whittaker and several horsemen. There were at least 12 men in the party. Beside Clues and Whittaker were, according to the Times, Messrs Hickox Mackay, Marriage, McLean. Mill, Nelson, Orr, Whitney and Wilkes. Public interest was enough to ensure much clapping and cheering as they set out.

They travelled out to Loy Yang, Upper Flynn’s Creek, Willung South, Carrajung and Won Wron, so it was not a simple up and over route but a slightly roundabout way to miss the steepest country.

The party had “a nice lunch” at Willung South, where a small crowd had gathered to meet them. This lunch was provided by Mr McNaughton, who rode part of the way with the party.

They then had another nice lunch at Carrajung. “Mr D.G. Clarke, the tanner, of Richmond, who has an area of 1500 acres, had a princely luncheon awaiting. He had a booth erected and in this a most sumptuous repast was laid out…” There was a vote of thanks and in reply Mr Clarke expressed the hope that a line of coaches would soon use the route.

Understand that communication in this part of the world was limited, difficult and often expensive. Mails were slow, produce could not be transported cheaply and there was a wish for greater social connection. Transport issues largely shaped the settlement of Gippsland.

“More hospitality” was enjoyed at Greenwell and Sons store. George Greenwell had been one of the speakers at Carrajung. He laid on something called “smoking entertainment”, which could have a number of meanings but was unexplained.

“Messrs Biggs, Boyle, Greenwell, Clarke and about twenty others accompanied the party some distance along the road”, where they were handed over to an escort of Messrs Morris, Logan, West and Sweeney, out of Yarram. There was entertainment at both the Yarram hotels and much celebration. The expedition had reached Yarram in six hours and twenty seven minutes, arriving at about seven in the evening – I’m fairly sure that included the time spent at lunches and entertainments along the way. it all sounds as if a good time was had by all.

The next morning they went on to Port Albert where “hospitality was meted out on as liberal a scale as at the other places. They came back to Yarram that evening for a public meeting. The speakers all agreed, of course, that while a railway between Traralgon and Yarram, or even Port Albert, was neither likely nor practicable, a good coach service was possible and was very much needed. “The road passed yesterday, with a net expenditure of fifty pounds could be made a firstrate one…”

Co-operation between the Traralgonese (the newspaper’s term, not mine) and the Southerners to set up a deputation to the responsible Minister for government assistance was called for, but this altered to a vote to have the Traralgon team set up a deputation with power to represent Yarram.

The return journey again included celebrations at Carrajung but the party eventually made it home in one piece and soon after a deputation, of Messrs Clark, Peterkin. Campbell, Hickox, Marriage, Mitchell and Nelson, was formed to wait upon the Postmaster-General to seek a mail service between Traralgon and Yarram, and to Walhalla.

It might seem strange that all the parties did not agree that the coaches should run south from the Mirboo North railhead, which might have been a little steeper but would have been much shorter, but the coming of a regular mail coach service would not only make life easier but would make many businesses far more profitable.

The railways were even more effective at this. The result was a huge level of competition between localities to be served with railways, or where that was clearly not possible, served with regular coaching routes.

There had already been mail coaches running from Melbourne to Sale before the railways replaced them, and from 1882 there were mail coaches running between Port Albert and Sale. This last was still ‘the long way round’ for people from Yarram Yarram, as it was then called.

I don’t know how the deputation fared but in 1929 the good old Weekly Times was including a series of stories about rural history and mentioned the first mail coach from Traralgon to Yarram in September 1887, so it might well have been a reasonably worthwhile trip to Melbourne for the Traralgon men – though the service ran from Rosedale.

The Weekly Times published this report on November, 30 1929, suggesting that the locals still liked a good celebration. “Charge of gunpowder rammed into a hole in a stump exploded. Union Jack fluttered from a pole fixed in another stump: success drunk at intervals along the route; coach passed under a triumphal arch at Clancy’s; champagne opened at Greenwell’s Store; coach christened by bottle of wine broken on the wheel by Mrs Greenwell; horses bolted and wheel collapsed”.

That all sounds as if everyone had a good time, just as they did when Clue brought the trial run to Yarram in February. One can only imagine the tales that were told around the fire after that day. The ‘northerners’, or we might again call them ‘Traralgonese’ did not quite get what they wanted, but they went close. Rosedale is not all that far from Traralgon, unless one walks it.