Old Possum with Alan Carthew's Renmark River Cruises: In the Riverland Region of South Australia
As we headed out from the Renmark wharf and looked back to the town's rather grand community hotel, it's seemed almost inconceivable that just a few kilometres upstream, one bloke could escape civilisation for more than half a century.
To track down the tale of the backwater hermit, we enlisted the help of local tour operator Alan Carthew. But on our search for one river legend it wasn’t long before we came across another - The Argo Barge. According to Alan, it used to slice through the Murray waters behind the paddlesteamer, PS Industry.
“The barges were equivalent to today’s semi-trailers,” Alan told us. “They'd trail behind the barges full of cargo. This one is actually a works barge so it didn't carry cargo. It had a couple of repair sheds on top and pumps and so on and they'd use it for maintenance of the locks and weirs and for pulling snags out in conjunction with the Paddlesteamer Industry.”
The Argo Barge is now being restored on the banks of Ral Ral Creek, an anabranch of the Murray. Ral Ral takes us into a winding maze of islands, lagoons and narrow creeks and soon we turned into The Bulyong. With its abundance of birdlife it was hard to imagine that we were a mere five kilometres from Renmark - as the wood duck flies.
Alan was certainly right about the wildlife. He pointed out plenty of wood ducks, mallards, mountain ducks, shell ducks and countless Ibis. “Those big white birds are Ibis and they're one of the birds that feed in the shallows. They feed on the insects in the soft soils by pushing their big long black beak into the soil.”
Alan said a lot of people ask him why he doesn’t use a bigger boat on his tours but it’s not long before we can see why he doesn’t. Soon the waterways narrowed to become a tiny reed-lined creek before fanning out into yet another billabong.
“It might look like hard dirt that you could run across but if you try to walk out there you're in about six inches of water and three feet of mud.”
A carpet of azolla or "duck weed" as it's known locally - covers so many of the Murray backwaters. It adds an aura of mystery to the quiet waters which double back on themselves in a confusing labyrinth, which, for a time, offered the perfect place for one, troubled soul to hide.
David James Jones, an eccentric bushie known as ‘Possum’, lived out here as a hermit for more than fifty years. Sometimes the local landowners would catch a fleeting glimpse of a bloke in the bush but for many years they didn't know who he was or where he'd come from. That was until station owners and a local copper named Max Jones became intrigued with the story of old Possum and though some bush detective work were able to put a story to a well worn face.
A little further on and Alan pointed out a likely hiding place on the bank. “He would camp in places like because it's not obvious from the river. Not that there were too many people on the river in those days anyway.”
David James Jones came to this part of Australia just prior to the Depression as a non-union shearer from New Zealand.
“At the time he didn't have a shearer's ticket so he couldn't get a job. Nobody would employ and because he couldn't get a job he couldn't get money to buy a ticket either. So it was a never-ending cycle. He eventually decided to shun society entirely and he lived along the river basically between Renmark and Mildura for about fifty years.
“The station owners would find things done. They'd come out and find that the sheep had been crutched, the fences repaired or their wood had been cut... but none of their staff had done it.”
Sometimes he'd be spotted up a tree in search of bush tucker and so the name Possum stuck. Over the years, Possum came to know the River Murray better than anyone:
“He has been reported as saying ‘Oh where have you been? Oh I've for a walk down to the Murray mouth.’ That's six hundred odd kilometres from here. Or another time, ‘I've been up to Burke this time and I've had a look around up there.’ Well that's another six hundred the other way. So he was obviously a good walker.
We wondered how he survived for fifty years on his own - how he stayed healthy and fought off sickness.
“Everything was fixed by salt - if you had an infection you rubbed salt on it, a broken arm you rubbed salt on it. That's what he wanted the salt for - it wasn’t for cooking it was for keeping himself healthy apparently.”
Old Possum must have been doing something right because he lived in the beautiful backwater country of the Murray for much of his life.
“People would come looking for him and they'd say ‘Oh look, that must be Possum over there,’ They’d look away and when they’d look back he'd be gone.”
His body was finally found at a bush camp off the main river in 1982 and his remarkable story has been a lasting legacy in the backwaters of the Murray ever since
If you want to follow in the footsteps of Possum join one of Alan Carthew's Renmark River Cruises. Tours depart Renmark Wharf. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au
