Edwin Brady and his son Hugh, aged six, met Lawson and Mutch at Genoa. They had a rowboat ready to take the party down the river to the camp. With Edwin insisting on rowing all the way they set out, afternoon tea being taken at Smith’s at Gipsy Point and then on to Allan’s guest house for the night.

Next morning, they went to where the Brady’s and their children Hugh, Norma and Anthony were camped at Captain Stevenson’s Point “living like Gipsies”. Lawson looked over things with a bushman’s eye. He was always proud of his bushcraft and discovered that the family were missing a bush-broom. Rejecting the store bought one he set to work… with “enough tea tree to roof a fernery” and the “blue of the inlet before him”, devoting the whole afternoon to the task. It turned out to be too heavy for Mrs Brady to lift, so, rather than hurt his feelings, they swept the camp with the lighter broom, at dawn each day during his stay. When he left the tea tree broom wa placed in the fork of a nearby tree to ward off evil spirits!