Argyle Diamond Mine

One thing I have always wanted to do is visit the Argyle Diamond Mine and take part in one of the tours.  When Steve and I were in Kununurra 12 years ago, it wasn't feasible mainly because we just didn't have time to spare in our tight schedule of 4 weeks of annual leave to do it.  Four weeks might seem like a long time but when two of those weeks were taken up with just getting to the Kimberley from Adelaide, it didn't leave us with much time after our Gibb River Road trek.  I'm quite sure that there were bus tours out to the mine in 2002 but they took all day and we didn't have the luxury of that extra day.  People have also told us since then that the mine had discontinued the tours at times over that 12 year period so they weren't always available. 
I had enquired about the mine tours when we first arrived in Kununurra last year.  A friend, who worked at the visitor's centre in town, said that the bus tour option was now only available during the Ord Valley Muster and that the only other alternative was a flight to the mine to do the tour which cost $745 per person.  When the Ord Valley Muster came around this year I was keen to book myself on one of the buses as they only had 4 tours operating over the two weeks of the muster.  My main problem was that Steve was going to be away at Go Go Station during this time and the mine tours took longer than school hours to do.  I procrastinated for quite a while because the tour bus left Kununurra at 7.15am and didn't return until 4pm in the afternoon.  This meant I would have to rely on others to get the girls to and from school.  Although I had several people kindly offer to organise the girls, I still felt bad that I was leaving other people with our girls while I was off enjoying a tour.  Anyway, with some encouragement from my friends and Steve, I booked onto the last tour of the muster.  There had been weekend tours available but taking Erin and Becca wasn't an option as children under 12 were not permitted on the mine site anyway.
On a Friday morning, I had both girls dressed, breakfasted, hair done and ready to drop at my friend Bec's place at 7am.  Bec has 3 boys of her own to get organised so my two were not much extra to escort to school.  She walks too which suited me as car seats for Becca didn't need to be addressed.  Erin and her eldest boy could get themselves to class and Bec's middle boy would be dropped off at class and her youngest and Becca who are in kindy together would have been taken to class together.  Pickup had been organised with another friend whose daughter is Erin's age.  The older ones were catching the bus home and Kate would pick up Becca on her way home from work at 2pm.   Thankfully she had a booster seat left over from her two kids to use in the car for Becca.
OK......girls taken care of.  Off to the Argyle Diamond Mine I went.  There were bottles of water and refreshment towels being handed out when I got to the bus.  My main attraction though was the bowl of minties being offered as we got on the bus.  My experiences on buses have been mixed over the years.  I remember dreading school camps because the bus on which we were taken usually had no airconditioning and swayed like a listing ship so my tendency to throw up was high.  Very embarrassing in front of your whole class.  Either that or you spend the first day of camp explaining to your friends why you weren't talking to them on the trip because you felt so nauseous.  Then while at uni on a trip to Central Australia, a two day minibus trip had me curled up in a swag in the caravan park for a day due to motion sickness and a massive migraine.  At least my fellow students enjoyed their night on the town in Alice Springs.  Minties, therefore, were a welcome sight as the mint flavour and lolly itself might relieve any yukky feeling I might get.
As we drove down to the mine site which was 2 hours away, our friendly bus driver Keith (a long time Kununurrian) delighted us with facts and stories about anything and everything along the way.  We were informed about the Diversion Dam construction, the local quad roadtrains, the sandlewood industry, some local bridges and the perils of the wet season and the local history and geology of the region.  All in all it was a pleasant drive down there firstly because I didn't feel sick and secondly because someone was talking for most of the way which was good when there was no-one for me to talk to.  Most of the other tour participants were retired couples.  I sat next to a teenage girl who was with her parents who sat in front of us.  We passed some general banter but didn't have a full on conversation.
When we reached the security boom gates to the mine, there were a few minutes of waiting while checks were made and our guide came onto the bus.  Our guide was a member of one of the four indigenous groups affiliated with the mine and whose land the company Rio Tinto was mining.  He had developed his own tourism business through the mining royalties which each community had been given.  It was just one of a number of strategies which the indigenous land owners and the mine had put together so that the money wasn't abused and wasted.  That's not to say that a bit of corruption didn't take place in the aboriginal communities because the elders were in charge of the funds and no-one was allowed to question them.

Open cut mine pit

View from open pit lookout

I was wondering as we moved inside the gates whether photographs were going to be allowed as the security procedures were fairly strict.  Our guide said that photos were allowed except in areas where he would specifically ask people not to photograph during some of the final processing of the diamonds.  We pulled up before driving into the main area of the mine to allow a toilet stop for us.  Before we got off the bus, we were also informed of another strict rule.  We were told that if we dropped anything on the ground, that we were NOT to bend down and pick it up.  Anything dropped had to be picked up by our guide or another member of the mine site.  If we did bend down and pick something up off the ground, we would be taken away and 'patted down, strip searched and cavity searched'.....yikes!  Obviously the mine was of the belief that there could be diamonds just lying around on the ground and any one of us might pick one up.  Fat chance!  Unless the diamond was polished and cut, I wouldn't be able to pick it out from all the thousands of other useless looking quartz rocks laying around the place.  Who would arouse suspicion anyway and whip out a small magnifying eyepiece to closer inspect said rocks on the ground with the prospect of a rubber glove waiting somewhere behind closed doors.

Dump truck on display

Front end loaders to shift the ore

We spent most of our tour on the bus driving around the mine site.  It is understandable given the safety procedures in place for the workers let alone tourists.  We did get an opportunity to get off the bus at the top of the open cut mine which had only recently been closed.  Mining was now occurring underground so the open cut pit was now abandoned and being regenerated.  For the remainder of the tour around the conveyor systems and processing plants we had to stay on the bus.  Those employees lucky (or unlucky) enough to be part of the final sorting of the diamonds had the privilege of a personal bodyguard who followed them everywhere while they were on duty.  Toilet stops and lunch breaks were not excluded from this 'shadow' who was given to the sorters.  Like I said, it's hard to know whether it would be a privilege or a curse.

Tailings pile where lamproite
dumped after diamonds
extracted

Fort Knox Room

Our final stop before lunch was at the Argyle Diamond Display Centre.  A square building made of iron which looked several inches thick and riveted together like a fortress.  Impressive sliding glass doors at the front were the only enticing feature of this seemingly bullet-proof building.  We all moved into the room within and the door was locked behind us.  The only way out was a button on the wall on the inside which had to be pushed by our guide or another staff member.


Argyle's largest diamond

Colour varieties of diamonds

Inside the building was an amazing visual display of the creation of the diamonds and the process used to extract them.  Inside glass cases scattered around the floor space were magnificent examples of raw, cut and polished diamonds, some displayed separately and some included in beautiful jewellery pieces.   The difference in prices for what looked like the same size stones was quite remarkable.  Colour seemed to be the most valuable feature of the diamonds and the darker the colour, the higher the price.  I also couldn't believe the variety of colours that a diamond could come in.  Greens, yellows, champagnes and of course the most valuable colour of all, pink, for which Argyle Diamond Mine is famous.
Now who would you expect to market this newly discovered diamond colour?  None other than the queen herself, perhaps the most famous person to display exquisite gemstones in jewellery.  In a clever marketing strategy, the queen was approached with a sample of a pink diamond and asked if she would like to be the first to purchase such a rare beauty.  She, of course, said yes and so whenever she wore that striking piece of jewellery with the pink diamond in situ, people commented and she indirectly marketed the gemstone and spread the word, so to speak.


How the diamonds formed

Story behind the mine's
discovery

Also on display was the largest diamond ever found at the mine of 17 carats.  It is on display in it's raw, uncut form and looks just like a piece of quartz or opaque glass.  It's discovery was quite a story as it was discovered in the tyre tread of one of the big dump trucks which had been taking ore out of the open pit.  No wonder they were so weird about people bending down to pick up rocks off the ground.  Imagine picking up that little beauty!  What is probably more remarkable is that it must have been separate from the lamproite ore in which the diamonds are formed....an unusual event in deed as most gems need to be removed from the ore body.While everyone was milling around in the fort knox room, there was the unmistakable sound of something dropping on the floor.  You should have seen everyone's faces.  Oh my god!  Someone has dropped something......nobody move!  We all looked at each other and the person responsible just stood there with their hands in the air as if to say ' I won't touch it.'  The guide just casually walked over and picked it up off the floor quite nonchalantly, after which he said that it was alright to pick something up in here.  Obviously the polished tiled floor inside was not quite the same thievery risk that the gravel outside posed.  Anyway after a moment of tension and complete silence, everyone went back to reading the displays.  It was almost as if hooded men were going to suddenly drop from the ceiling on ropes and snatch the offending 'dropper' and whisk them off to some dark and dingy room for search and extraction procedures.  Security had certainly put fear into all of us.

After all that excitement, we were driven to the Argyle village where all the employees live, eat and pass the time when they are not on duty.  There were small blocks of units for accommodation, and the main dining area.  A small shop sold magazines, papers, confectionary and diamonds, of course, for all those employees who had spare change.  A gym and a pool were also available for the employees.  By this time everyone was starving.  Upon entering the dining hall, we were greeted with a hot meal selection as well as cold serves of meat, fruit and salads.  Breads of every kind were available as well as butter, margarine and everything else in between.  Every conceivable variety of juice, tea, coffee or soft drink was available and there were signs up all over the hall about making healthy food choices.  There was even dessert in the form of ice cream.  I was lining up with all the retired blokes waiting to make my unlimited choice of ice cream flavour while all the old dears were sitting back with their lattes watching their waists.  Pphh!  Forget waistlines when there is this much choice on offer.  It was like the Largs Bay Kiosk on the beachfront on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  The employees are spoiled for choice but then I suppose there isn't much else to look forward to after a 12 hour shift.
After lunch, we boarded the bus again and headed back to the gate where we dropped off our guide and continued on our way home.  It was a quiet trip home with some people sleeping, others reading and some chatting quietly about the days events.  I did enjoy the day although I don't quite know what I was expecting from the tour.  Given the constraints of safety and security on the mine site itself, I shouldn't be surprised that we didn't get off the bus more often but I must have been expecting a more close up look at the processing procedures.  I did get to see the display building which I had been told about by others so that was a treat.  They predict that the mine will close by 2020 which is when they expect the diamonds to run out.   Initially the mine was due to close in 2007 but they found that the ore body extended underground and it was viable to keep mining the site.  I feel lucky that I have been able to see this famous mine and can cross that off my bucket list.

Graves in the Long Grass

In May of 2001,  the town of Kununurra hosted a regional event called the Ord Valley Muster which showcased what the Ord Valley and East Kimberley had to offer and every year since then, this event has grown bigger and bigger.  It brings together culture, music, arts, history and food into one place and celebrates the Kimberley region in all its splendour.  It extends the tourist season by two weeks as the festival starts at the beginning of the dry season and attracts people from all over Australia and beyond.
I was fortunate to be here this year for the event and to be honest, I hadn't heard about it until about 2 months ago but was glad to be a part of the two weeks in a capacity that I could achieve without Steve around.  There was an outdoor music event called Music under the Stars including choirs and live music in the gorges of Mirima National Park and a massive concert with headline acts like John Williamson (for all those country folk), The Waifs and Eskimo Joe.  A concert pianist performed at the Zebra Rock Gallery out of town while outdoor painting classes were held at the same location.  There were also wild walks and tours out to the surrounding areas to show off Kununurra's natural beauty and cooking events for both adults and children hosted by Stephanie Alexander and Manu Fiedel from MKR fame.  This included a dinner cooked by Manu and served at the Old Durack Homestead at Lake Argyle. That event sold out in 6 minutes.  Manu also held a masterclass of sorts in Celebrity Tree Park with tastings and demonstrations.
Of all the choices available during this event, I chose to participate in a tour called 'Graves in the Long Grass' which was a walk through the historic Ivanhoe Station outside Kununurra.  The purpose of the walk was to find historic graves and relive the hardships and tribulations of early Kimberley pioneers through stories.  It was also an opportunity to see this historic cattle station for what could be the last time as the Ord Valley agricultural development is likely to turn the entire area into broad acre farming.  It's a win for the community financially but a tragedy historically as all these special places will be lost.
Our guide for the tour was Kununurra's history museum curator Wendy.  Her enthusiasm for all things history was infectious as we stepped off the mini bus in the middle of nowhere.  Everyone was excited to get going and find out all about the people and past that makes this region what it is today.  As we walked literally in the long grass, we realised that Wendy had only found this grave on the previous Sunday and had marked the track with pink tape so she could relocate it.  Evidently Wendy spends many weekends just wandering around in the bush looking for hidden treasures like this to share with others.  She also spends time talking to older residents some of whom are the children and grandchildren of these pioneers so that she can gather the information she needs to help find historical artefacts or just get a sense of what it was like at the beginning of the last century.


Walking through long grass to
Ulysses memorial

Ulysses memorial

After about half an hour, we arrived at the memorial site of an aboriginal man called Ulysses who was a valuable member of the Durack family and assisted them in their pioneering ventures for his entire life.  There were actually three aboriginal men who, from childhood, helped the Durack family settle this region.  The other men were called Pumpkin and Boxer.  Wendy read extracts from stories and historical documents which talked of the three men and their lives with the Durack family.  The morning sun was stinging my skin as we stood and listened to Wendy regale stories of times gone by, which was a bit distracting, (the sun not Wendy) so I was happy when it was time to walk back to the mini bus via a different track.

Ranges in foreground while
walking

Walking to Ivanhoe Station
homestead

We trekked through more scrub and long grass before popping out onto the dirt road again about 100 metres away from where the minibus was parked under a tree.  As an aside, while walking through long grass, one can't help but think about what 'bities' might be lurking underfoot.   Wendy, however, put our minds at ease by saying that the king brown snake populations have declined severely around Kununurra since the influx of the cane toad.  I don't quite know whether I was reassured by this fact or not but I, like everyone else, just kept on walking otherwise one couldn't enjoy the walk at all.  Out of sight, out of mind.
After a quick drinks break back at the minibus, we trudged into the long grass on the opposite side of the road heading for the old Ivanhoe Station ruins and some more graves.  As we walked toward the old homestead, the picturesque ranges in front of us showed off a beautiful array of colours with the morning sun lighting them up.  We were warned during this stretch of the walk to be careful of potholes caused by cattle walking through the black soil on the station.  Black soil is like cement when dry but turns into an impenetrable bog when wet.  Any tracks through black soil country are impassable until completely dried out otherwise bogging is likely.  The cattle, however, walk through it during the wet season and when it dries, leaves large hoof holes which if you're not careful will break an ankle if stepped into.  We stopped at a small dried lagoon which collects water in the wet season.  Here we discussed with a lady from the Lands Department a little bit more about the bureaucratic football that is being handballed around regarding the future development of this pastoral lease into agricultural land.  It was at this point that we were told that all monetary proceeds from the walk were going towards preserving the graves with consultation with the appropriate land authorities.  The minibus and morning tea had all been donated so that the money from the tour could be used for preserving history.  I was very happy that my fee for taking part in this walk was being put to good use.

Stock yards around homestead

Concrete slab where buildings sit

Eventually we came across some mustering yards, concrete foundations of buildings and other scattered ruins abandoned in the wilderness.  This had been the site of the old Ivanhoe homestead which was destroyed by fire in the 1950's.  Wendy told us that all kitchens were separate from the main buildings during pioneering days due to a fear of fire.  I'm unsure of how this particular fire started but it destroyed most of the homestead which was later rebuilt on another site on the station.  Adjacent to this homestead was a beautiful billabong covered with lillies and supposedly free from crocodiles but I wouldn't like to take a chance.  It would have been a magnificent outlook in the early days and a great supply of fresh water for the station homestead.  It was a little hidden treasure in the wilderness.

Lillies in billabong

Walking towards two lone graves

Old farm equipment and tanks
at old homestead

Homestead billabong

Onward we walked and the day was getting quite warm.  There was no shade and the long grass had disappeared but it made you think for a minute what conditions would have been like before the days of airconditioning and swimming pools.  Wendy guided us to two graves standing alone under a couple of trees with those magnificent ranges in the background.  These were the graves of a stockman called Thomas Deacon and Neal Durack.  Neal Durack's story was particularly sad as his older brother has died as the result of an accident on the station and he and his other brother had been sent off to the Great War.  Out of 10 or so siblings, these three boys were the only ones who survived to adulthood.  Being a mother in those days would have been hard.  After being injured three times in Palestine and keeping his fellow troups in an upward beat due to his resilience as a result of station life, he was honourably discharged and sent home.  Several months later while trying to get home from a race meeting at Victoria River Downs station with substantial winnings for his pregnant wife, he drowned while trying to cross the Ord River.  Bummer!  Just another in the long line of sad tales about life on pioneering cattle stations.  Anyway after several photos of Wendy standing next to the graves taken by a photographer from Kununurra's local paper, the Kimberley Echo, we carried on back towards the minibus and morning tea.  As we walked along Wendy pointed to a tree in the distance under which she found an old toy pedal car belonging to a child.  She now displays the toy in the museum.  These are the sorts of treasures that Wendy finds when she's out fossicking.

Lone graves with ranges in
background

Wildflower shot

The long grass reappeared as we walked towards the ranges and I ended up being last in the line because I was taking photos of wildflowers.  At one stage I looked up and everyone was gone so I hurried to catch up.  Unfortunately my photos didn't turn out too well as I couldn't take my time for fear of being left behind.  The fear mainly stemmed from the fact that we weren't following one track but several which forked off in many directions through the long grass.  When we arrived back at the minibus again (which had been driven from our other starting point), there was a tressle table set up with tea, coffee and water with yummy cakes for morning tea.  In previous years, Wendy had evidently made morning tea herself with homemade cakes but this year was unfortunately different.  The council's litigation merry-go-round had affected a small tour like this by insisting all food and drink be prepared by commercial means.  Food poisoning issues obviously.  How pathetic!  We missed out on lovely home cooked fare because the council was scared of being sued should Wendy's cooking cause unwellness.  It wasn't an issue in the past.  Oh the complications with modern commercial events.

Dave Suttee's headstone

Dave Suttee's grave

After morning tea, we piled back onto the bus and drove further down the Old Wyndham road to find a lone grave on the side of the track beside a creek.  The grave belonged to a stockman called Dave Suttee on whom the character of the old stockman from the book 'We of the Never Never' was based.  The head stockman's body was found in the creek bed several days after he had left Wyndham after a big rum binge following a droving run.  It is said that old Dave died of alcohol poisioning on the track but no-one really knows.  The headstone of the grave is flattened tin with the inscription made by punching a nail into the tin and creating words.  The track which today is just a route to out of the way places was originally the main droving route for cattle to the port of Wyndham where the cattle were shipped out to other destinations.  If only the trees could talk of what went on during those droving runs over a hundred years ago.  Anyway Dave had worked on some of the most famous cattle stations in the Kimberley and had a reputation such that his character was immortilised in a book.  The stuff of legends.
The ride back to town on the bus was abuzz with chatter about the days events and everyone on board seemed like they really enjoyed themselves.  Of course myself and my friend were the youngest ones on the bus but that didn't mean we didn't get a kick out of what we saw or discovered that day.  It was a privilege to learn about the characters of Ivanhoe Station which could, in the very near future, be lost to development.  It's such a pity but lets hope that Wendy and those equally enthusiastic people around her can do something to preserve this little piece of history for future generations or, at least, future Ord Valley Muster tours.

Saturday night at the movies - Kununurra Picture Gardens.

The movie experience in this part of northern Australia is very different from anywhere else.  Here in Kununurra and in other parts of the Kimberley, we have picture gardens or open air cinemas.  It's basically the same as a drive-in although one doesn't need a radio or microphone to tune into the sound - it just bellows out at you where-ever you are seated.  The Kununurra picture garden is the only way for people here to see the latest release movies or any movies at all since the only video store in town shut its doors late last year.  I think the advance of foxtel, bigpond movies, t-box and online downloads in general have sent video stores into extinction.  A movie in Kununurra is a great night out with a family movie usually showing first followed by something more adult or PG rated.  Its cheaper than an indoor cinema at only $35 for the family per movie.  The picture gardens usually open at the start of the dry season in April and continue right through until October or November when the rain starts. 
Our family watched Monsters University late last year before the gates were closed for the wet season.  There are the old deckchairs sitting right at the front near the screen for those who walk to the movies which is easy enough to do in Kununurra.  Most people however, prefer to bring their cars and park in rows in front of the screen.  Some park front forward and sit in camp chairs in front of their cars while others reverse in and set themselves up in the backs of utes and 4wds.  We've done both.  Last year we drove the Subaru station wagon and set ourselves up in camp chairs with nibblies and drinks in front of the car.  There is a kiosk on site selling popcorn, drinks and other movie snacks and some people take advantage of that.  While watching our movie, we had a light shower of rain which heralded the start of the wet season and flying foxes flew high over our heads.  The shower had everyone running for their cars because a shower up here is like a downpour in Adelaide.  It just added to the atmosphere of the night.  There were only half a dozen cars there that night.
Over the wet season, the gravel lot lied vacant because not only were the movies finished but so were the weekly toy library sessions and open air bands and entertainers which also used the site.  A couple of weeks ago, the posters went up around town to advertise that the Lego movie was showing that Saturday.  A lot of people that I spoke to said they were going and we had decided to go because it was Steve's last weekend with us before heading south to Go Go station.  The gates opened at 5.30pm and when we went last year, I organised dinner early and we left the dishes until we got home.  This time I decided to make a pasta bake and do a picnic so we could eat while watching the movie.  We drove down Coolibah drive and were halted 100 metres away from the entrance.  The queue to get into the picture gardens was incredible and not what we expected.  By the time we got to the front of the line and paid, we only had to drive just inside the gate and the cars were lined up in their rows.  There were about 7 or 8 rows of cars in front of us.  We reversed in and set ourselves up.  This time we were in the 4wd and the girls sat in the back in their beanbags and had a fantastic view of the screen.  Steve and I sat in our camp chairs but still had a good view between all the cars parked in front of us.  As I started to serve up our dinner, mobs of kids were wandering around many of whom said hi to Erin as she knew most of them from school.  We also chatted to families we knew as they wandered through with their seating to get a possy up the front.  By this stage, some people were parking outside the gardens and walking in.
It was a fun night and there was a mass evacuation as soon as the movie finished.  The managers of the picture gardens opened a rear exit which we didn't even know about to get everyone out safely.  Luckily once we got out of the lot, I recognised where we were and so knew the way home.  The number of people that I recognised as we were driving out was amazing.  I think most of Kununurra's families were there such was the attraction of a popular kids movie.  The crowd made the night great and was in complete contrast to our viewing late last year.  Whether there is a big crowd or small, the picture gardens is a great night out and there is never any worry about being cold.  Perhaps bug spray might be necessary but being able to sit outside in the night air enjoying a movie is a great Aussie experience of the north.

Easter at Go Go Station - Fitzroy Crossing

Hallelujah!  After nearly two years of chasing our tails around the aviation industry, Steve finally received a phone call which he thought he'd never get.  It wasn't through lack of trying but no company or private enterprise seemed to want to be the ones to give Steve his first break.  Everyone, however, was full of good advice and 'pep talks' about how hard it is to get that first break and that once you get it, then opportunities will follow.  All the things we thought would be attractive to an employer such as showing stability by settling, keeping in regular contact, Steve's mature attitude and outlook and spending money to improve Steve's skills were all for nought when it came to the crux of the matter.  What we thought was our greatest chance of a start turned out to be nothing more than pie in the sky talk by aviation companies in Kununurra.  Being mislead with a sense of possibility and hope rather than being told exactly where one stands has been very frustrating.  Steve has received many contacts and offers of help to get him started but all have failed in one form or another because success is not necessarily guaranteed by a persons verbal say-so in this industry.
And so it was on a Wednesday that Steve answered a phone call from the manager of Go Go Station asking if he would be interested in some flying work for 10 weeks or so.  After Steve picked himself up out of the dust and scooped his jaw back into his mouth, he rang me to discuss it as Rick the manager had suggested.  He too has a young family and understood the need to have everyone behind the decision.  Steve's name was suggested by his chief flight instructor at Beckers who happens to be friends with Go Go's manager.  For the first time, Steve was conveniently close by (well 6 hours away) with a helicopter pilots licence and willing to help.  Rick had been let down by previous pilots and so needed someone to fill the gap fairly promptly as the mustering season was fast approaching.  Mustering had always been something that Steve didn't consider because he was told pilots needed stock experience and he didn't think he had the bravado and fearlessness that younger pilots possessed.  It is also a fairly dangerous practice as helicopter pilots spend most of their time flying in what's called the 'dead man's curve'.  This is low altitude flying whereby there is little chance of landing safely if something goes wrong.  Before everyone gets nervous, Steve will not actually be mustering.  He has been employed to ferry fly all the mustering helicopters from the station which is 20 kilometres north of Fitzroy Crossing to Broome for regular maintenance during the mustering season.  Helicopters rack up engine hours fairly quickly and at 100 hours, machines need to be serviced just like a car to keep them safe and airworthy.  It is a 2 and a half hour flight by helicopter from the station to Broome and in the past, Rick has used more experienced pilots to do the ferry work which has taken them away from more important flying work.  This year he has offered Steve the job which is perfect for him as he can fly 'straight and level' as they say and gain some valuable skills and experience at the same time.
We were all invited down to Go Go station over the Easter break to introduce ourselves and for Steve to get an understanding of what his job entailed and for him to familiarise himself with the place.  We left early on Good Friday as we envisaged an 8 hour drive with the girls and dog in tow.  All our camping gear was packed into the new Landrover which was untested in the camping 'pack up' stakes.  Unlike other camping trips, we didn't have a roofrack on which to put gear and Steve hadn't yet set up shelving in the rear cargo area for tools, fridges and other necessary 'going away' stuff.  It all managed to fit, however, and we left some things behind like a table because the rear fold down tailgate of the car was a perfect kitchen work bench. 
The drive down to Halls Creek was beautiful and without a doubt one of Australia's most amazing drives.  Halls Creek itself was familiar to me despite the fact it had been 12 years since I had been there.  The only difference was that it felt more leafy and tree-like than I remembered.  The local public park still had the self cleaning toilets which were the talk of tourists on the Great Northern Highway back in 2002.  Once fuelled and icecreamed, we continued towards Fitzroy Crossing.  The scenery change was quite remarkable as the landscape changed from red rock ranges to flat open country with quite different rock formations on the horizon.  Large expanses of flat desert were interspersed with flat topped hills like Arizona's deserts.  Some large water courses crossed the highway as well as smaller creeks which were mostly dry unlike the rivers around Kununurra.  Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon was the continual Telstra coverage for the 280 kilometres south.  There was rarely a time when we were out of phone service.  As we got closer to our destination, Steve started to recognise familiar station names and at 4pm we reached the gates of Go Go Station.

Camping on Go Go Station lawns

Green homestead surrounds

Living quarters and school

Incredibly, the homestead was only about 5 kilometres off the main highway.  We went from a dusty well maintained gravel road to a beautiful oasis.  The main homestead was surrounded by massive shade trees and lush lawns while the workers outbuildings were scattered around the homestead.  The main building was constructed of old stonework with long verandahs which stretched around the homestead itself.  One of the verandahs was closed in with loovers and flyscreens to create a cool open air dining and living area.  Unlimited quality bore water meant that sprinklers were running everywhere giving a lush green look to the place.  Rick and his wife have 4 girls ranging in age from 10 down to 4 years old and so Erin and Becca were in their element with new friends to meet and socialise with.  While the adults sat around and talked, all 6 girls hopped on a quad and drove down to the chook shed to collect the eggs and also to feed the pigs.  Our girls were warned about Harriet the pig who was particularly grumpy and well on her way to being the next pork dinner.

Single mans quarters and cottages

Hangar and helipad

Station life had made these girls so self sufficient and if they weren't riding around on a quad bike, they were scooting around on an 80cc motorbike or riding horses.  Before dinner, all the kids dived into the inground pool and had a cool off and swim.  Actually the pool was above ground but the dirt had been pushed up against the pool sides giving the impression that the pool was sunk into a hillside.  It was quite deep and cool with lush lawns and a wire mesh fence around it.  The girls all shared showers after their swim and then had a simple dinner.  Then they sat down in front of the big screen TV in the fireplace (not quite necessary up here) to watch a dvd.
Being Good Friday and visiting a cattle station, I wasn't expecting a fish dinner and nor was I fussed about it but our hosts organised some fish steaks on the bbq with a delicious salad and potato bake.  We even had prawn kebabs as an entrée with a yummy marinade.  Yes, I even ate prawns.   The fish was an ongoing agreement between the station manager and some shooters who come up from Perth to cull feral pigs on the property.  In exchange for being able to shoot on the station, the people from Perth must bring up some fish with them.  It's an interesting little arrangement when beef is the main staple here.  Anyway after helping with the dishes, everyone retired for the night which we realised was necessary with the 4.30am starts as part of this lifestyle.

Go Go Station swimming pool

It was quite warm when we went to bed and we could see the stars through the top of our tent, all milky across the sky.  An owl hooted all night which was a little distracting in the silence.  Of course when camping, the sun rises at 5am so we were stirring not long after that and had breakfast eaten and us dressed by 6.30am.  Erin and Becca were raring to go but I made them wait until they saw the girls moving around which wasn't long as I think they were waiting to see us moving.  All the young ones disappeared so Rick invited me to come along as he showed Steve around the immediate area.  He showed us where the kitchen, meat rooms and cold stores were located as well as the single mans quarters and cottages.  As we walked around we were given the rundown on the procedures for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the social club room which was a huge open air shed with concrete floor.  In the social club was a fridge and bar stocked with liquor condiments and a tally sheet for keeping tabs on who drinks how much so it can be deducted from their pay.  There was a rough looking lounge, wi fi internet and other entertainment.  Steve was wondering how much this venue was used given the 14 hour days which seem to happen once the mustering season starts.
On the walk down to the workshop, we saw some cottages and small houses in various states of disrepair, some liveable and others not so.  The workshop was a large open air shed littered with parts, tools and spares for all those mechanical jobs which would be constantly needing attention on a cattle station.  The manager had just taken delivery of a new Landcruiser work ute and was changing over all the optional extras from one vehicle to another.  Turnover of these work utes was bi-annual but the bullbars, tow bars and other equipment was transferred over.  We looked nervously at the roadtrain trailers that were parked in the workshop and Steve hoped that this wasn't going to be another truck maintenance related job with flying as an aside.  Of course, Steve was fully aware that he wouldn't be flying all the time but he hoped that other station work would be in equal measures unlike his last aviation related job.
We returned to our camp and I was regularly visited by both Erin and Becca at different times.  In discussion with Rick, we had decided to pack up camp and head home that afternoon so that Rick and his family could enjoy Easter Sunday together because from Monday onwards, life was going to get hectic for them.  Steve and Rick went off in the 4wd to look at the farming side of the station while I stayed back and slowly started to pack up.  Rick's wife was doing paperwork in the office so was quite busy and their nanny was watching their girls.  Go Go Station is unique among pastoral leases because it has a diversification lease which allows them to grow crops for stock feed.  This is a first in WA and probably Australia because all pastoral leases are only for stock raising and no other form of farming is permitted on the lease.

Flat-topped hills north of station

More rock formations off highway

Later that morning, Rick's wife finished the paperwork and we sat down for a cuppa under a shady tree in the breeze.  We had a bit of a chuckle about how her girls were saying they were bored and that their boredom was my girls dream come true.  It is amazing how kids take their life for granted but relish living another kids life.  Rick's wife said that they quite happily lets the girls go off riding and biking where they may be gone for hours and she doesn't worry however when they visit her mum in Bairnsdale Victoria, she is constantly watching out for them.  She said the girls want to walk to the local park and she is reluctant despite the fact they can wander freely here.  She and Rick talked about trying to insist the girls wear boots on the motorbike and how eventually it became a lost cause.  Steve wonders how the girls' feet cope with the spiky pegs on the motorbike but they obviously prefer that to boots.  By no means are the girls rough as they all came out that morning is nice clothes ready for the day.

Rock formations on roadside

The Pinnacles rock formations

Eventually the guys came back and Steve helped me to finish packing up our camp.  We left around 2pm after the family left on a bore checking family drive.  All seven of them (governess included) and dog in the V8 Landcruiser 200 series.  They had told us about the Mary River camp back towards Halls Creek where we might make a camp later that afternoon.  As we headed north again, I managed to photograph all the magnificent scenery we had seen on the way down and with the late afternoon light, it was great scenery.  We drove about 80 kilometres, stopping regularly for photographic opportunities, and decided to camp on Larawa Station which was also a working cattle station with a camping area.  As we didn't know how much further we would have to drive before reaching the river camp, we thought it best to pull up in late afternoon and pitch camp rather than at night.

Sunset at Larawa Station

Erin and Becca getting camp comfy

Larawa Station had a slashed area of grass and trees not far from the homestead with newly installed showers and flushing toilets.  The signs on entry told us to find a spot and that the station family would come around later to collect the $20 fee per vehicle.  A while later, a lady came around to say hi, talk about our travels and offer us 4 freshly collected eggs which I included in our dinner.  It's incredible how time changes when you work with the daylight instead of a clock.  Once we erected the tent and made ourselves comfortable, I started dinner.  We ate, did the dishes and cleaned up before realising it was only 6.30pm.  It seemed much later than that.  Becca and I went for a shower while Steve and Erin decided on a birdbath because they thought it was too cold to shower.  How wrong they were.  Becca and I stood under a huge shower rose (we have decided to call them Kimberley shower roses because they are everywhere up here) by torchlight and the water was beautifully hot..  When we got back, Erin was already in bed and so we all bunkered down at 7.30pm to sleep.  During the night, Steve got up and got our sleeping bags out of the car to throw over us as the temperature had dropped enough for us to feel cold.  It was lovely to snuggle under a light sleeping bag.  Our new blow up mattress was an interesting experience.  Every time Steve got out of bed, I almost hit the ground and rolled off and when he got back onto the mattress, I was nearly catapulted into the wall of the tent.  On both occasions when we blew the mattress up, we made sure it was firm but it either lost air overnight or deliberately deflated to adjust to our weights.  Either way it was an interesting nights sleep both times.

Dinner by twilight

Sunrise at Larawa Station

Setting up camp at Larawa Stn

Mary River from causeway

The pre-dawn light stirred me into getting up with my camera for some early morning shots with a pink sky.  Soon after, the rest of the gang got up and we packed everything in the tent ready for loading the car after breakfast.  Before long we were on our way again and drove about 20 kilometres down the road before arriving at the Mary River camp.  We detoured off the highway and across a concrete causeway to the other side of the river where a lovely grassed area under huge trees greeted us.  There were a couple of campers set up but Steve and I agreed that we had made the right choice to pull up with plenty of time the previous night.  After photographing a monitor lizard on the causeway, we continued along until we reached Halls Creek where we fuelled again before Steve drove us around the town.  He had delivered fuel to the town over the last 10 months and so showed us where the interesting people and places were.  Once out of town we stopped at a by-pass road which crossed a creek called Little Panton.  The highway was now rebuilt well above flood levels but the original road was still usable and had been turned into a parking/picnic area by the creek.  We ate lunch then went for a walk in the creek and gave the dog a run.  The girls played in the clear water while Steve and I sat on a log and watched.  On the lower side of the causeway, the water cascaded off the road and dropped several feet into the creek below.  When we climbed back over the rocky creek bed Steve noticed fish jumping up the cascading water trying to swim upstream.  They weren't having much luck but they were trying hard.

Steve, Erin and Becca at Little
Panton Ck

Girls playing in Little Panton Ck

After we got going again and had driven for a while we decided to drop in at the Bungles caravan park for a sticky beak.  This caravan park was developed to accommodate tourists who didn't want to take their vans into the Bungle Bungles National Park which is quite a treacherous road for the unwary.  The caravan park is about 1 kilometre off the main highway and just inside the national park boundary. The road into the Bungles base camp is 50 kilometres and can take up to 3 or more hours to drive.  The national park has newly available tent accommodation where people can stay or camping facilities which give tourists options.  We were told about the caravan park by some friends we met who were travelling up here last year and Steve had heard about it because the owner also flew helicopter tours out of the caravan park during the tourist season.  Anyway we weren't overly impressed by the facilities and of course most of the toilet blocks and site facilities had to be removable in the wet season when the national park closes so nothing was permanently fixed.

Little Panton Ck causeway and falls

Within a few hours we were back in Kununurra but had really enjoyed our little road trip down to Fitzroy Crossing and Go Go Station.  The road was comfortable to drive and the scenery was marvellous.  We all had an interesting insight into station life but I'm sure we only scratched the surface.  Steve will get a real taste of it when he journeys down there on his own in a weeks time.  There were a couple of other sights we wanted to see but time didn't permit it so hopefully we will be able to do those things in the near future when Steve finishes his stint at Go Go.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Anzac Day Kununurra 2014

Another year has come and gone and we have again shifted to a new state and a new town in the pursuit of helicoptering.  We never really took part in Anzac Day memorials while in Adelaide but since we started travelling, we have become involved, in some small part, with the marking of peoples' sacrifice during war.  Being in a different town for Anzac Day every year gives us the chance to experience a community's representation of the day itself.  Kununurra however is quite unique in the Anzac tradition because the town was only gazetted in 1961 so there would have been no people representing Kununurra in any war until Vietnam.  The only other representation would be from people who have been to war but settled here after 1961.  Generational family ties with Kununurra would only stem from the early 60's onwards.  This is very different to Ingham, for example, where generations of families watched their young men and women go off to war with some returning and some not.
This does not, however, dampen the spirit of the people of Kununurra to celebrate the lives of the men and women who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Australia and the world.  In the lead up to past Anzac Days, Erin's schools have been involved, usually organising a march with the veterans but there was no mention of anything being organised this year in Kununurra.  It may have had a lot to do with the fact that Anzac Day fell in the middle of the school holidays this year and so that made it impossible to organise students, many of whom would have been out of town.  I asked Steve to find out from his employers (long time Kununurra locals) about what was happening on the day.  He told me about the dawn service which was scheduled so for the first time, we decided to go to a dawn service.
The service was located at a memorial site which was about 10 kilometres out of town on a hill overlooking the town itself.  Fittingly the site is called Anzac Hill.  We were told to get there early as last year saw a queue of cars several kilometres down the road waiting to get into the carpark.  When I talk about a carpark, I mean a slashed and graded bit of scrub where everyone parks - no bitumen.  The site itself is an open gravel area with a concrete slab and flag pole near a boab tree.  After dragging ourselves out of bed at 3am, the girls, Steve and I drove out to Anzac Hill where we were greeted by men in reflective vests with large portable lighting who directed us into the parking area.  I became aware of the need for this lighting as the memorial was off the Victoria highway which was a busy truck route from Perth to Darwin.  It would be a rude shock for any truck driver coming into town on Anzac Day thinking he was going to have the road to himself and suddenly seeing cars everywhere.

We positioned ourselves front and centre to the flagpole and waited for nearly an hour while the rest of Kununurra came up the hill.  Rotary were already there organising a breakfast and the new president of Kununurra's RSL had organised a photographic display so someone's massive big screen TV was up on the hill as well.  The girls were very well behaved while we waited (probably because they were still half asleep) and we watched as car headlights streamed up from town towards the hill.  Eventually the service started with what seemed like half the town up there.  It was a huge turnout.  There were poems, readings and a rendition of the changed role of women in war by a female army officer living in Kununurra.  As the bugle played the last post and the dawn light glowed pink over the Mirima National Park in the background, it was a very emotional time.  From where I was sitting, I could see the dark silhouette of an army officer guarding the epitaph and the pink sky behind him.  It would have been a great photograph.  I took my camera but wasn't sure if it was disrespectful to take photos during the service.  A photographer from the local paper took some but most people took photos on their phones after the service which is what I did.
Later in the morning, a march was organised to proceed to the other memorial site which is in the town itself.  As I explained earlier, there were only a handful of marchers with medals mostly representing the Vietnam war or representing someone no longer here.  The community services all marched including the police, ambulance service and fire and rescue.  We sat and listened to the service which was identical to the dawn service surrounded by a few families and some older indigenous women with their grandchildren.  They sat respectfully and listened which made me feel proud.  I don't know if these indigenous people knew what it was all about but somehow I felt grateful that they had taken the time to come and show their interest.  Also the fact that they had brought a younger generation to watch had me thinking that at least a new generation of indigenous Australians, like non-indigenous Australians, were learning the traditions about Anzac Day.
Again, the Anzac Day tradition was upheld by another community of people and it was a different experience to our past Anzac Days.  The ceremonies may follow the same pattern but the content and the personal experiences which communities add makes them unique to those people and that's what makes Anzac Day memorable for us.  Lest we forget.