Campaspe stories - Echuca Time

	Echuca Time Picture a scene in Echuca. Echuca is in the north of Victoria on the banks of the Murray River. On the banks of the river is the old port where paddle steamers have tied up to discharge their cargos and passengers for over a hundred years now. Picture a teenager called Tyson strolling down the street at the port, past the fence where you can look down at paddle steamers being repaired or restored, past the old sawmill, past the Wysteria Gardens Tea Room where you can sit and have a ginger beer spider and imagine what life must have been like when stage coaches pulled by six strong horses rolled down the street. Just as Tyson walked past the man with the cockatoo on his shoulder something strange happened to him. He saw his reflection in a puddle, the reflection seemed to wobble and ..... Tyson time morphed 100 years into the past. He was still walking down the street in the port of Echuca but now his sneakers were replaced by riding boots and his jeans with moleskins and a real Cobb & Co stagecoach was heading down a busy street just as a group of paddlesteamer passengers stepped out. A mother and her daughter were looking the other way and hadn’t seen the coach. “Watch out!” yelled Tyson, pointing at the stage coach. The mother turned around, saw the coach and the six horses and ....... froze. Tyson didn’t hesitate. He dived through the air in a flying tackle and pushed mother and daughter out of the way just as the horses thundered past. Tyson himself wasn’t so lucky. As he tried to roll out of the way, one of the horses hooves clopped him on the forehead and knocked him cold stone out. When Tyson woke up four men were carrying him on a stretcher into a hotel room. He was lifted onto the bed and a wet towel was placed on his head and he was told to lay quietly while some one fetched the doctor. Tyson lay back on the bed and looked around the room. The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was his reflection in a mirror on the wall. As the doctor hurried into the room the mirror rocked on its nail, the reflection shuddered and Tyson was morphed two hundred years this time into the past - a past where there was no port, no paddlesteamers, no Cobb & Co coach, a past where Tyson was lying on a pile of leaves and grass on the ground near a fire. He groaned and raised his hand to his forehead and felt a lump of clay and mud plastered over the bump. Two tall, strong Aboriginal men were holding a dead kangaroo over the fire burning off the fur. Then they dropped it on the fire and covered in coals to cook and sat down next to Tyson. When Tyson moved his hand to his head again, one of the men called out to a woman sitting beside the river. She brought up a wood and bark container full of river water for him to drink. Tyson lifted himself up onto one elbow and, as his lips touched the water, he saw one of the men pulling the kangaroo out of the fire and cutting it into pieces to eat. He saw a kookaburra come flying down from a branch to snatch a piece of meat. He saw his reflection in the water of the drinking container. In his fright, he tilted the container, the water sloshed, his reflection shuddered, and ......... he morphed aagainnnnnnnnnnnnn! “No! No more!”, he shouted. “It’s alright Tyson. The ice will take the swelling down. Now hold it in place while I see if there’s any frozen peas in the freezer. You haven’t told me how you got hit on the head yet either. Probably playing cricket by the look of that mark on your head. You’ll have to thank Mrs Darling and her daughter Emmy Lou for bringing you home in their car.” Tyson looked around him and he was back in his own room. There was his favourite poster on the wall - Steve Waugh diving through the air to make an innings saving catch. There was his XBox sitting on the desk. He laid back on his bed and went happily to sleep.


Created by Daryll Bellingham with the assistance of the audience at the Echuca Library Vacation Activities Storytelling Show, Thursday 8th January, 2004. © Daryll Bellingham (Thanks to the Echuca Friends of the Library for helping to make the storytelling sessions possible.)

Top \| Home \| Stories \| Poems \| Interviews \| Plains Talking \| Elders of the Plains

This site and domain sponsored by McPherson Media 03 5831 1866 info@mcmedia.com.au for fast, reliable, internet connection					Last updated - 6/2/2004 URL this page - plainstalking.deni.net.au/storycampEchuca.html Designed by - Daryll Bellingham, © 2002.