Three Sheets to the Wind by Adam Courtenay

Author:Adam Courtenay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC Books
Published: 2022-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

A Lesson in Country

THE SEVENTEEN WERE beginning to feel they had crossed a diplomatic Rubicon. They were at the lower south end of a much larger nation known as the Yuin, which included the Thaua people, whose lands would be followed – as the travellers progressed – by those of the Djiringanj, Brinja, Walbanga and Wandandian clans. Each clan spoke a dialect of the same language and had strong intertribal associations. While the Thaua country extended roughly to present-day Eden, the Yuin nation covered parts of the New South Wales hinterland and stretched all the way up the coast to the Shoalhaven River past Nowra.

It’s clear the Thaua were anxious for the strangers to move on into a neighbouring people’s country. The local men took them across the picturesque Nullica Bay, one half of Twofold Bay (Turembulerrer) – a serene stretch of the coast. These bays are the heart of Thaua country, where later colonists from about the 1840s onwards would harness the expertise of local men to hunt down whales.

Clark and his men would have passed by the great road which extended from Twofold Bay to Mount Kosciuszko, known by both Indigenous and later colonists as the Bundian Way. The local people would assemble at the bay during the spring whale migration and likewise travel inland to partake of the nourishing bogong moths that hatched in the mountains during the summer. The Bundian Way would eventually become a path for colonists who would use it to move stock to fresh pastures.

But this was not the way for the seventeen, who were finding it relatively easy walking across the twin crescents, after which they passed behind a headland to reach the Pambula River, a pristine estuary blessed with great swathes of oyster-producing rock shelves. The Thaua came upon them again, providing a meal of shellfish. Again, Clark seemed taken aback that they were being received in a ‘very amicable manner’.

They came to the southern headland of Pambula Beach, which begins with shale-like rocks and then sweeps in a broad, east-facing arc of sand towards the low-lying Merimbula Inlet. Clark was also impressed by the jewels of Thaua country: ‘We passed through a very pleasant country, whose delightful verdure, strewed with a variety of flowers, rendered a walk of 20 miles this day extremely agreeable.’

It seems his enjoyment of the land was growing in tandem with his admiration for the generous hosts. Clark’s newfound ‘friends’ were not just taking the travellers over country, but they were also showing them how to use it. The men were being told where the best havens for shellfish might be, as well as where to find edible plants. Clark reported fishing in lakes and rivers almost certainly after the locals showed the men which fish to catch and how to get them. The locals may have even offered the foreigners some form of fishing equipment.

This brings in the possibility that Clark and his entourage were shown the numerous fish and eel traps that were extensively used along rivers and estuaries.

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