Most “humpies” were constructed on wooden frames with galvanised iron or bags on the sides with galvanised iron for the roof. Some humpies were built of “rubberoid” altogether.
The fireplace in the kitchen was usually made of galvanised iron with a few large rocks or clods of earth built up a few feet on three sides of the fire place. The roof’s shape was of the “lean to” style of architecture and the front door made of meat cases with leather hinges cut from an old boot! The humpy was usually built close to a soak or dam.
"A common breakfast in those days was to put half a tin of meat in a Johnny cake. A Johnny cake was made with flour and water and baking powder, and you mixed the meat out of the tin into that and you fried it in the frying pan, and that was mostly, along with porridge, was your breakfast.
Those who were not loyal Scotchmen fried bacon and eggs or tinned meat hot or cold. The “billy” was always boiled for tea-making and some damper well buttered eaten with it.
The damper would then be placed in the camp oven to retain its freshness and keep it from becoming too hard.
Lunch generally consisted of damper or home-made bread baked in a camp oven and the usual “tinned dog”. There usually was a variety of this, so we did have a choice of dogs!
If you had some tin dog at lunch (or breakfast) you were left with half a tin, which bearing in mind you had no fridges in those days,all you had was what we called a bag safe, that is a chaff bag hung up on the verandah with the end of a box in it, fruit case box end, which you kept your stuff in, and that was quite good....It was away from the flies and it was alsocool, because the wind blew through it and if you liked to. wet it, it became very cool.
Porridge left over from breakfast, fried, was another common evening meal. Left over “tinned dog”, opened at breakfast might be eaten during the day or put it in a stew at night, or you had it cold with some potatoes and onions and things.
Some labour- saving and time-saving bachelors had a supply of dishes large enough to enable them to use clean dishes at all of the three daily meals, and have a big clean-up of dishes after the evening meal.
Some bachelors told me that a kangaroo dog was “on his own” as a plate cleaner!! And, having seen the work done in this department by a kangaroo dog I have no hesitation whatever in verifying this statement. The dog always left the plate dry and clean and very bright!! He was very thorough!
Occasionally, one would be visited after tea, by his neighbours when the latest news and gossip would be discussed and then the talk would be mostly “shop”.
Before the visitor left for his humpy by a walk through the bush in the starlight alone, the billy would be swung on one of the wire hooks hanging over the fire and supper - of a kind - partaken of.
The Sundays were spent in several ways by these young men. For instance between breakfast and lunch the weeks’ washing was done and hung out on plain wire stretched between trees. Some preferred to used barb wire for this purpose saying the barbs were handy in the place of clothes pegs - which were then away in the shop at Broomehill!
Then the afternoons were spent in various ways such as visiting neighbours, or baking a good supply of damper for the forthcoming week. Then, if one happened to be the proud possessor of a rifle or a kangaroo dog one could hunt for kangaroos in order to have fresh meat for a change.
I well remember that during each week when very busy I had very little time to think how lonely it was that during Sundays, when resting, I had plenty of time to think of my friends in other places, I felt loneliness then very much, causing me frequently to seriously think of packing up and “clearing out”!