Rear Bedroom

The rear bedroom at Woolla is the smallest of the bedrooms in the hut, set at the back of the structure with a single window facing east. A timber-framed bed stands against one wall, unstained and bare, the mattress thin and unmade. A leather suitcase sits on the floor at the foot of the bed, the straps still buckled, the leather darkened with age. A small painted timber dresser stands against the opposite wall. The walls are split-slab hardwood, the slabs running horizontal, with hessian fixed to the inside surface for insulation. The hessian is dust-coloured and patched in places where damp has worked through. The floor is bare timber boards.

Woolla sits on the Deua River near Braidwood, in southern NSW. Helena (Nellie) Davis took up the freehold in 1910, and the original huts were completed in 1927, when she moved in with her son Everid and daughter Neta. The Davis family lived here in continuous occupation until 1990. The family stored their clothes in suitcases rather than wardrobes for the full duration; the case on the floor here is one of them. Vern and Neta were among the last Australians to live a colonial-style rural life through to its actual end. The property is in safe hands under the current owner and came through the 2019 to 2020 Black Summer bushfires intact. Brett photographed the rear bedroom at Woolla on 29 December 2021.