There are, predictably, variations on the story, including suggestions the woman was thrown over the cliff, or committed suicide because the baby was a half-caste child. She may also have been a victim of domestic violence, and while the truth behind the story will probably never be established, it seems the baby survived, caught on a bush in a shawl, and was adopted by James Ready, an early settler of the area and christened Johanna on 22 July 1867. She apparently married George Howes, had three children, died on 25 December 1897 and was buried in the Mackay Cemetery.
A turn off at The Leap, just past the historic hotel, will take the traveller out to Seaforth and Cape Hillsborough on the coast (you can also turn off at Mount Ossa, so the eager traveller doesn’t have to be worried about going out and back along the same stretch of road.
If you turn off at The Leap, and rejoin the highway at Mount Ossa you’ll bypass Hampden (where the short cut that skirts around downtown Mackay rejoins the highway) and Kuttabul, home of the Camelboks Rugby Union club. Don’t let either of those factors dissuade frequent travellers with time on their hands from taking the scenic route.
Kuttabul was originally known as Hampden (the school of that name back down the road to Mackay dates back to 1887), later relabelled Mount Jukes and had its name changed to the present incarnation when the railway station was opened in 1927. Farmers in the area originally sent their cane to the mill at Marian after a tramway was opened in 1896, switching to Farleigh after the railway came to town.
The road from Seaforth and Cape Hillsborough joins the highway at Mount Ossa, which happens to share its name with the highest peak in Tasmania (located in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park) which in turn takes its moniker from the mountain in Thessaly, located between Pelion and Olympus, with the Vale of Tempe between it and the home of the Greek gods.
The Greek sequence has Olympus to the north and Pelion to the south, and Greek mythology has a couple of titans, the Aloadaes attempting to pile Mount Pelion on top of it, in an attempt to confront the gods.
There’s a Mount Pelion to the north of Mount Ossa, but nothing resembling Mount Olympus in the environs, though a winding road that’ll take you from Mirani in the Pioneer Valley via Mount Charlton joins the Bruce Highway half way between the two. It’s a pleasant enough drive, with some interesting scenery along the way but far too circuitous in nature to qualify as anything approaching a short cut.
The countryside around Mount Pelion is pleasant enough, though not in the same class as the Greek equivalent, which took its name from the mythical king Peleus, father of Achilles. It’s rated as one of the most beautiful mountains in Greece, home to the Centaur Chiron, tutor to, among others, Jason, Achilles, Theseus and Heracles.
A bit further along you come to Kolijo, another one of the sugar hamlets scattered along the highway, and as soon as you’ve crossed the bridge over St Helen’s Creek you’re into the next one, Calen, population around 300 and the largest township between Kuttabul and Bloomsbury.
If you’re a tad bemused by two separate localities in sight of each other on opposite sides of the creek the answer lies in the side roads on your right on either side of the creek. On my family’s first southern road excursion after relocating to Townsville (I’m guessing 1964 or ’65) the road took a massive dogleg after Calen, heading along the creek before crossing a low level bridge and heading back along the opposite bank to a point directly across the creek from the original diversion.