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September 2011 Tattler.pdf - Platypus Country

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Remembering our past—Martins Creek<br />

The Local Rag 38 (May 1982) published an article by Marg<br />

Quinn (Quinnethe) which told the story of the lively days of<br />

Martin‟s Creek, where now there is little to meet the eye.<br />

When Peter Jensen, a Dane, travelled to Martins Creek<br />

with his fellow countryman Henry Gangelhoff in 1890,<br />

he believed that a railway line would go through there,<br />

connecting Orbost and Bombala. In fact, the proposed<br />

railway was surveyed three times. So he took up his<br />

selection there, beginning work on the day of arrival, to<br />

clear enough space among the dense wattles to put up<br />

a tent. The track they rode to get there had been<br />

blazed about 1878 by Hamilton Reed and C.W.<br />

Nicholson during a trip to Orbost which took them four<br />

days. Around the time that Jensen moved to Martins<br />

Creek, a twice weekly mail run was established<br />

between Orbost and Delegate. The first hut built by<br />

Jensen and Gangelhoff was destroyed almost<br />

immediately by a falling tree and they had to start all<br />

over again. Later Peter built a four-roomed house, all<br />

the timber coming from one big white gum.<br />

In 1983, Peter married Sophie Gangelhoff who he had<br />

met at Colac. Although she had never been on a horse,<br />

she was hoisted up at Orbost Station for the long ride<br />

to Martins Creek. This took two days, with an overnight<br />

stop at the Beveridges at Sardine Creek. On arrival at<br />

Martins Creek, she had to adjust to cooking over the<br />

fire in a camp oven and washing a little at a time in a<br />

four gallon kerosene tin. To keep the house supplied,<br />

Peter rode to Orbost leading a packhorse and returned<br />

on foot with both horses loaded.<br />

The Jensens cleared an area around the house and in<br />

1896, Sophie gave birth to daughter Louise in Orbost.<br />

The bush was so dense and the bracken so high that<br />

Sophie‘s main concern was that the little girl would get<br />

lost when she started walking. To keep track of her<br />

movements, she tied a sheep bell around Louise‘s<br />

neck, which could be heard a mile away.<br />

After the track was made, the Jensens extended the<br />

house, adding rooms and a bar, and got a licence for<br />

what became the Danebo Hotel which flew the Danish<br />

flag. Peter made the barrels too. Life now became<br />

frantically busy as travellers and drovers broke their<br />

two day trip between Delegate and Orbost by staying<br />

overnight at the hotel. There were many drovers and<br />

bullockies who couldn‘t afford to stay the night; they ate<br />

at the hotel and camped out.<br />

Days began early to do all the work. The fires had to be<br />

lit, the cows milked, the bread baked and meat cut off<br />

the carcasses in the cool room before the guests had<br />

breakfast. After guests departed, rooms had to be<br />

cleaned, beds changed, cheese and butter made, the<br />

bar cleaned up and the evening meal prepared, all<br />

before the arrival of the next round of guests. Each<br />

day‘s potatoes were peeled the night before, behind the<br />

bar, between customers—a bucket full a day! There<br />

was also the washing, which was done in a laundry<br />

built onto the back of the hotel, the water coming down<br />

a hand cut water race which went three-quarters of a<br />

mile into the bush. This needed constant maintenance to<br />

clear fallen leaves and bark and plug up the holes dug<br />

by crabs.<br />

When Louise was about five years old, a second child<br />

was born, a sickly, fretful baby which Sophie had to carry<br />

around while coping with all the other demands of her<br />

life. There were also many trips to the doctor in Orbost<br />

so, in 1906, Sophie hired a 13 year old girl to help. The<br />

little girl became Mrs Jane Auger of Frankston, who<br />

Marg interviewed in compiling this article.<br />

Jane ran the household, including skinning and cutting<br />

up the ration sheep, while Sophie Jensen was away with<br />

the sick child, who died before the age of four. Her work<br />

continued when the third child, Sophie (Malinn) was<br />

born—all for a shilling a week and her keep for nearly<br />

two years.<br />

Louise, who was capable of running the house, far<br />

preferred to work outside with the cattle and horses and<br />

did so whenever she could be spared. She broke the<br />

horses in and shod them and helped to muster the<br />

cattle.<br />

Large mobs of cattle and sheep passed through Martins<br />

Creek heading from the Monaro to Warragul. Flocks of<br />

turkey were enticed down the road by one person<br />

scattering handfuls of grain in front of them. At dusk the<br />

turkeys would fly up and roost in the trees and their<br />

drovers make camp. At dawn when the turkeys<br />

descended, the journey would recommence. Pigs were<br />

trained to follow a cart filled with feed—although there<br />

were breakaways.<br />

Swaggies were a common sight on the road, usually<br />

travelling in small groups. Indian hawkers travelled<br />

through with their wares in carts or saddlebags. Sophie<br />

remembered one of these hawkers pulling a knife on her<br />

mother in the bar after she refused to give him more to<br />

drink. ―Me kill you,‖ he said, holding the knife to her<br />

throat. ―Well kill me then,‖ said Sophie‘s mother, and the<br />

hawker put the knife back in his pocket and walked off.<br />

Peter was away, working on the roads, at the time.<br />

Sophie attended school by correspondence, hard<br />

enough for most children but doubly so for a child whose<br />

parents were unfamiliar with English. The teacher during<br />

the first six years was kind and helpful, explaining things<br />

clearly. But in seventh year, the teacher was more<br />

demanding and intolerant. Sophie said, ―If a blot of ink<br />

dropped on the page, the first teacher would comment,<br />

‗What a pity you spoiled your work‘ while the second<br />

would just write ‗Dirty work!‘‖ Discouraged by this,<br />

Sophie gave up and did her learning alone. A lesson for<br />

other teachers perhaps?

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