Early days at Spring Park, Thurgoona

Mr Bell is pictured (right) with daughter Sarah in his halcyon days at Spring Park.

Retired in Albury for 10 years, Jim Bell (79) tells of the impacts in days gone by in the area where Eight Mile Creek and Bells Reserve are being developed by parklands Albury-Wodonga and others.

Grandfather bought Spring Park in 1854. The family owned it until 1987 when the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation bought some of the land.

Spring Creek has mainly the Eight Mile Creek running through it. The Nine Mile Creek ran through the Table Top Station which was bought by my uncle.

There was fire along the railway line in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Another big fire went through there at the end of the 1800s. It started at Corowa and burned to Tumbarumba. Bowna village was saved by, of all things, Paterson's Curse.

Eucalypts at Spring Creek grew to 30 and 40 feet high: apple box, stringy bark, redgum, and red, yellow, white and grey box. Along the creek, which was the main water supply for the homestead and stock, big trees would fall into the creek and cause natural water holes. Very deep and very cold.

Litter would collect against these fallen trees and new water holes would be made. These fallen trees were burned because rabbits lived and bred in the hollow trunks. There were many native black fish and a boy called Jim used to catch them with a safety pin and a fly.

The rabbit plague had disastrous consequences for the life of the Eight and Nine Mile. Rabbits had big warrens under the trees and the only way to get rid of them was to burn them out, so trees were set alight. With the loss of these trees the creek began to silt up. The creek once had clear water and there was an abundance of wildlife including kangaroo rats, native cats (eastern quoll), wallaby rats and water rats.

A long the yellow box there were rosella parrots, sugar gliders, possums, honeyeaters. There were little hawks, top-notch pigeons and curlews. There was always a mob of curlews on the reserve. Jimmy, a cook, was caught shooting the curlews. Little birds called 12 apostles were abundant in shrubs and nested everywhere.

The rabbits continued their destruction. Grain was poisoned with strycnine and 5000 dead rabbits were picked up one morning in a 300-acre paddock. Between 15,000 and 20,000 rabbits were poisoned on the property during the drought.

Poisoning had disastrous effects on the wildlife. All the water rats and birds of prey disappeared and the seed-eating birds were all poisoned or moved away. The kangaroo rats, wallaby rats, goannas and possums were gone. No topnotch pigeons. The mob of curlews that were always on the reserve disappeared in the 1950s.

In 1950, 300 acres could not sustain 100 sheep. It took three years for native grasses to return and then they ran 800 to 1000 sheep on the same acreage. After the war the family paid men to dig out every rabbit burrow. The saviour was the Fergie tractor, which had a harrow for ripping up ground. With the tractor and three or four dogs it took four to five years to get rid of them.

Dad died in 1949 and during the 1950s we had to pay probate so the remaining old trees on Spring Park were sold.

Those trees were huge: four to five feet across. There was always green under and around them because there was shade in summer and there were no frosts under them in winter.