The American Letter No. 14: Beaufort Down Under

En route to the Lyon train station, Peter Humphries told me about his hometown of Beaufort, Victoria, Australia.

The town had suffered through a drought for more months than anyone cared to remember, so Peter had been refreshed by the brief rains in Beaufort Isere.

It had been a delight to hear his Australian accent over the past three days, as well as to sing the words of "Waltzing Matilda" to every song late in the evening of the dance party. Though alcohol flowed freely, everyone was mindful of the big gendarme station next to the Beaurepaire community hall.

Peter spoke of a seemingly "coals to Newcastle" situation in his homeland.

Saudis were actually importing camels from Down Under because of the pure breeding strain of animals first bred in South Australian stud farms in 1866.

The Camelfarm.com website said that these homegrown camels were superior to those imported earlier from India and Pakistan. They were essential to many kinds of work in the "Dry Lands": telegraph construction, water pipe hauling, and the transportation of goods to inland towns, mining camps, sheep and cattle stations, and communities of Aborigines.

According to the Australian government's online document, "Feral Camels," estimates of wild camels in the country range from 500,000 to 1 million. Their main economic drawback is to damaged fences and as a "reservoir" for infecting livestock with tuberculosis and brucellosis. The herds are concentrated in the west, although many feral camels are found in central Australia.

Although Beaufort, Victoria, lies far eastward of the herds of wild camels, visitors will find kangaroos, parrots and parakeets. The Sydney Morning Herald titled its travel article of Feb. 8, 2004, "Beaufort (and Buangor): Historic Gold Town Now a Modest Service Centre."

Gold rushes hit the area in 1852 and 1854, with over 10,000 prospectors at the peak of the mining.Long before the onrush of prospectors and speculators, the area had been the home of the Jajowarrung aborigines, who called it "Peerick." Squatters followed the first European settler, Thomas Mitchell, in 1838. With the Fiery Creek gold rush of 1854, four settlements shot up around the diggings. In 1858, allotments went up for sale in the new town of Beaufort a year after surveying. Beaufort's Catholics built a church in the early 1860s, and in 1864 a primary school and town council were established.

By this time, alluvial (river bed) gold mining was panning out, whereas mining for reef (hard-rock vein) lodes would last until 1914. Former miners took up grazing, a successful enterprise since 1848, and agriculture. Beaufort had a flour mill in 1865, and trains began to stop at the town in 1874.

"The town was allegedly named after Rear Admiral Francis Beaufort," reported the Herald, "who devised the Beaufort scale for measuring wind velocity. However, other sources suggest the source is a village in Monmouthshire, Wales." Beaufort is 1,270 feet above sea level and 98 miles northwest of Melbourne.

Nowadays, Beaufort is a service center for an area known for wool, mutton, beef, cereal farming, forestry, quarrying and mining. In town, there is a timber treatment plant. The band rotunda with its four-faced clock is a local landmark.

Beaufort also is the alleged home of the notorious Vegemite, described by Whatscookingamerica.net as "one of several yeast extract spreads sold in Australia." It's thick like peanut butter, it's very salty, and it tastes like -- well, let's just say that it is an acquired taste!

"It is said that Australians are known to travel all over the world with at least one small jar of Vegemite in their luggage, for fear that they will not be able to find it."