The Convict Bridge

This bridge has always been important to our family. It was built just below our paternal grandparents home and we played around its arches, threw stones from its walls and generally claimed it as our special place. In the days when children had more freedom than they have now, my siblings, cousins, friends and I explored the creek and often had a picnic under its shade. I pity those children who never had this freedom, a childhood without water to play in seems sterile to me.

The Convict Bridge.

It has spanned this sandy creek

since colonial days.

We learned to swim beneath its arches,

in summer, sheltered in the shade.

Built from local stone,

welded with groans, blood

and curses of convicts

transported for displeasing the king,

or stealing a loaf of bread.

Each rock remembers those cries,

the chain clinks,

crack from whip - or worse,

and the tyranny which built

this monument to misery. Frances Mackay 2005