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Road Gangs

Early road gangs had to live on site. Cooking was done on the road-sides over an open fire sometimes using four gallon (18 litre) drums. A report in the Highways magazine in 1968 told of a 1938 camp at Tintinara where the eight men slept in tents among the sandhills. They had no refrigeration, but were able to purchase a dressed sheep for 19 shillings ($3.80). It had to be put into a pillowcase and strung up by rope in a tree. Wages were eight pound 14 shillings a fortnight ($17.40) and they paid six pence (5c) for a meal, so the sheep was a good saving.

Ken Fischer of Ascot Park remembers the road gangs that used to camp near his family’s property near Alawoona out of Lameroo and his Dad taking him up to talk to the men in the evenings. The Fischer farm had a quarry that was used to supply the gravel for the country roads. Ken remembers the road-making machines and the horses they used. He said they were good blokes with a feel for the country. Before the road was completed Ken could remember travellers becoming stranded on the sandhills and walking back to the farm for help. His father would take out a couple of working horses to pull them out and sometimes bring them home for a ‘loaves and fishes’ meal with the family. The Fischer family left their property in 1940, forced out by the droughts that South Australia experienced at that time.

During the 1950s, in some areas of the South East, small 8’ x 8’ (2.4 x 2.4 metres) cabins were erected in centralised campgrounds. These allowed each man a degree of privacy. They were semi-fixed and used for up to 10 years before being relocated.

Tents were still being used in the 1950s on Eyre Peninsula. David Roberts, the assisting engineer at that time, recalled when the first gang moved out of Port Augusta to Lipson, five miles out of Tumby Bay, they put a camp on a hill near the school and the wind blew the tents down the first night, 'necessitating to locate the camp on lower ground'.

There were often difficulties getting men to work out in the scrub in the 1940s and 1950s. David told the story about a couple of men enlisted in Adelaide to join a road gang working out at Tumby Bay. They had a trip across the gulf in one of the three gulf vessels and commenced work. The men lasted for about three months before taking the opportunity on a quiet, long weekend to steal the ‘mess’ money and a car. The car got a puncture, but for some reason the wheel was welded and the thieves were unable to change it over. They caught a ‘Birdseye’ bus back to Adelaide and then travelled on to Ballarat. When the ‘crime’ was discovered a few days later, it was decided it was too difficult to pursue the thieves. However, the investigating police were able to identify the offenders from their ‘rogues gallery’ of known criminals.

Far North road gangs.

Road gangs worked out of Depots in country areas. In the Far Northern areas these included Lyndhurst, Marree, Kingoonya and Oodnadatta. In 1967 the Highways Department assumed responsibility for all of the State’s roads previously maintained by the Engineering and Water Supply Department. These were the roads lying outside council areas. The nine gangs comprising 82 men now came under the jurisdiction of the Northern District Engineer at Crystal Brook. These gangs constructed and maintained 63 000 miles (101 000 km) in the Far North region which covers two thirds of the State. Much of the equipment transferred was old and needed replacement before completion of the Marree to Birdsville road in the late 1960s.

During the 1960s and 70s larger, steel-framed, aluminium-sheeted caravans – sometimes up to 12 metres long, superseded the early four-person vans. They were still a mobile van, used when it was too difficult to go back to a central campground. There were now separate vans to provide sleeping quarters for all the workers, washing amenities and cooking facilities.

During construction of the Stuart Highway during the 1980s gangs had semi-permanent camps at Lake Hart, Baker’s Well and Bon Bon. While the road-work moved along the highway, survey work and the search for materials and water for construction was also in progress. Camps similar to this were on the move all over the State. In 1983 a twenty-six man gang moved from Tailem Bend to Penola to work on the Keith to Mt Gambier road. Moved with them were bunkhouses, caravans, offices, a store, workshop, recreation hut, ablution blocks, kitchen & dining facilities. Not as isolated as the Stuart Highway gangs, this group was connected to telephone, electricity and water. Every few years this type of camp moved location to the next work area.

The common perception of road gangs comprised only of men discounted the reality of women working as cooks, and coping with the isolation. In the July 1982 copy of the Department newsletter, Road-Ways, an article was written about Dot McLachlan. Excerpts from this article give an insight into life as a cook in a road camp. Dot had cooked for the eight man Maintenance gang of Coober Pedy since 1972, using half an aluminium clad mobile caravan with air-conditioning, an LP gas stove, a deep freezer and a built-in hot water service, as her kitchen. The rest of the van was the ‘mess’ area. 

The men were charged for their meals and a three person committee set the charges which in 1982 were $30.00 a fortnight and $1 a meal for casuals.

Dot started work at 5.40 am and finished at 7.00 pm on a nineteen day roster. Any quiet time she had in the afternoons was taken up with baking bread, yeast buns and cakes. She found time to knit and sew for her grandchildren and walk her cat on a leash after having lost another to a snake bite. Dot lived in Coober Pedy on her nine day breaks from the gang.

Taken from Donovan, Peter, Highways (Department of Road Transport, South Australia, 1991). Working on the Duke’s Highway in 1940 were, left to right – Alby Murch, __, Mal Conlon, Fred Pinkie, Gardie Martlew.

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