Yesterday, and now today

Let’s go back to a late afternoon in 1986 and the change of season has started. The temperatures are neither too hot or too cold. The skies are a light almost misty blue with some high streaky and wispy clouds. To the east a band of approaching darkness sits on the horizon. Long shadows are stretching over the brown dusty ground. The sun is about four fingers above the western horizon. It’s been a long while since it rained.

It happens to be a Wednesday and a collection of locals have assembled outside the Yaraka Store. Many of them have arrived after driving from their properties ranging from twenty to sixty odd kilometres away. The vehicles they arrived in are parked in the centre of the wide dirt road opposite the shop and are exclusively Toyotas, being a mixture of wagons and tray backs.

Years earlier there were no Toyotas. Land rovers were the main mode of transport. But Land Rover were out manoeuvred by Toyota. Toyota recognised that the availability of spare parts strategically placed with the new breed of outlets, the Toyota dealerships, around the nation, was the major requirement for success. Toyota won. Land Rover lost.

Lying under the Toyotas are a couple of dogs secured by a chain or rope to prevent them joining the group of children who are using the excitement of the once a week get together to release their pent – up energy. The games they play are physical games which involve running thereby creating miniature dust explosions when their feet hit the ground. The children are playing hide and seek between the vehicles which excites the dogs who strain on their leashes with the occasional excited yelp.

A group of men stand on the dirt road outside the store in a semi-circle watching the man squatting on his heel with his wide brimmed hat pushed back from his forehead as he uses a stick to draw in the dirt. The map that is being created shows the Barcoo river snaking through various properties and also the property boundaries. The discussion is about the Stock Route and just exactly where it goes; there are a number of opinions being voiced. A voice of authority from one of those standing disagrees with one aspect of the ground map and is offered the stick from the squatting man. The new authority squats down beside the other and sitting on one heel of his work boot uses the stick to create a few new lines in the dirt and the discussions continue.

The women are standing in the shade of the shop veranda. Watchful eyes on the children playing combined with discussions and talk over the last week’s events and other interesting topics make it a relaxed and harmonious setting with smiles and laughter.

Sheep are the mainstay for Yaraka and the Yaraka Store is a Combined Rural Trader (CRT) outlet. It’s well stocked with just about everything the grazier needs and the everyday essential needs.

The store is the popular meeting place each Wednesday as the assembled group wait for the weekly train to arrive. When the train does arrive, it will be bringing in the merchandise and the mail. The cold wagon holds the refrigerated goods which are mostly for the store so that it can restock its fridges and deep freezers. A few people have ordered fruit and vegetables from Rockhampton and their orders are also in the cold wagon.

The other wagons are mostly empty on arrival but on the way back to Rockhampton the train will stop at the Konupa junction to load wool bales and there will be enough double stacked bales to fill six wagons.

The wagon behind the cold room holds the other merchandise that has been ordered; bales of wool packs, a few large rolls of black poly pipe and bundles of steel fence posts and other general goods.

However, when it does arrive, the first priority of the unloading process is the mail bag which will be passed over to James from the Guards wagon as soon as the train wheels squeak to a stop. James will immediately take it over to the store and give it to Mary the Post Mistress, who unlocks the bag and starts the mail sorting process. James and Mary own the store and the post office and manual phone exchange.

This is another reason why the crowd congregate outside the store – to collect their mail.

A faint whistle is heard in the distance and some in the crowd cock their ears and look out toward where the rail lines glisten in the slanting sunlight to make sure their ears did not deceive them. The first sign of the train is the big glowing headlight mounted on the front of the diesel motor; it defies the sunlight by shining brightly. As the light gets closer the steady beat of the diesel motor can be heard together with the squeaking of the wagon wheels on the rail lines.

The train is now in full view from the shop and the Guard can be seen standing on the rear railed mini platform of the Guard wagon with the mail bag in his hand. The assembled group leave the store and walk over to the railway station building with calls going out to the children to ‘get back here, don’t go near that train.’

The two wagons in front of the Guards are passenger wagons. They have carried people from Rockhampton and dropped them off at their destinations along the track. It’s unusual for any passengers to be on board by the time it arrives in Yaraka but today there are two heads looking out of the window of the first passenger wagon. Passengers to Yaraka are not accidental trippers. They are either railway enthusiasts’ who can now take Yaraka off their bucket list or it could be people who take the trip because they have the time and interest to do such a thing. The two passengers and the train driver and guard will stay overnight at the Yaraka Hotel.

By the time the train has come to a complete grinding noisy clunking halt everyone has assembled outside the station building and the Station Master becomes a proper Station Master for the next twelve or so hours whilst the train is under his authority. He has paperwork to shuffle through and signatures to collect and make sure he has a pen that works.

The cold room is unloaded first and James has arrived back in a strange looking flatbed vehicle which is not really a truck and it’s not really a tray back but it serves the purpose of getting the cold room contents to the store. The activity over the next three quarters of an hour is quite intense. One of the passengers from the train is taking photographs of this activity. From the assembled crowd a loud voice yells ‘Hey James! You’re about to get photographed, suck your gut in!” It creates laughter and James smiles.

After the unloading is all done and the mail collected most people wander over to the hotel where the Wednesday night ritual continues over meals and drinks.

Wednesday night was the big social night in Yaraka back then.

And now, today. No train. No Store. No manual telephone exchange. No Post Office as it used to be; now it’s a Community Postal Agency open a few hours a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The road in the township is now sealed and from the old Yaraka store and past the hotel it is a double highway! There is a strip of dirt between the two sealed roads where the vehicle parking is but rarely used for dirt maps now.

The maps drawn in the dirt are now replaced by maps on mobile phones. The telephone wires attached to a variety of poles that ran from the manual exchange to the homesteads no longer exist but the beautiful soft number eight wire that communicated the good, the bad and the gossip was eagerly collected and rolled up for other uses.

Children now play on playground equipment with soft landing, coloured tiles approved by Work Place Health and Safety. A sealed road now replaces the rail line all the way from Blackall to Yaraka.

But Yaraka is still a place of peace and tranquillity with the beautiful Mesa Hills and their ever-changing shadows and colours.

Progress and cost cutting and efficiency have changed the dynamics of not just here but everywhere. Some of it we like and some we don’t.

But we still love Yaraka!

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by discomforts.” Arnold Bennett – English author 1867 – 1931