A Backblocker's Pleasure Trip

There are many lonely lives spent in the back country; none more so than those of the mail-change groom, the shepherd, the hut-keeper, road-mender, boundary-rider, prospector, and the mounted police stationed alone on the outposts of civilisation. In some such cases the billets are chosen by men who have a predilection for a hatter's existence; but the majority are forced by necessity to take them. The prospector is drawn into the wildest parts by the charm of fortune. There he lives in a world of his own, with the environment of the savage. He comes into town once a month, or once in three months, to sell his gleanings and to obtain fresh supplies. Between times no one may know anything of his whereabouts, for the veteran prospector doesn't want the locale of his operation made public.

The post of the mail-change groom is about the least lonely of the lot. His home is a small hut or tent by the roadside; his only companions a dog and the coach horses. The horses run in the open bush, and his work is to look after them, groom and feed them, and have them ready in the sapling yard when the coach arrives. At half the places it arrives during the night time. He helps with the changing, afterwards rubbing down the sweat-covered animals that have been left. The coach passes once or twice a week, staying only just long enough to change the horses. Between times a traveller may call while passing along the road, and is generally welcome to a night's rest there. It is the groom’s only chance of a yarn. The rouseabout gives him the news from up and down the road, and he is a greedy man for news, too.