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Isolated marker where in 1864 bushranger Frank Gardiner was dramatically arrested.
Back from following and filming the Queensland trail of the audacious bushranger Frank Gardiner , who organised colonial Australia's largest gold escort robbery and was exiled after serving 10 years of a 32 year sentence in Sydney , is Gary Hunn , with a swag of interesting information.
Over a drop of red consumed from glasses from a Napa Valley winery , souvenirs of a trip he made to America , Gary described how he and two sons , Jesse and Kelly , recently travelled to Apis Creek, 150 kms north of Rockhampton, to the site where Gardiner, a wanted man with a 1000 pound reward on his head , was arrested by New South Wales police .
[See previous Little Darwin post Dramatic Arrest of Notorious Bushranger and Terrible Death of Runaway Kitty , November 4, 2015.]
Today Apis Creek Station , outside the township of Marlborough , is a 50,000 acre world renowned brahman stud . The owners, Tim and Lynette Olive, kindly arranged for a guide to the site and allowed them to stay two days filming and exploring the area.
Tim Olive's uncle , in his capacity as the local shire chairman , in the 1970s unveiled the marker for the Rockhampton Historical Society . It states this is the site of the combined store and hotel where Gardiner, going under the alias Francis Christie , was arrested.
Stone flooring is visible as is a large bottle dump containing many smashed rum and whisky bottles . Apis Creek was one of the main stops along the way from Rockhampton to the Peak Downs gold and copper field in the l860s and hundreds of people travelling on foot , in carts , wagons and coaches daily passed the store and hotel , presenting Gardiner and Kitty Brown , his "paramour", with much honest money .
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Gary Hunn with sons Jesse and Kelly at Apis Creek camp.
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Camped out on the site for two nights , Gary said it was disconcerting to see the large number of spiders with eyes that glowed in the dark .With the help of old maps and advice from Tim Olive who gets about the property in a helicopter , they went to the original location of Marlborough following still visible Cobb and Co. stagecoach tracks , old horse holding yards there .
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On way to Marlborough , Mount Gardiner in the distance .
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After being arrested at Apis Creek , Gardiner was handcuffed, his feet tied underneath a horse, guarded by four armed law officers , and taken to Marlborough, where the party, which included Kitty and Darkie, a stolen racehorse , spent the night before going on to Rockhampton.
In Rockhampton, the site of the lock up, where Gardiner was lodged, now the Rockhampton Bowls Club , next to the Fitzroy River , was filmed. Kitty was also locked up there but later released.
As Gary described the trip at his Magnetic Island home, he presented this blogger with a piece of a broken bottle from Apis Creek , which now rests with a display of old Australian and New Zealand pub soda siphon bottles .
In another surprise, Gary produced the above book by Craig Landy and Shirley Marr, who acted as their guides at Apis Creek , which is about their five year, 5000 kilometre trek in a Gypsy wagon and on packhorses along the Australian Bicentennial National Trail from Cooktown in far North Queensland to Healesville in Victoria . Craig works for Tim Olive and lives on a nearby property .
In the foreword, Shirley is described as being a bit more articulate as she migrated from England as a young girl, became a successful dress designer and did a fine arts course, a hippie at heart . In the case of Craig , his credentials are shearer, drover, horse breaker, cattle musterer, fencer , jack of all trades , a master of none sort of guy .
Anyone interested in purchasing the unusual, well illustrated book or making contact can ring 0488 547 895 or email : shirley.marr@outlook.com.
At some stage in the near future, Little Darwin will run more fascinating information about Gardiner and other bushrangers resulting from Gary Hunn's extensive research .
