© Chris Woodland
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Life was often difficult. In later years Neta said that life was more difficult than it had to be because of her mother's austere ways. However, fighting bushfires, droving their cattle across the tablelands during times of drought, lopping scrub for feed, battling the dingoes, rabbits and roos that threatened their existence were, like others who know the bush life, experiences that had to be accepted. There was no stove in the Woolla kitchen; the open fire with its large cast iron kettles and camp ovens was her life-long cooking facility. Kangaroo skin rugs lying on beds and bunks were not uncommon sights in the huts along the Deua. Neta's skills also included the tanning of hides by using the time-tested wattle bark method.
At one stage Neta joined a cantankerous Anglo mare of hers with an Arab stallion hoping to breed out the disagreeable nature of the mother. Unfortunately the gelded offspring retained the trait of the mother. Riding the grey gelding and leading another saddled horse through the mountains one day when she was in her early 50s, the horse started bucking wildly then bolted madly down a gully and threw Neta into the rocks and uneven ground. Then, in her own words: '... and when I hit the ground it busted my head open and the horse turned then and backed onto me and kicked me underneath the eye with his back foot, breaking one of the bones in my face and splitting my lips off. I came to after some half-an-hour or two, an hour or so I laid there. The ground was covered with blood all around me.
Myrtle Davis (left) and her mother Neta (1909 - 1990) arriving back at Woolla, having picked up their stores and mail from Waddell's on the Araluen-Moruya road; 1948. Until recent times all stores and materials could only be taken into or out of Woolla by packhorse.
I scrambled to my feet and went and caught my horse and made for home.' Suffering shock and losing blood Neta led the horses up a hill where the recalcitrant gelding played up again when she tried to lead it through an improvised gate which was little more than a brush panel in a fence. Mounting the quiet horse and leading the rogue, Neta made for Moodong hut (where she and Myrtle lived for many years), where she let the horses go, tied up her dogs, washed herself and changed out of her blood soaked cloths. There were some wattle bark cutters there who took her to neighbouring Yang Yalley station, from where Kevin Griggs rushed her to Braidwood hospital. Over time the facial injuries became less apparent, fine scars being the only obvious evidence of a terrible experience.Nellie died in 1977 at the age of 92. Everett, who served in the RAAF during WW 2, then resided in Sydney, passed away in the mid-1980s. Myrtle has her own well-managed, improved cattle property in country not so far from Woolla in distance, but light years away in terrain and productivity. Vern, now 73, is a resident in a Braidwood nursing home where he enjoys the constant company of other residents, visitors and the comforts of the town – television to watch and an electric powered scooter to travel the side roads and pathways of Braidwood. There now stands a double brick residence in Cudgee.
Neta, a woman who lived in a pioneering environment all her life, died in 1991. No more will the staccato reports caused by the crack of her whip or the firing of her twenty-eight inch barreled shotgun resound throughout the gullies and crags of the mountains. She is remembered fondly by those that had the good fortune to have shared experiences with her and she would rest easily to know that her beloved Woolla has changed little since her passing. The lyrebirds still call in the gullies, the odd dingo sometimes trots furtively across the flat below the house in the early morning shadows, cattle still graze across the small river flats and scatter along the sides of the hills, as do the wallabies. Riders using the river bridle track call in as they pass to yarn to the new owners. The eels, bass and platypus still feed in the river and the wedgetail can still be seen souring in the air currents above. Neta would be happy to know that the present owners of Woolla intend to maintain the original home and out buildings and keep the memory of that pioneering woman alive, a tribute respected by all who knew her.
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