The Long Walk

It was a good thing that people could get what they needed close by. Travel was difficult. There is a story from the early days of settlement that shows how hardy people had to be. The story was about a widow who was left with many children to support. She had sold some beef to a ship’s captain from Scotland. He sailed away without paying her. She had counted on that money to raise her children. There was no mail service. Telephones were not invented yet. How could she get her money?

She decided to go to the nearest post office which was in Sydney, about 80 kilometres away. She walked from her house to the ferry which ran across Barra Strait. After taking the ferry she walked through the forest to East Bay and then on to Sydney. At the Sydney Post office the Postmaster wrote a letter to the Chief of Barra for her, telling what had happened. About four months later she returned to the Sydney post office, as the postmaster had told her to do. There she found a letter with her money and news that the dishonest captain had been arrested.

Crossing the Strait

The first transportation for settlers across the strait was provided by two men, each with a rowboat. By the mid 1800s, a ferry was in use. The ferry was a flat-bottomed scow with oars and sometimes a sail. It carried passengers, cattle, horses and buggies in clear weather.