Getting about in the last century.

Today its an easy matter to take a run into Ballarat or down to Geelong. Cars, Motorcycles, Trains, Buses even the bicycle allow us to travel distances easily and comfortably. In some future edition of the Buninyong and District Community News we will bring you some information on how the early settlers came to Buninyong, but for this issue we will look at the township of Buninyong and how people travelled, and also what tradesmen and contractors used for transportation.

First, in the period prior to the turn of the century the most popular form of transport was often called Shank’s Pony - walking. To travel anywhere for most people was to walk. People living out of town would need to walk to fetch the groceries, the meat, and to visit the Doctor. Some trades people would deliver the goods, but generally people walked into town and back home again. Ballarat being 7 Miles (11 k’s) from Buninyong often meant that if they had business to carry out in Ballarat it would be a walk there and back. Those with a load might have pushed a wheel barrow or pulled a hand cart to carry their goods or belongings.

Up the scale of transportation was the horse. A horse allowed the rider a certain amount of freedom. This freedom allowed the traveller to journey to Ballarat in an hour or two or even Geelong in a day. The goods able to be carried on the horse was limited. Next up the scale was the horse and cart. Goods could be carried and more than one person could make the trip.

Those more fortunate had a buggy. Just as the horse and cart were the standard family sedan of today, the buggy was a high performance vehicle. With narrow wheels, fine spokes and a light-weight construction the buggy was the roadster. The finer vehicle was the carriage - the limousine of today. Used by the wealthy the carriage was the ultimate form of transport.

Commercially, the mainstay or semitrailer of today was the bullock wagon. The slow and purposeful team would haul goods from Geelong to Buninyong and on to Ballarat. Records show us that in the winter the trip of a fully laden wagon hauled by bullocks could take three weeks because the drivers and operators found themselves constantly bogged, and at times they needed to cut saplings to lay on the roadway to allow the wagon to move. The heavy utility was the horse drawn wagon and the lighter vehicle was the dray. The flat top wagon was often called the lorry.

Around Buninyong township the dray would have been a common vehicle. The coach was the bus of today and the Great Leviathan passed through Buninyong on its way to Geelong. The Great Leviathan carried up to 80 passengers. Coach’s also passed through Buninyong on their way to Portland and up country to the Pyrenees. The horse drawn cab was the local taxi. Passengers would be carried throughout the district in these four wheeled half timber and half canvas vehicles.

Roads were built by man power. Men using shovels, picks and other tools. Later in the last century sophisticated horse drawn vehicles were added to the councils equipment with horse drawn grading blades and tip drays making life easier and road construction quicker. Wool was carried from the farms to the markets in Geelong by huge wagons drawn either by horses or bullocks.

From 1889 the train service operated between Buninyong and Ballarat. Terminating at where the tennis courts now stand, the train allowed Buninyong residents to travel to Ballarat to join the Melbourne and Geelong trains. The passenger service ended in 1930 and goods traffic ended in 1947.

Funerals were conducted using either a respectable horse drawn wagon or a horse drawn hearse. Local deliveries made by the Butcher or Grocer used a trap or covered cart. The Police were mounted and needed to rush to the scene of the crime on horseback. The fire brigade advanced from the hand cart to the horse drawn appliance

The roads were wet and boggy in the winter and dry and dusty in the summer with bitumen being a more recent improvement. All of the horses, carts, wagons and vehicles needed the expertise of the blacksmith and wheelwright. Instead of the service and tune-up we give motor vehicles, the blacksmith would shoe the horses, mend the axles, grease the hubs, put iron tyres on the wheels, and repair the metal fastenings. The wheelwright would replace the spokes in the wheels, and repair wooden parts. Therefore, the blacksmith and wheelwright was the service station of today, and instead of mass production the carriage builders in local communities looked to the individual needs of their clients.

When the first settlers came to Buninyong back in 1838 they came with a dray and horses. Soon after the area was serviced with bullock wagons, after which came the people on foot and the drays and carts carrying miners to the Eldorado gold-fields of Buninyong, Ballarat, Clunes and beyond. Permanent settlement brought with it the cabbies, the hearses, the carriages and coaches. Then came the train which preceded the motor car.

Formal surveys were carried out to determine the layout of towns, but the streets on the survey were but lines upon a plan - it took residents to fulfill the dreams set down by the government of the day. Roads were dismal tracks often impassable during a severe winter, but, with the election and formation of a Road Board, drainage and road formation became a serious endeavour to improve transportation. Thus the passage of travel improved and distances became easier to traverse. The introduction of the road building techniques of Macadam saw the introduction of bitumen, tar and hot mix surfaces quickening the pace.

The adventure which took Ballarat residents to Buninyong for picnics lessened, the great excursion to Lal Lal for the races passed, and the drudge of walking and horse riding as means of travel gave way to the combustion engine. The early open bone shaking automobiles became more sophisticated - they became enclosed, more powerful, air conditioned and jammed full of technical wizardry. Perhaps we should not crave for the past modes of travel, especially in winter, but the advent of the motor car has cost us something; that which we have lost, is the sense of adventure and the excited expectation of travel.

Copyright. Robert W. Bell. 1997.