I was wandering about on the web, looking for more information on the McEvoy of McEvoy's Track fame when I came across page one of the Gippsland Times edition of Friday, March 13, 1863.

It was a little hard to read but it told a fascinating story. Just remember here that we are talking about 1863. The paper's front page banner proudly announced that it was circulated at Port Albert, Stratford, Rosedale, Bald Hill, Donnelly's Creek, Rosedale, Bairnsdale, Omeo, Crooked River, Russell's Creek and The Jordan.
The price was sixpence.
The front page was solid with advertising. After all, that is where the revenue lies for any newspaper, and it was certainly the custom of the times.
The things that first got me in were the advertisements for the various coaching lines. We tend to think of Cobb and Co but there were many others, and Cobb and Co itself was a name used by many others like a form of franchise.
Duncan Clark begs to "inform the public that his Five-Horse Coach will leave the Royal Exchange Hotel, Sale, every Wednesday at 6am carrying passengers to meet the Steamer, returning immediately after her arrival." Clark had agents in Sale (J.G. Riley), at Port Albert (Thomas Burrows) and one in each of Collins and Flinders Streets in Melbourne. He didn't specify the Keera as the steamer but it is likely that she was, because immediately under that advertisement is another over his name referring to the Telegraph Line of Coaches saying "Having made arrangements with the agents for the Keera, Passengers and Parcels can now be booked through from Melbourne to Sale".
I'll say more about the Keera soon. She also featured in an advertisement on this crowded page.
The Telegraph Line of Coaches also ran to "the Bald Hill" and the advert was headed "Through from Port Albert in one day!!" Part of the notice is unreadable but part says "The Telegraph Coach will leave Port Albert on every Friday, carrying passengers through to the Bald Hill in one day, and returning to Sale on (the) following day. Fare from Port Albert to Bald Hill Thirty Shillings."
French's Five-Horse Coach "leaves the Club Hotel, Sale, every Wednesday morning at 6am, and returns immediately on the arrival of the Steamer.… N.B- All Parcels "by steamboat" intended for the "Express Coach" must be addressed care of Messrs Johnson and Hood, Port Albert".
G. French, Proprietor, was decent enough to tell us some fares. From Port Albert to Sale was one pound, Port Albert to Bald Hill was one pound and ten shillings and Sale to Bald Hill was 10 shillings. Bald Hill was later named Seaton.
The Royal Mail between Sale and Bairnsdale was carried by Thomas Shiells, Mail Contractor. His coach left the Club Hotel in Sale every Sunday and Friday morning at 6am, arriving at (I think) 2 p.m. and leaving Hosie's Commercial Hotel in Bairnsdale every Monday and Thursday. It left Bairnsdale at 8.00am and would have you back in Sale at 6pm, a mere 10 hours later.
The fare for this trip was one pound each way and from Sale to Stratford would cost the traveller only five shillings – though that was a day's pay for many people.
The Royal Mail would be brought eastward from Melbourne by George Evanson, Mail Contractor, whose coaches left the General Post Office in Melbourne at 2pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays "arriving at the Buneep (within a short distance of Sale and the Jordan Gold Fields) the following day at 10am, returning on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday from 11am. The fare from Melbourne to "the Buneep" (Bunyip) was seventeen shillings.
That gives the Melbourne-Bunyip River trip as twenty hours, and I'm not sure that is correct, even on the unformed Gippsland Track of 1863.
So what do I know about the SS Keera that was met at Port Albert by Duncan Clark's coaches? Very little, I'm afraid, though I have searched far and wide. Serving Gippsland through Port Albert before a decent road into the province existed, and long before the railroads, she must have been an important link?
There was a steam tugboat named Keera built in Great Britain, launched in 1916, which worked in Melbourne. There is a large tug named Keera working in Papua-New Guinea. The name is Celtic and means 'dark'.
There was a steamship Keera, of 158 tons, operating between Sydney and Brisbane in 1873. There was a Keera, the first screw-drive steamship in Australia, but of 229 tons, owned by CSR. She was built in 1851, bought by CSR in 1877 and hulked on the Clarence River in 1879.
There is a report from New Zealand that a steamer named Keera (Captain Joyce) was overdue. "As she has now been at sea fifteen days some anxiety is beginning to be felt about her…". This was in the NZ West Coast Times of 25 November 1865.
I know our particular Keera collided with the brigantine Golden Swan, well south of Cape Schank on 8 May 1861. She left Melbourne at 10.45am "on a voyage to Port Albert with passengers and cargo." Neither ship was terribly damaged and no lives were lost, but the inexperienced Second Mate of the Keera, Officer of the Watch, was blamed by the Court of Enquiry.
Captain Patrick and the Keera were at Port Albert in March 1863, where they were delayed by a southerly gale. She was reported at Hokitika, NZ, on 28 November 1865.
I will pursue the history of this little ship. Her relevance to the coaching lines is that she apparently traded between Melbourne and Port Albert with some trips to New Zealand. She was scheduled out of Port Albert on every Friday. "Horses will be carried to or from Port Albert in the hold'' (another unreadable sentence) " Gold, for shipment, must be entered at the Customs before 10 o'clock am on the day of sailing." Return tickets valid for 14 days cost five pounds.