Interviewer: Frank Heimans,
            for Baulkham Hills Shire Council

Date of Interview: 17 Dec 2007

Transcription: Glenys Murray, Jan 2008

Take a Virtual Tour

After you finished your schooling did you go straight on the land or did you….?

No I went straight to Hawkesbury College.

The Agricultural College?

Agricultural College, and got my diploma from there and then I spent about three years just mucking around the bush. Driving bulldozers, driving headers, working the land, any job I could find. Harvesting and all these sort of things, I’ve got my wool classing ticket, so I became a wool classer, did the wool classing sheds. Did three years of that, just to find out how the other people lived, you know, what else happens.

That was a very interesting world wasn’t it, the shearer’s world?

Very much so, very much so, fascinating world, fascinating world different now a days.

So you must have travelled what all around New South Wales or Queensland?

Mostly New South Wales, mostly New South Wales, I’ve done most of Queensland, I know Queensland like the back of my hand now. Victoria I don’t know much about, Western Australia and those places. But New South Wales and Queensland I have a pretty fair idea about.

Right, right so what age did you marry Bob?

Twenty seven when I got married (in 1959) and I reckon that was about three years before I should have. I had three years good playing around left in me I thought.

Right, where was that when you got married, where were you?

We were married here in Killara.

Now tell me how it happened that you finished up living at Mungerie House?

Well my father had been looking for a place I’d looked at about five farms to buy them before I looked at this one. I just went down to look at this one and it was a walk in walk out going concern dairy farm. The last thing I ever wanted to be was a dairy farmer but I had a look at it and it looked pretty good and we bought it. That was it and I went straight in. My father financed me into it with a guarantee at the bank. Guaranteed me when I bought it and after about five years I paid the guarantee out and I was on my own.

Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill 1959 watercolour by D. Turpin

Now tell me what the property consisted of when you bought it?

Four hundred and thirty acres it was all that land across there where the Postal Institute Club is. That went right over there and right down to the creek behind four hundred and thirty acres.

What was on the property?

Just cattle, just dairy farm, just dairy, just cows nothing else just grass and paddocks that’s all.

There was a house though?

Oh one house yeah no there were two homes and a single man’s quarters. There was a big dairy building there was a big feed shed. We subsequently built a big machinery shed to house all our machinery. There was garages and all those sorts of things there. There were heaps of buildings there. All been pulled down.

Were they in good condition or not?

Oh yes, yes they were in good condition.

Now it’s quite a historical place Mungerie House or the property which is called Mungerie Park isn’t it?

Mungerie Park I called it, I always called it Mungerie Park.

Tell me about the property and the history of that if you know it?

Well I think it was originally owned by the Pearce family if I’m right and this goes back a long time they subsequently sold out to a family called Whites owned it after the Pearce family. The Whites sold out to a family named Brimbecom and I bought it off the Brimbecoms. The home on it wasn’t built there Mungerie the home itself was not built there. It was the top storey of a two storey building about six miles away at Schofield. They took the top storey off and put it on rollers and bullock wagon and dragged it across and stood it up.

You mean on logs?

On logs the chap who told me that was Gerald Terry, the Terrys of Rouse Hill of Rouse House and he knew the history of the place going back yonks.

It’s a strange thing taking the top off a building and….?

Yeah top of a two storey building he told me, I had a long argument about it. He said “it was the top of a two storey building originally” and they redesigned it when they brought it over. But structurally it was.

People must have been quite clever to keep it in one piece to get it out?

Very smart, very smart, very smart see the first battle in Australia was fought there you know. The Battle of Vinegar Hill have you ever heard of the Battle of Vinegar Hill?

Yes we have, yes.

Well the Battle of Vinegar Hill was just up the top there where the cemetery is on Schofield Road. The trig station was there for years that was the highest point between Sydney and Windsor. That was the Battle of Vinegar Hill.

That was in 1804 wasn’t it?

1804, yeah. Convict rebellion.

Bob Scharkie with tractor on Mungerie Park Rouse Hill c1960

Virtually yes, the old coaching road still runs from Schofield through to Dural, runs through the property. It comes down the hill on Merriville opposite goes through the cutting there on the Windsor Road. It winds down the hill across the creek up the creek and down the creek on the other side. I found it because I ploughed a couple of paddocks there and every time I came to where the old coaching road was the plough bumped up out of the ground. Wouldn’t dig into it because it was so hard.

Was it a Cobb and Co coach route?

It would have been Cobb and Co coach yeah coaching road, old coaching road. They call it the coaching road.

So it’s a really historic place what’s style was the house built in would you say?

It’s lathe and plaster what they call a lathe and plaster built house. It’s a weatherboard with an iron roof and timber weatherboard walls. If you look underneath it they didn’t put it on bricks like we do nowadays they shoved it on rocks. Just got rocks out of the paddocks, sandstone rocks and they put them under and they got them to the right level and put the house on top. Over the years the wind blowing through underneath has weathered the rocks through so that the rocks have all weathered except where they’re under the timber. Now I don’t know if any of you have had a look underneath now. But I saw that when I was there most amazing thing to see. But I added to the house.

What did you add to it?

I added to the back of it all the back was added to.

What did you build?

The kitchen the back bedroom, the back bathroom, the back verandah, that lovely round doorway that everybody says looks like a lovely convict brick job. I built that.

Did you try to do it in the style of the original building?

Tried to keep everything in the same style.

Back view of Mungerie, Rouse Hill early 1960s

It was late Georgian early Victorian wasn’t it the house?

Oh I don’t know about those sort of things it was typical Australian house with a verandah all the way round four sides.

Well I've only read in the literature there were three sides?

No there were one, two three sides, but there was a lean-to verandah at the back.

Which you didn’t build?

No I enclosed it all at the back and put another verandah on.

So how big was the house how many rooms were there?

We had five bedrooms

Five bedrooms plus...

Lounge room, dining room, kitchen the bathroom there was a classic. The old bathroom we had was what they called the old dairy. In the old days they used to keep their cream. It was cold it was below ground level. So when we went out there we turned it into a big bathroom. The kids would get out there and make a hell of a mess on the floor. There’d be water everywhere and you’d come out an hour later and not a scrap of water there gone. It was the most amazing bathroom I’ve seen in my life. You could have an inch of water on the floor and come out an hour later and it’s all gone.

Just absorbed into the….

Tiled bathroom, tiled floor no drains no drains in it.

Some magic at work there?

No, porous tiles I think, porous tiles down into I think they must have put a lot of cinders and in those days coke and everything underneath it. It was specially built as a dairy you see and they must have insulated it pretty well underneath. Very strange.

Scharkie children at front of Mungerie, Rouse Hill early 1970s

No you didn’t, you didn’t.

For those people who have never seen the house and listening to this tape can you take us on a guided tour through the house? Let’s say pretend you’re at the front door and describe each room for me?

Well the front door you come in and on the left hand side there’s a room with a fireplace in it we turned that into a dining room originally when we first got married. But when we had all the kids we turned it into a bedroom. On the right hand side when you came in the door there was just a big room which was a bedroom. You came in a few more steps and two more rooms one on either side. Typical old hallway with rooms going off that’s what it was. There were fireplaces in the front bedroom on one side and one of the other bedrooms had a fireplace I forget which one it was but one of the other bedrooms had a fireplace in it. Then you walked into the lounge room that was a very big room with a beautiful big fireplace in it. This is how originally when we first went there. This is not how we redesigned it later. You turned to the right there and you went into the kitchen. It was a kitchen with an old Aga stove in it. Then you went through the kitchen to a big storeroom at the back. Then past the storeroom to the bathroom and outside you went down to the laundry. So when I redesigned it we took all that away. All that back section we left the lounge room the same. The kitchen disappeared from where it was and I think that became another bedroom. Then we put the big kitchen on out the back the kitchen dining with everything there. With a big enclosed area on tiles. Glass doors everything like that with a beautiful view down the paddocks. That was our dining room. On the other side of that we had a main bedroom with a built in bathroom and everything like that.

So you must have added what about half the house again?

About half the house again yeah about a third of the house anyhow the main things that are there. The four front bedrooms and the lounge room are intact as they were.

Did it look very original the house when you came into it?

Oh yes very much so.

Antique kind of looking?

Yeah, yeah but they’d done all sorts of hodge podges around the kitchen area and out the back area. The laundry had been tacked on like a thing you’d see in Gunn’s Gully. They tacked it on at the back. An old slab shed that they’d tacked on.

Bob, Robert, John, Joan and David Scharkie c1967

What facilities were in the house when you came in first? What was say the laundry facility like?

None, no facility at all just a room really that’s all it was. The only thing that we had when we got there was power, nothing else. No water, no nothing.

So how did you get your water?

Had a well that we pumped out of it’s still there the well I think. It would have to be still there the big well at the back of the house. That held about ten thousand gallons, about forty thousand litres it’s a big well. Then if I ran out of water I’d put a big tank on the back of the truck and went down the road and filled it up and came back and filled the well up.

As simple as that was it? When you added onto the house did you add it on in weatherboard?

Exactly the same kept it in the same style. We tried to do that all the way through. When we extended the roof we did the same roof line right through. Everything stayed in the same aesthetic type of thing.

Now you lived there for twenty six years that’s quite a while?

Twenty six years all my kids grew up there.

What was it like for the kids?

Oh they loved it, had a ball, they had a ball there. They used to have all their jobs they did. I remember I was milking there one time and the cows used to come and stand on this ramp before they went into the milking thing. I was sitting there milking this cow one day and I could see the cows just moving slightly, just moving. I said to the other two workers don’t anyone move, don’t get up and make a start, just sit quietly for a minute. My two year old son one and a half year old just walking toddled down right through the middle of the cows touching them. Down through the middle of the cows and down to me. But no they had a ball, they had horses, they drove the tractors around everywhere. They had a ball they loved it out there, they loved it.

Joan riding Gingersnap at Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill 1970s

Yeah we had a racehorse Pipes of Peace mare but it didn’t ever do any good. It didn’t do any good we were in a syndicate with other people. It was a beautiful thing but it very badly managed when it left us. When it left us it was a beautiful thing go like the hammers but it was very badly managed.

So the horse was on the property too was it?

Yeah we had a couple of riding horses that’s all.

So what other animals were on the property apart from your dairy cows, anything else?

A few chooks, a dog, that’s about all, nothing else.

So you had eggs every morning?

My kids use to live on fresh cream, eggs I used to bring over two gallons of milk a day from the dairy for my kids. They’re all six foot one and built like tanks they are. They’re all like him and he’s the smallest one.

Bob Scharkie mowing lawn at front of Mungerie, Rouse Hill c1970 with Windsor Road in background

Long, long way away we didn’t have much to do with our neighbours. The Peterson family had a produce store up at the other end there. We were quite friendly with them. But no one else round the place there was no one else there. When I went there first time I could sit on my back verandah at night and not see a light, not one light. The only light I could see was the aeroplane warning light on the water tower at Dural. That’s the only light we could see.

But you were fairly close to Windsor Road weren’t you?

Yeah but it was a quiet old road in those days there was no one using it, no one lived out there and went to work . It was a very quiet road you looked up if you saw a car go past.

That was a big event to see a car go past?

Yeah a big event to see a car go past yeah in those days 1954 yeah very quiet.

So how far were your nearest neighbours?

Oh a mile.

Who were they do you know their names?

Petersons were one and the family at the top of the hill I can’t remember their name. They were good friends, they were very good friends. Up on top of the hill I cannot think of his name, I’m getting old, I can’t think of his name lived up at the end of the cemetery. He lived up there. I used to know the family that had a big dairy farm down the road. George Kent had a big dairy farm out there, I knew them but only as acquaintances they weren’t friends or anything like that they were people that I knew.

View from back of Mungerie, Rouse Hill looking east at cows c1970

What was the main industry around Rouse Hill at that time?

Dairy farming.

It was dairy farming?

All dairy farming there were seventy five dairy farms in that small pocket area where we were. We supplied fresh milk. It was the only fresh milk that hit Sydney every day.

From Rouse Hill so Rouse Hill supplied the whole of Sydney with milk?

No we didn’t supply the whole we supplied the whole of Sydney with the only fresh milk they got. That was milked that day and drunk that day.

Did you pasteurise it?

No, it went into the Fresh Food and Ice Company, one of the big ones Dairy Farmers and they did that part of it. But we were the only fresh milk suppliers. We’d milk it in the morning it was picked up by a milk truck and it was in the fresh food and ice company in about ten o’clock that morning.

So what time did you start milking the cows?

About four, four o’clock in the morning.

Did you do that every day?

Every day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year, Christmas Day included. Used to loathe Christmas, used to loathe Christmas in those days.

Why?

Well I started to get up and milk cows and feed the cows and do all the jobs that had to be done with the cows. Then all the feed merchants that you bought your feed off would close down a fortnight before Christmas and wouldn’t open for a fortnight after Christmas. So you had to buy a months feed in advance and it was just bedlam at that period of time.

Working in the paddocks at Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill in 1960s

No we’ve hand fed twelve months of the year.

Really?

Hand fed.

Not enough grass?

No not enough grass, no. We used the grass for what we called our dry cows. The cows out in the paddock waiting to calve but milking cows got fed twice a day.

Even in good seasons?

Even in good seasons.

When there was enough rain?

Yep you could put them out under a beautiful field of grass and say I don’t have to feed them today and they’d go down and look. You had to feed them.

What are cows like to work with?

Very easy, very easy.

Docile animals?

Very docile and they become habit forming. You go of a morning and open the feed stall doors and just call out “come on, come on”. You’d stand back and they charge past you into their stalls. Saved having to go and fetch them.

Did you grow any crops on the property?

Yes across the road on my father’s property I grew oats. I had the record crop of oats in NSW at one stage there. I grew a huge paddock of oats there. I grew quite a few crops round the place. But it wasn’t very good soil, very poor soil. It was pretty hard to do anything with.

Was there any wildlife around the house, like possums or other animals?

Oh the usual wildlife about no kangaroos or wallabies or these sort of things. But a few rabbits and possums and those sort of things but nothing very much. Cats by the thousands cause all the people used to say to get rid of their cats. There’s a nice dairy farm out there we’ll drop the cat off there and it’ll be looked after. We used to end up with hundreds of cats, then they’d get a disease and they’d all die.

Cows grazing at Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill on a frosty winter morning 1970s

Yeah and they get a disease and they die and then they start again.

Were the cows healthy?

Oh yes had to be the government made sure of that.

So what were some of the major events in your life that occurred at Mungerie Park?

Mungerie Park putting the golf course in was a major job. When I got married was a major job. Dairy farming is a pretty hum drum sort of life I mean you get up, you milk the cows you put them out in the paddock and then you do the same thing in the afternoon and then you do the same thing the next day. It’s not as if there’s anything brilliant about it all its just repetitive work, repetitive work.

So you met your wife while….

Oh I played a lot of football while I was there. I toured New Zealand playing football when I was out there. Just before I got there in 1954 I toured New Zealand with the Australian Country team. Then I played first grade football for Parramatta for quite a few years.

You met your wife at Mungerie Park?

No we knew her from way back, the whole family my father was very friendly with her family. It was just one of those things that happened.

You said that you put a golf course in. That’s kind of a big thing to do? Can you tell me about that?

Children with horse and bike at Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill early 1970s

So what are some of the memories that you have of living in that house?

Just happy memories, very happy place we had. Very happy with the kids going off to school I saw the kids every morning. I had breakfast with the kids I saw them when they came home from school. I saw the kids a huge amount. Then when they got older I put them into King’s School. I couldn’t drive them everyday into Parramatta and back so I said “you’re going to go boarding fellows” so they went boarding at King’s School and they enjoyed it there. I got involved with The King’s School and I was involved in there and that was good fun.

It’s a great school?

Oh yeah it is a good school, very good school.

Did you have any trouble in the area with flooding at all?

Yeah the creek used to flood down the bottom but that never used to worry us. No floods like you get the house going under water no, nothing ever.

Was it on fairly high ground?

Oh high ground, high ground. It’s all hilly, all hilly. I was there when the Windsor floods hit there at one stage. They were enormous the whole of Windsor was underwater nearly.

There were orchards because I used to bump over them in the early days but they weren’t very big.

Caddies Creek at Mungerie Park Rouse Hill c1980

Yes down on the creek there’s Aboriginal carvings down at the creek, that’s all, nothing else though, nowhere else just down on the creek. Down near the creek. When I first went there in 1954 there were what do they call these mounds that they have?

Middens?

Middens down near the creek all the way down the creek of old shells. But a major flood came through there one day and they were gone, they were gone.

Were there any Aboriginal people around the area do you know?

No, but from what I understand from some of the old people around the place. Down the bottom of the creek there was a beautiful water hole, big water hole. That used to be the playground for the Aboriginals in the olden days. They used to come and do their swimming.

Now you had chooks you said. What other buildings were on there? Was there a barn or a shed?

Oh yeah I had hay sheds.

Hay sheds?

Big hay sheds, yes big hay sheds.

How many were there?

There’s one down near the creek and there was two hay sheds and a big feed barn that we used to put a lot of lucerne hay into. Big one must have been two hundred foot long shed. Big high sheds.

Were they original sheds?

They were original.

David Scharkie near creek at Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill c1980

Oh just timber poles but the big feed shed was built out of sawn timber, big sawn timber.

So they must go back to the nineteenth century then?

Oh yeah well and truly they would have gone back. It’s all gone now.

So was all the water you got, was it all out of the well?

No, I used to pump up out of the creek. I had a pump down at the creek used to pump up to a big tank a five thousand gallon tank sitting on a forty foot stand. That used to supply water to the dairy and to all the water troughs round the place. Our washing down water and all this sort of thing, drinking water and clean water was supplied from water off the roof to the well. I had a big well over at the dairy and had tanks over there as well. That’s how we got our fresh water.

Right.

Now you were there for twenty six years or so and was it constantly as a dairy farmer?

Last three of four years, three years we got rid of the dairy and just ran it. We’d sold the place, provisionally sold the place, so we were just living there. We got rid of the dairy and just had the golf course going all the time.

It’s quite an undertaking to build a golf course?

Big undertaking I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.

How did you manage to finance that and so on?

Did it ourselves, our own equipment, soil off our own land and just did it just plain hard work. Had all the family out picking rocks up off fairways all the family helped. The kids got out and helped and everybody. It was a matter of family helped a bit there. Every body got into it. We had one green keeper employed that’s all we employed one green keeper the whole time we had the golf course.

What did you call the golf course what was it called?

Mungerie Park.

Ah, Mungerie Park Golf course? Was it popular?

Very popular, yeah. At the finish it was getting quite popular at the finish. Cause there are very few public golf courses around. All of them are privately owned, you know, private clubs and you can’t get a game. This was just pay and play. If there was a time for you play you could play.

No club to join?

No club to join, no money to pay up front, just pay and play.

How big was the course? Was it eighteen holes?

View from back of Mungerie, Rouse Hill looking west c1970 at the site of what is now the town centre

So quite a few hectares then?

I think it covered about eighty acres.

You owned all that land?

Oh yes.

Is it where The New Rouse Hill is built now?

Yes where The New Rouse Hill is.

Were you happy about selling it?

Oh in the finish we were yeah in the finish I was happy to get out of it. I’d had enough.

Who did you sell it to?

I can never think of their names. They had to sell it themselves in the finish and the government bought it off them.

Be nice to own all that land now wouldn’t it?

No well it was killing us in land tax. See you can’t own property nowadays like that and think I’ll sell it in twenty years time and make a fortune. It costs you a fortune over twenty years to hold it in land tax. That they make you pay nowadays and you just can’t do it.

What about 'Mungerie Park' the house itself?

It’s going to stay it’s been declared historical whatever you call it heritage. I’ve had Baulkham Hills Council ring me up quite a few times about it. From what I understand from what they tell me it’s going to turn into an information centre.

Yeah they’re restoring it to its original splendour. Does that mean that their taking off your additions do you think?

I don’t think so I don’t think they’ll take that off. There’d be nothing left if they do.

Talking a little bit more about your time at Mungerie Park and the house itself interested to know what life was like in the fifties when you were there and the sixties?

Peaceful.

Was it?

Yeah, very peaceful life very peaceful politically everything was peaceful there was none of this sort of nonsense that goes on nowadays. The 1960’s were a nice time to be around really, good music. They’re going back to the sixties music again now I notice. Good music and good things to do. You could go places without being swamped by people.

Cooper's General Store and residence 1940

What was Rouse Hill itself like what was there?

A post and telegraph office that was all. We had a party line on the telephone through to Mrs Smith. She used to run it when I went there in 1954 and she knew everything that was going on in the district. She was also the fire brigade lookout she used to ring everybody and say “there’s a fire such and such a place”. They’d go out and put a fire out.

Did you ever have a fire near your place?

I’ve had a couple that went right through it yeah. Just burnt the grass though that’s all didn’t burn anything else.

So you survived that one?

Oh yes.

Most of the people you said were dairy farmers?

Yeah there were no people living out there that were involved commercially anywhere, like solicitors or doctors or lawyers or accountants or labourers. Until a long time after I was up there before there were a few people that started to come out to five acres blocks. Before then there was nothing there miles and miles and miles of paddocks.

Did you grow your own vegetables then?

Had a vegetable garden, yeah had a vegetable garden. In those days when you left Parramatta when you got as far as about two or three miles out of Parramatta you were in the bush. The old hotel The Bull and Bush Hotel at thing (Baulkham Hills) used to be the honeymoon hotel where they used to stay their first night for the honeymooners years ago. The first nice pub out of town and it was miles out of town. In those days the cars we had weren’t that flash.

Did you have a car?

I had a car yeah had lots of them. Lots of cars I’ve had.

What was the public transport like?

None school bus of a morning that’s all no public transport at all.

No bus service?

No nothing, no nothing, no train, no bus, no nothing.

It’s very isolated?

Yeah.

And you liked it that way?

I liked it that way.

What about your wife how did she react to living here?

One of the Scharkie children on the flying fox at Mungerie Park, Rouse Hill late 1960s

And the schooling for the kids you said….?

Good school in Kellyville they went to primary school there. Good schooling there, very good schooling there. I thought it was anyhow and then they went to King’s School after that.

So was it a good place for children to grow up in?

Oh heavens yes they had their flying foxes off the trees and all these. They used to do all boys things you know.

Fishing and all that?

No, no fishing didn’t have any fishing there.

Not in the creek?

No, no fish in the creek, no fish in there. They used to go down the creek and they used to hunt around all over the place. They were into everything they were, typical boys. Like Tom Sawyers around the place they were. They often say what a lovely time it was. They enjoyed it.