For a time only one bus or coach brought children to Nowra to attend school and it was drawn by horse.
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It mostly catered for the families from Terara, over a road that was notorious for being under water, but the horse and coach always got through.
At times it seemed as if the coach was floating, with the horse either plodding or swimming through the floodwaters.
Although Terara had its own public school from 1879, children still travelled to Nowra for school, some maybe seeing it as having a superior status.
Douglas Glass, who had been the last mayor of Nowra Municipality, related this story.
Horse-drawn coaches also plied between Nowra and the Bomaderry Railway Station.
These vehicles were a child's delight, they carried passengers upstairs as well as in a closed-in downstairs compartment.
To ride on top of one of these vehicles had a real sense of adventure, particularly while travelling over the Nowra bridge.
The advent of the motor bus into Nowra was a real novelty, with a bus proprietor introducing Ford buses for the run from the station.
These motor vehicles with acetylene lamps did not entirely eliminate the horse buses, with Barney McTernan being one who resolutely stayed with the traditional type of transport.
When the trains arrived, the bus drivers called for patronage, but the most aggressive of the group was McTernan who always called out "the first bus to Nowra".
This was quite true, for passengers invariably made for his bus which was the first away.
But he did not add that he would probably be the last to arrive in Nowra, being overtaken by the motor buses on the bridge.
There was one occasion when McTernan had the last laugh on his opposition.
Although Bolong Road, Bomaderry (near Morton's corner) was in flood, the motor bus proprietors were determined that it would not affect the service.
The floodwaters had risen considerably while he was at the station, but the driver of the Ford decided to go straight through, only for the motor to stop when he was half-way through.
Along came Barney with his horse and bus, and he chuckled loudly when he saw the predicament of the Ford.
While driving his horse past his stranded rival, he worked out a plan to assist.
At higher ground he unhitched his bus, rode his horse back to the stranded vehicle, hitched onto the bus and pulled it through.
"This is probably how the term 'horsepower' was coined," suggested Mr Glass.
Information from Shoalhaven Historical Society.