How did our bush pioneers transport their heavy-duty goods and equipment to the outback before the advent of goods trains and trucks and road trains? It is amazing how many young Australians in our coastal metropolises can’t answer this question nowadays. How quickly engine technology has made our pioneering heritage lost and forgotten!
In fact without the heavy-duty draught horses, especially the Clydesdales imported from Scotland in the 1820s, and without the slow-moving old bullock teams, remote rural Australia could never have been settled. Our traditional literature of course acknowledges our enormous debt to the bullock and horse teams. The colourful bullocky with his stock whip, cursing at his team and the images of the horse and bullock teams inching their painful way forwards along remote, dusty tracks, often pulling towering loads of wool bales or wheat bags, have been immortalized by Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson and Joseph Furphy. There were also the horse teams that ploughed the plains of the wheat belt, the camels that carried everything through the deserts of the inland, the drovers’ horses that walked the stock routes before the arrival of road trains, and the half a million remount horses known as 'Walers' that were mostly exported to the British army in India.
This book by Malcolm Kennedy is the first book to explore in detail the vital roles played by our beasts of burden in the development of outback Australia. Kennedy begins with vivid portraits of the arrival of the first horses and cattle. He traces the routes and the incredible exploits of our early drovers, he explains the different kinds of wagons, drays and table-tops, he investigates the art of horse-breeding and he reveals how the horse was such a potent weapon in the undeclared war against Aborigines. He even discusses the pollution problems of horse-powered cities where over 200 tons of manure had to be cleaned up every day!
Contents:
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. A Good Stock of Cattle
2. The Power of the Teams
3. Wagons, Drays and Table-Tops
4. Conquering the Teams
5. Exploration and Pastoral Settlement
6. The Art and Science of Horse Breeding
7. Moving the Mobs
8. Loads, Roads and Rivers
9. The Export of Fine Stock
10. Horse-Power Cities
Epilogue
Abbreviations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Review:An excellent reference work, painstakingly researched and impressively detailed. Hauling the Loads is a most valuable addition to our knowledge of transportation in Australia before the advent of the car and the truck. Very readable too: Kennedy has the Blainey touch. - R.M. Williams
