A Backblocker's Pleasure Trip

Most of those people who lived where only an occasional bogey in a waterhole or tank could be indulged in were fair swimmers. In that region the ability to swim might seem an unnecessary accomplishment; but there were times when dwellers and travellers there found themselves surrounded by miles of water, from which the only possible way of escape was by alternately wading and swimming. Travellers were often caught by sudden floods, and if they were in a low position they had to swim to higher ground, which might be far enough away to occupy them the best part of a day. Trees afforded them rest, and not infrequently they were forced to spend a night in one. A person who was unable to swim might be imprisoned on a small island for days or weeks. Besides being faced with starvation, he had the unwelcome company of innumerable insects and reptiles that sought refuge there from the flood.

In those parts floods were usually crossed on horseback. Men who could not swim did not hesitate to put their horses into fairly wide streams. Women and girls also crossed flooded creeks in this way. Drovers in wet weather were frequently intercepted by floods, through which they had to swim, and stockmen when mustering on some runs, especially when shifting stock in rainy seasons, had much swimming to do. A good waterman, when the water was wide and the current strong, would slip out of the saddle and hang on either by the horse's main or by its tail to give the animal a better chance. There were times also when the traveller, on turning out in the morning, found his horses cut off from his camp by a wide stretch of deep water, and if he was unable to swim he had to run the risk of losing them altogether.