Camballin - 10 August 2009

Tonight I am at Camballin. It is a township of about 50 people that now services the aboriginal community of Looma, 10 kms away. The town is on a slightly higher, rocky area, above the Fitzroy river floodplain. To the east lies the old Camballin farm. The brain child of 'Texas' Jack Fletcher, it took shape during the 70's. They cleared 56,000 acres of floodplain, mainly to grow sorghum. They built a 28 ft high levee bank around part of it to keep the Fitzroy floodwaters at bay, and built a barrage across the Fitzroy to divert water to the floodplain to irrigate the sorghum. In the middle of the cleared area is a hill ( that I think they built) where a house once stood with a view across the whole farm. I am not sure where the machinery sheds that housed the 20 Cougar-Steiger tractors used to work the farm used to be.

Sunrise from 'the hill that jack built', overlooking 56,000 acres of what used to be irrigated farmland.

Long forgotten and overgrown irrigation infrastructure.

I am staying at the Camballin Campers Base, a funny little place with space for three or four powered sites, a few trees to camp under, and some dongas. There is a team of geologists, drillers, and assistants in the process of arriving in dribs and drabs. They are looking for coal apparently. And it is a funnier show than the camp ground, the head geologist is of some sort of west Asian decent, the drillers look like a couple of retired blokes, and I listened in to their safety brief this arvo, which consisted more of arguing about what the procedures should be if someone did not return by the expected time, than anything that might actually help safety wise.

One of the local mum's is looking after the Campers Base a few days a week. A QLD girl from near Bribie Island, she convinced her husband they should go somewhere different instead of living a sedentary lifestyle in one QLD town. He said find me a job and I will go. He works as a builder in Looma. She was planning to stay for 6 months or so then go somewhere else. Three years later they are still here as her husband loves the places. They go hunting with a mob of Looma locals all the time for snakes, goanna, birds, barra, etc. And down at the river you can see evidence of the available tucker all around. Big snake tracks across the road, piles of feathers by the river where birds have been plucked, and bones in the fire remains. Currently the hunt is on for a big saltie that has moved into the local swimming hole. The blokes from Broome won't come out and trap this year, so there is an unofficial competition running to be the one to shoot it.

Fitzroy Floodplain near Looma.

Fitzroy Floodplain near Looma. Liveringa homestead is on a small hill behind the bush in the centre of the photo.

On the subject of crocs, I was talking to a bloke at El Questro on Sunday , who told me that Carlton Downs (where the set for Faraway Downs of 'Australia' fame is), on the north bank of the Ord, factor cattle losses to crocodiles in their budget. They budget for 1 beast a day! Mind you, they turn off 12,000 head a year so in the scheme of things 365 is not a huge number. The man with this information, is the young Matt Bran, the Kimberley reporter for the ABC's Country Hour.

Saturday night at El Questro is a night of live music and two old ringers telling yarns and demonstrating how well they can handle a stockwhip and lasso after a lifetime in the saddle. For example, roping a persons leg whilst they walk along. Walking back to camp after everything was over there was a bunch of people from my generation playing guitar, chatting, singing. Thoroughly sick of talking to old people all the time, with the same predictable questions, and answers to my questions, I made myself welcome. Fortunately they were a very nice bunch of mostly Kununurra-ites with a few friends and relatives visiting for holidays. Amongst them were an entomologist, a sandalwood plantation manager, Matt Bran, an events co-ordinator, a cop in training, a tv news editor, a boilermaker, and a couple that live just up the road from our Darlington house. And not a single one of them was retired, or travelling in a caravan! Sunday involved bacon and eggs for breakfast with my new found friends, then a dip in the magnificent, but always busy, Zebedee springs. Then we all went our separate ways - the Wyndham races, the Bungle Bungles, and for me, the equally magnificent, but much less populated El Questro Gorge. El Questro really is all it is cracked up to be!

El Questro Gorge.

The night before El Questro I stayed at the Parry Creek Farm caravan park. They were putting on a camp-oven dinner with damper for desert, and the sign asked if anybody could sing or recite poetry. Not comfortable with my solo acapella singing ability, but having learnt the Man from Snowy River by heart in year 6, and having recently attempted to remember it, I decided I would offer my services. So I got a free dinner for a recital of Clancy of the Overflow, The Man from Snowy River (for which I forgot a line halfway through - a very comfortable situation as you can imagine), and half of Mulga Bill.

The next day I headed into Wyndham, and straight to the lookout. And is it one bloody good lookout. It is called the Bastion, and from here you can view the junction of five rivers. The King, Pentecost, Durack, Forrest, and Ord rivers. The old port of Wyndham is a curious place. The main township is now located at three mile (surprise surprise, three miles from the original town), but the old port town site still hosts a museum, a tourist shop, a hotel, a few houses, and some derelict old places. The port exports live cattle, nickel ore, and I think some grain from the Ord, and imports fuel and other supplies.

However, Wyndham is now missing it's historical economic driver. From 1919 to 1985 (or thereabouts) Wyndham was host to a large meatworks. It was what got the northern WA, and parts of the NT cattle industries off the ground, and was a much larger operation than I ever imagined. The plans and photos in the museum show a building 5 or 6 stories tall, that could clearly process quite a few animals. In fact, over it's lifetime the meatworks processed just over 2 million cattle.

It seems I have found myself a job. An opportunity came up at the Mingenew-Irwin Group, a local farmer research group in Mingenew, in partnership with the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council. The job was too good to not apply for; it has no job description (except for 'Natural Resource Management officer'), a short term rolling contract, and is only half time (therefore I can work on a friends farm two days a week). So I find myself cramming in a last little bit of holiday before heading south to start work. Make no mistake, I will be back in the Kimberley very soon! I will be careful not to stay too long when I get back here - if I do I might never leave. The same thing has happened to many a Kimberley resident.