Campbellville - Ghost City of the Sunshine Coast

2009-03-08T20:05:00.001-07:00

Our Favourite Sponsors:
Photos for Free - Fotoforfree is a free online photo gallery and photographer community. Download a range of pictures from many categories.
Coast Online - A free online community social networking notice board with online jobs, chat room, online galleries, dating, state and national parks and what's on events.
Sunshine Coast Directory - Sunshine Coast and Australian regional directory of website links and online services. Submit your business, not for profit or personal website.

2003-08-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Aboriginal Meaning of Caloundra
Suggested to be derived from an Aboriginal
word, Callanda, meaning beautiful.
Also suggested to mean Place of Beech
Trees, possibly due to, the fact that logs were
floated down Coochin Creek, to Campbell’s
Sawmill, situated at Campbellville, on
Coochin Creek 1880-1890.

2003-08-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

Campbellville Settlement & Cemetery
1966 Forestry employees discover the remains of the Campbellville Cemetery which operated between 1890-1893.
Roys Road Coochin Creek, Bribie Pumicestone Passage
James Campbell established a sawmill on the banks of Coochin
Creek in 1881 to mill timber from the Blackall Ranges. A settlement
grew up around the mill. The mill closed in 1890 when the railway
line reached Landsborough. The settlement was abandoned and
only remnants of the settlement and mill survive. The most
significant evidence of the settlement is the cemetery which contains
approximately nine graves.
Significance
Campbellville settlement is significant as evidence of the patterns of
timber exploitation in the district. The mill was located on the banks
of Coochin Creek to facilitate ease of transportation of the milled
timber. The remnants of the settlement are evidence of the rise and
decline associated with timber settlements.

2003-08-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

From the Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser,
Saturday, May 1, 1886:

There are many in Toowoomba who will remember P.G. Clancy, once
railway stationmaster, and a promising officer in the Railway Department.
His active habits and business capacity secured for him the appointment of
Station Master at Brisbane, the "blue ribbon" of the Railway Department.
When leaving Toowoomba he was presented with a magnificent gold watch and
appendages valued at (pounds sterling) 50, and his health was drunk in
bumpers of champagne. Unfortunately, like too many young men, he needed
ballast, he was not proof against the effects of sudden prosperity, he
yielded to the seductive influence of the cup, and the inevitable result
followed. He lost his situation, his character, everything in fact that
made life dear, and become an outcast from his home and family. The
following paragraph in Thursday's Courier records his sad end: -
"It is reported that the remains of a man were found in the bush near
Campbell and Son's sawmills at Coochin Creek. The body was identified as
that of Patrick Griffin Clancy, formerly railway
stationmaster at Toowoomba and Brisbane, also station auditor and pay
clerk, and who subsequently retired. Clancy is supposed to have left
Brisbane a few days ago in the steamer Mavis."

Inquest at Campbellville

In 1966 Forestry employees discovered a site containing 5 to 9 graves in
the Coochin Creek area. Folklore has it that a man named CLANCY was a schoolteacher
at Campbellville (Coochin Creek) in the saw milling days of the 1860's. It
was believed his weekends were spent at the Mooloolah pub on the old Gympie
Rd where he would forget it all. One Monday he didn't show up for work and
after searching for him he was found dead in the bush. It is said he had
become stuck in the branch of a tree whilst wending his way back and had
attempted to cut off his leg with his pocketknife. The townsfolk buried him
where they found him on the high creek bank and fenced the grave.

The truth is that CLANCY, first names Patrick Griffin, arrived at Coochin
Creek on the little paddle wheeler "Mavis" from Brisbane. George
Bartholemew the manager of Coochin Creek Sawmills in his disposition at the
Official Inquest on 27 April 1886 stated "about 6 or 7 weeks ago, a
man dressed in a grey tweed suit and helmet hat arrived here by the "Mavis" steamer
from Brisbane. I enquired who he was and was told he had come up for Joseph
McCarthy of the Blackall Range". Patrick Murphy a labourer at the sawmills
who had known Clancy since 1885 said in his disposition "I saw the body
now lying in the bush on the bank of Coochin Creek and by the clothes I identify
it as the body of Patrick Clancey (sic) who came here by the Mavis on Friday
about 6 or 7 weeks ago, I was talking to him on board the boat on that day,
I have known him since 1865, he was at my house between 7 and 8 o'clock the
same evening he arrived at the mill in company with the steward of the Mavis,
he told me that Joseph McCarthy of the Blackall Range put him on board the
steamer and that he was going up to McCarthy's place, and that he was to
send a horse to take him up, he left my place in company with the Steward
of the Steamer Richard Ormrod. Between 4 and 5 o'clock the next morning he
came to my place and asked the way to Mellum (Landsborough) and went away
again in the direction of the wharf. I saw nothing more of him after that.
He was sober but appeared to be suffering from heavy drinking". The
inquest of death stated that "his profession was unknown, that he was
wearing grey tweed sac coat and trousers, mock lace ES boots, about one mile
from Coochin Creek saw mills, date of death unknown, cause exhaustion".
The full text of the Inquest has been obtained by Lyn Bateman of Landsborough
Shire Historical Museum. A very interesting bizarre story from the past.

by: Bill Johnston Maleny

2003-07-26T00:24:00.000-07:00

WARNING - THIS TRANSCRIPT IS COMPLETELY UNEDITED AND IS PUBLISHED

AS RECEIVED. IT MAY OFFEND SOME VIEWERS AND SPELLING CONTESTANTS..

PASTORAL GUIDANCE IS RECOMMENDED

100103 1:56PM

the coochinese are a rabble. if ever i rouse myself from my

pondicherrian slumber, i will route the lot of them

----------------------------------------------

I hope you are using the american pronunciation here otherwise you will

suffer what is known as Cameleer Syndrome or the Coochin Complaint

----------------------------------------------------------

Cochin China was Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia.

The Coochinese originated in this area when beche-de-mer fishermen plied the

waters of Pumicestone Passage before the civilising influence of Pamphlett,

Finnegan & Parsons. They interbred with the Boozervillians & other CES clients

to produce their quaint physiognomy & culture.

You can still see faint evidence of their rice paddies - low earthen walls

capped with an encrustation of multi-hued but badly-weathered coprolite

nodules.

-----------------------------------------

i didnt know of Cochin china...

can we be sure no indian cochinese rolled into the pleasant waters of what

is now coochin creek?

who is Pamphlett Finnegan and Parsons?

i agree the coochinese are a miserable race overall. they make the beaker

people look like Vikings.

would find more civilisation in the Congo

-------------------------------------------

No we cannot. The indian cochinese, like the indian mynah, are renowned

wanderers. I spotted one on Mt Bartle Frere on my last climb - a furtive

dark-skinned chap dressed in a turban & loincloth (the latter garment being

used as a headpiece). Who knows what secrets lurk in the hidden folklore of

the coochinese?

Did you know "coochin" means jobstart-eligible CES client in the local Gubbi

Gubbi language?

You mustn't have attended school in Queensland. P F & P were convicts from

the Moreton Bay penal settlement who escaped to Bribie Island. They set up

the first School of Deportment for Young Ladies in Campbellville. In later

years they became forgetful and actually misplaced the said town.

-----------------------------------------

unbelievably complicated...

maybe only the Bridge Troll knows the full history of Coochin and

surrounds...

----------------------------------------

if 'coochin' means jobstart eligible

this establishes jobstart as a fundamental archetype of human [well at least

humanoid] experience.

little wonder it flourished round here

--------------------------------------------

as for P F and P i have never heard of them. maybe many of the hinterland

and bribie locals are descendants of their collective miscegenation with

wild beasts and natives of the region

---------------------------------------------

various projects come to mind in this new year which may require your input.

the decimation of the korean gunboats is likely to pacify the Maddock for

the time being so i will re-assign you to Admiral-at-Large to give more

flexibility in your duties. we need to develop the wilds of the Coochin

swamps for agriculture as just one example.

major ambrose

---------------------------------------

Wil has reverted to his Gabi-Gabi name of King Benjamin.

--------------------------------------

easy. in year zero, ie now, we can de-urbanise the Coochinese, liquidate any

intellectuals and commence the great agrarian leap forward.

----------------------------------------

you mean raze their mud huts?

and kill any who can read...

easy done.

------------------------------------------------------

You are treating this matter of your Coochinese kin rather flippantly

considering your nefarious connection to this clan of Pumicestone boat people.

In my newly-apponted role as Ambassador At Large,

I have travelled throughout my province, established dialogue with the Coochin

and the Gabi Gabi and have researched their sacred books.

I can now offer you these insights on this ancient race.

A Brief History of the Coochinese

Their legendary hero Bevan Barew who who pioneered the route

from Coochin Creek to the esplanade with his cuttlefish dagger

and promptly killed the nearest aboriginal by mastication.

This practice is now frowned upon by the more genteel sections of

Coochinese society due to less labour-intensive methods now being available,

but is believed to be to still indulged in by the more traditional afficionadoes of the pastime.

Tiny Toodles the Raddler. is The sole surviving raddler from the

heyday when they all made a fortune Iin the raddling revolution.

It was first discovered & put to practical use by Tiny's ancestor The Most Worshipful Jason Toodle.

What is a raddler you may ask? Well a raddler operates a

clever device known as a raddle. This consists of a sheet of masonite

or similar materail about 1 metre square. with a hole in one corner.

They are usually gaily decorated with the colours of the particular

Coochinese clan (NO, THE BOARD, NOT THE HOLE).

The only adaptation to modernity for this ancient artefact is a

length of polypropylene twine knotted through the afore-mentioned hole.

The raddle is operated by pulling it using the said twine.

This was rightfully regarded as the greatest technological achievement

of the Coochinese since their loss of the modus operandi of the wheel.

Jason Toodle hit upon the idea of using it to transport household goods

including firewood coal & payIng passengers between the various

residences at Coohin. The raddle boom lasted a few short years and

like all get rich quick schemes, only those who were in the start

profited by it.However to this day, their ancient raddles adorn the

mantelpieces of their humble abodes. They are used occasionally by

their spawnlings to float across Coochin Estuary to play with the elves

who live on the other side.

This seemingly inefficient means of transport is apparently well-suited

to the Coochinese due to their short legs and partly-webbed feet - an

adaptation to the muddy environment in which they eke out their existence.

The nearest the Coochinese have come to re-inventing the wheel are

the large circular tupperware hats worn by some of their citizens.

While not entirely in vogue, they are amazingly waterproof (ie water

as in rain, not as in Coochin Creek). Historians assert that this

practice evolved as a result of the Tupperware Wars of the 1960s when

the Caboolturites, an aggressive southern tribe, demanded the right to sell tupperware to the Coochinese.

I have unearthed these facts by consulting their secret book of

legends known as the "Coochie-boobuk" and cross-referencing with

Google searches on the Internet.

If you are serious about finding out more about your Coochin cousins,

I admonish you to do similar research before they pass into history.

As you especially would well know, the Campbellville colony has already expired.

Postscript to the Bartle Frere "Coochinese":

My derogatory description of this gentleman's apparel was quite

unjust and incomplete. I should add the following :

His only concession to modesty, if it could be called that, was an

adornment of the nether parts which was got up with a hastily

cobbled but rather fetching arrangemnet of yellow ochre,

partly-chewed betel nut and fairy floss.

This provoked some excitement & contention amongst several of the ABC listeners in the party.

------------------------------

I think my " " euphemism could be safely applied legally for

referring to the less savoury genders of humankind.

-------------------------------------------

ah yes, i didnt catch that one. very clever. will use in future to avoid the

computer word-spider

-------------------------------------------------

an astounding tour-de-force.

are there any statues or other monuments to Mr Barew?

and, was the Bridg Troll already there, or did he come later to feast on the

coochinese?

----------------------------------------

it has been distilled from my copious notes from the Coochin expedition in a

half hour session of inanity at 3am Eastern Standard Time.

---------------------------------------------

you would have to be drunk to write this. if not, you should be, or

otherwise psychadelisized. no man could write in such inspried fashion while

sober.

----------------------------------------------

The only monument to Mr Barew is an aerosol inscription on the side of the

fibro grocery & bait supply store - a truly inspiring icon to the legend.

The Coochinese are unaware of the Bridge Troll, as they are of many things.

They assert that having no bridge, there can be no troll.

--------------------------------------------------

I don't need to drink or take drugs to get sober.

----------------------------------------

the bait shop in caloundra?

i guess the foolish coochinese suppose their comrades who have been eaten by

the Troll were lost in impenetrable mud in the depths of the coochin swamp

--------------------------------------------

No - at Coochin Creek.

They told me their "lost" comrades were away masticating. Perhaps they were

masticatees instead. I am a little deaf and could have misunderstood them.

--------------------------------------

they seem a miserable race if they cant even honour their forEbears. shoot

the lot of them and put in some gooks to work the swamps for lily bulbs.

---------------------------------------

I am beginning to uderstand the cause of the demise of the Campbellville

denizens. I detect your evil hand in the matter.

I was about to have the province and its inhabitants world heritage listed

if that's ok by you.

-----------------------------------------

you are right. we ruled campbellville with the same spirit of the Glencoe

massacre.

the swamp when drained and the inhabitants when ossified will make a

suitable nature park.

spare no resources. 2,4,5 D may be requisitioned from the Forestry depot on

Roy's Road.

---------------------------------------

ok.

this technique was applied successfully to the Marsh Arabs by Saddam (the

Shittites in the Iraquian vernacular).

fortunately I already have the 245T and this seems an

admirable use for the product. an area can be excised from the proposed park

for the Campbellites to regain their rightful inheritance.

-------------------------------------------------

we could call the coochinese the marsh grogs.

hard to see how you could make 'arab' any worse. marsh. mud. what else?

----------------------------------

the mud people? no - that's already used in PNG.

I think "Coochinese" says it all.

-------------------------------

i guess mud arab would be a tautology.

if u can eliminate the whole damn lot of them i will allow you to stay on

solid ground the rest of your life and retain the Admiral title, and cede to

you Langley Court for perpetuity.

--------------------------------

Did you know that Tiny Toodle's sister Doris played the part of Gollum in

The Two Towers?

I think the drought might finish them off, however they have the ability to

aestivate in mucus-coated burrows in mangrove mud so 245T could be the go.

Langley Court sounds nice - is it in Beerwah?

------------------------------------

the poetic work 'dubya of the overflow' which i wrote some time ago, do u

still possess it on your files?

---------------------------------

I think of lost it in the October Virus Attack, but will search the

earthernware jars in the cellars of the Great Library of the Port of Coochin

Creek, which is frequented by travelling scholars from all sides of the

Pumicestone Passge.

-------------------------------

the poor sods who beaver away in that rat-infested environment. went there

once to check on land titles and nearly puked.

ps- dont Think this little favour you are doing me here will help you in any

way in your futile quest to obtain a foot in the door in Langley Hall.

------------------------------------

enduring legacy of the Coochin Cameleer

"always remembered"

-------------------------------------------

a'll packa nother six pack..

------------------------------------

so you're guanaco too ?

-------------------------------

yeah ostrich me rec leave out another week and tag along

---------------------------------------------

This type of avian sense of humour will never get off the ground

---------------------------------------------

A contingent of Australian troops will leave for the Middle East tomorrow

to prepare for a possible war in Iraq.Defence Minister Robert Hill has

announced the contingent will comprise Army, Navy and RAAF personnel. HMAS

Jimboola will sail from Sydney. Also deployed will be an RAAF reconnaissance

team and elements of a special forces task group, including cameleers and

the coochin reserve fire brigade.

--------------------------------------

There is an internal power struggle between the 2 latter groups, stirred up

by Gerald's CLF taking advantage of the absence of the BVBFB. They all claim

to be conscientious objectors and prefer to control the deteriorating

situation on the home front. They will heed the call to arms as soon as

possible.

-------------------------------------------------

intriguing...

i give gerald the tip to win.

frankly constable ben is a bit slow in the head. the sierra [contrary to

glowing accounts in other chronicles] is not the fervid intellectual cafe

latte set of the coochin west bank. whereas gerald has dealth with some

pretty highbrow in his time..

----------------------------------------

send some to the coochin...

I'll give you an interesting idea that took place in Maine. They've got

Maine lobstermen are now patrolling the coast on a volunteer basis to make

sure that somebody in a -- somebody carrying something they don't want to

carry in a boat shows up on the coast. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to

serve the community.

--------------------------------