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Nice - but not at that price thanks

5/31/2014

“It’s too bloody expensive now. The bastards doubled the campsite fees this year,” said Reg, our neighbour at the free camp area of Bush Bay, about 40 km south of Carnarvon.

Reg and wife Sue from Mandurah were in a roomy converted bus, up north for a few months and hanging out at Bush Bay after bailing out at the council-controlled camp beside the Quobba blowholes.

When they hiked the overnight site fees from $5.50 to $11, Reg hit the roof with a stand-up confrontation with the rangers. He refused to pay. The area has a couple of sparse dunnies and a collection of fishing shacks whose longevity means they cannot be removed.

We sympathised but didn’t think $11 a night was too bad for a site beside the beach. We have since heard that prices have been yanked up again to $11 a person a night. Rumour is rife that someone wants to build a resort at the beach site beside the blowholes and putting up prices will dissuade some long-term campers from staying there.

Rumour also has it the Carnarvon council would like to close camping at Bush Bay and New Beach too. Some odd long-term dwellers are ensconced in the “single men’s quarters” up the track. One hermit with two large dogs had moved into the “family” area where Grey Nomads and French vannies stop for a couple of nights or a couple of months.

“This might be the last year we can camp here,” said Rick sombrely. “The council wants to shut it down.” Rick used to live at Port Hedland. He retired but couldn’t stand it in Perth, so hit the road with his wife and fifth-wheeler five years ago.

Rick was a head serang in recreational fishing in Port Hedland, blithely producing evidence on his skill by pulling in more than 25 sizeable whiting each day while Reg, Tony and I landed little.

Twenty-five kilometres north of Carnarvon the Quobba road cuts west on its 50km sealed run to the blowholes before turning right on to a 75km rough unsealed road to Quobba and Gnarloo, two stations famed for their fishing and camping areas. Quobba’s Red Bluff and Gnarloo’s Three Mile camps are also noted surfing spots.

We felt we had to revisit Quobba to give it a chance to show its worth. We had lobbed into the station site about two years ago with camping buddies Ken and Noreen. We were camping in the back of our ute; they were in a Cruiser with a roof-top camper.

It rained. We sloshed in through sticky grey mud, bought some firewood, set up protective tarps and found it was too wet for a fire. During the night the blustery weather blossomed into a fine storm. Ken and Tony crawled out and held the tarps together. Noreen and I with a minimal show of reluctance agreed to their suggestion that we stay in bed, coffee supplied, until we could escape from bloody Quobba.

Escape we did but in the back of our minds was the thought we should give it another go.

We wanted to go further up the coast to fabled Red Bluff. Both Reg and Rick shook their heads. It was now really expensive up there and the road was terrible.

We went, stopping to admire the blowholes putting on a worthy performance in a lively swell. Then we headed north on the slowly deteriorating road past Quobba station. Isabel rode over corrugations and crawled through craters filled with muddy water left by a storm.

Red Bluff appeared before us, with cornflower water smoothly but forcefully swelling on to a splendid white beach. Thirty meters out the rollers rose and crashed on to the beach with ground-shuddering jarring.

We were charged $30 a night. Apparently the fees there had doubled not long ago. Amenities were limited to a few see-through drop dunnies, a couple of rubbish bins and a modest store-café with immodest prices.

We watched a dozen surfers ride the waves at the point break. The swell meant conditions weren’t too bad for surfing, they said, but they mourned the increased cost of spending a night in their vans at Red Bluff. Most sidled out in the evenings, apparently to hide somewhere for the night before returning in the morning.

Fishing was impossible in the dumping waves and tackle-treacherous around the rocks at the base of the bluff. We caught enough small wrasse for dinner and were considered lucky.

After two nights we sidled off too but thought we would give Gnarloo Station a go. An impressive gateway announced we were at the station and a smaller matching entrance statement welcomed us to the Three Mile campsite. Sadly, the welcome was not so impressive.

The shop was shut and 2046 signs advised what could and could not be done in the camping area, which we surveyed with misgiving. Undoubtedly the beach and reef were nice but camps were jammed together like sardines. Apparently, like Quobba and Red Bluff, the cost was $30 a night for the privilege of using a drop dunny.

We sighed and trundled back down the corrugations and gullies to the blowholes. You were right, Reg and Rick, but it was one of those things we had to try. Been there, done that, didn’t get the T-shirt but forlornly found more cases of WA’s price hiking. And Red Bluff wasn't that red either.

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And talking about that Red Dog .......

5/26/2014

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Mathematicians (and Gibbs of NCIS) tell us coincidences don’t exist. We only have intersecting lines of probabilities.

Maybe. But it seems coincidence and small-world-syndrome is often waiting to surface at the next sundowner with fellow travellers at a roadside stop.

I posted my last blog about Red Dog, the famous wandering kelpie of the WA North West who was featured in the movie of the same name, while we were parked on the banks of the Yule River. Laptop snapped shut, we armed ourselves with cold beer and wandered down a couple of camp sites to take up an invitation to have sundowners with Clarke and Deborah (above).

We were a bit late. I told them about the blog. “Red Dog!” snorted Clarke. “I can tell you about Red Dog.”

And, it turned out, he knew also a fair bit about the only person Red Dog became seriously attached to: John Stazzonelli. Clarke had carted Stazzonelli’s body, rolled in a rug, into the morgue on the back of his tow truck.

Only he wasn’t John. He was Frank – which explained why he was a bit shadowy when it came to finding out his background as the Red Dog legend grew in the Pilbara and beyond.

“Well, it’s like this,” said Clarke. “A lot of blokes were getting away from something around Dampier in those days. Families. Paternity. Tax. A hell of a lot was done under the barter system.”

Clarke lobbed into Dampier in 1969 and talks nostalgically about the good old fun days when bars and dance floors were awash in blood and beer. He’s known only by his surname (first name William has been discarded) and by his nickname, “The Wrecker”, acquired through his wrecking yard business.

Like most of the Pilbara miners, contractors and business owners, Clarke worked long and hard, first laying concrete slabs for the town of Karratha, built as Dampier outgrew itself, with later business ventures in wrecking, tyres, wheel alignments, panel beating and windscreens.

In the early days Dampier was closed with the Hamersley Iron boom gate. “We had to go to Cape Lambert to get fuel and Roebourne to get supplies.”

His tow truck was called in by the police to help transport bodies when someone died outside the ambit of the ambulance. When he was called to that fatal motorbike accident scene in November 1975 and immediately knew the dead man was Stazzonelli.

Unlike the movie story, no roo was involved and Red Dog was at the scene, not waiting at home. Stazzonelli had rounded the bend at the T intersection (a bit over 100m from where the kelpie’s statue is today) and slid into a big rock, crushing his leg and whacking his head. He was killed instantly.

“We used to roll the bodies up in rugs. We didn’t have body bags in those days,” said Clarke. “Red Dog hopped into the cab and came to the morgue with me. He saw where body went and I took him home with me.

“He had had a bit of a set-to with my boxer dog Jason but they were good mates by then. He stayed a few days and then off he went. He seemed to stay around with people he could trust, then he would disappear. You’d have no idea where he was and then one morning you’d get up and bugger me dead he would be there.”

Red Dog was a very smart dog, said Clarke. He was a bit wary, a bit standoffish. If anyone started arguing he would walk off. “He had obviously had a few rough times.”

He rode to Perth several times, often with Neil Deanspread, sometimes with his brother Gary. Truckie Dicko used to often take him on runs out to Millstream. “Dicko had a dog called Buck, a bastard of a dog. He and Red Dog had a couple of dust ups but they sorted it out and became good friends.’

Something similar happened with Dicko and Clarke and they had “four good fights” before settling down to become good friends.

When the Red Dog movie was being made, Clarke was asked if he would lend his restored EK Holden for some of the scenes. He did with some reservations but was reasonably pleased with the movie result, even though some parts were fictionalised.

“They probably have to do that to make a good story but Red Dog’s story was good enough I reckon.” The EK, with a blue bottom and white top, is due to appear on postcards being sold in the area.

Clarke is more or less retired after his mercurial life. His son now runs the business.

“I’ve been broke five times,” he said cheerily. “Wasn’t my fault. People would go broke owing me money. I lost a house at the marina in Maroochydore (Queensland) once when I went broke. And a five-bedroomed house in Karratha.”

Long hours making a quid, breaking and rebuilding meant Clarke didn’t see much of his four kids. His wife would line them up at the table on Sunday morning and make him repeat their names.

He’s bought each of the kids a house. He gave his wife a house and more than a million when they split. “I offered to buy her a new car too. I thought that was pretty good but she still calls me a bastard.”

With 20 grand left in the bank (“plus a bit more coming in”), a house and a “shack” on Louis Island, about 12k off the Karratha Coast, he and new partner Deb are planning caravan trips around Australia.

Clarke reckons he’s tired more than retired but his zest for life crackles in the air. You get the feeling with some of these North-West blokes that the iron ore seeps into their blood.

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Red Dog: Facts, fiction and folks around the Pilbara Wanderer.

5/25/2014

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RIGHT:

So tell me the truth Red Dog. How far did you wander beyond the Pilbara?

Dave in Dampier got into a bit of strife because he gave Red Dog a few lifts when he was doing the crib run. John at Port Sampson said Red Dog used to go with him on runs for service call-outs from the mine workshop.

Michele in the Roebourne Visitors Information said she had been in Dampier since 1965 but had never actually seen the legendary kelpie. She did, however, work for the vet Rick Fenny who treated the Pilbara Wanderer who featured in the Aussie film. “They said he was a bit of a mangy thing. He wasn’t very friendly.”

I love that film. Daughter Tasmin gave me the movie CD and I have happily sobbed my way through it a dozen times, usually with another teary female.

Red Dog’s statue is in Dampier. It was a beacon for me. I wanted to talk to locals and sort fact from fiction in the story about the kelpie who cadged rides on buses, ore trains and trailers, in utes and trucks, roaming the Pilbara and beyond for eight years.

True: Red Dog was born in Paraburdoo in 1971 and always had a wanderlust. He moved to Dampier with owner Col Cummings when he was 18 months old and took up his wandering ways, turning up in the mining towns around the North-West, hitching rides, scrounging feeds and issuing deadly farts.

True: In 1972 Red Dog formed his closest bond with Hamersley Iron driver John Stazzonelli, shadowing him everywhere until he was killed on his motorcycle in 1975 at an intersection less than 200m from where Red Dog’s statue stands today.

True: Red Dog’s vet fees were paid mainly by various miners, especially Ron, who made him a member of the sports club and opened a bank account for the dog. He was shot at least twice. Three miners ended up in trouble for going on a bender after taking Red Dog to the Port Hedland vet (before a clinic opened in Roebourne). Red Dog was made a member of the union so taking him to the vet would be a legitimate excuse not to be at work.

True: Not everyone liked Red Dog. He was poisoned in 1979. “Killed by the hand of man” grimly states the bronze plaque at the base of his statue.

False: John was an American who courted a girl called Nancy, became engaged and was buried at Dampier after he died. John Stazzonelli was actually a fairly mysterious Eastern European guy who courted ……ummmmm …. well….

We parked Isabel for the night in the backyard of Dave and Stephanie Culling within a stone’s throw of the famous statue (which now has a mysterious new padlock on the left foreleg).

Dave, a train driver for Rio Tinto, has been in Dampier for about 35 years. He said Red Dog was a character, a local identity, turning up here and there, scrounging food and cadging rides.

“If he wanted a ride he would just walk in front of a ute and when you stopped he would walk around to the passenger door to be let in. He got to know which vehicles would stop.

“He was a bit scruffy. Now and again someone would take him home and give him a bit of a scrub up.”

Dave’s work at that time involved taking crib meals around to mine sites. Red Dog took to accompanying him and then scrambling through to sit on top of the box holding the food packs.

“Someone spotted him and starting yelling to ‘get that mangy thing away from our food’. There was a bit of a fuss with the union so I just had to refuse to let the dog into the vehicle. He seemed to understand and wandered off again.”

Stories of Red Dog’s wanderings blend myth and reality. “Truckies used to pick him up a lot. He went to Perth a couple of times and possibly Darwin. There was that rumour that he went on a trip to Japan and back on one of the ore boats but….” Dave rolled his eyes.

“He did seem to be looking for something though.”

As in the film, Red Dog took up his wanderings in earnest after John was killed. Other episodes in the movie have their fact in the book Red Dog by Nancy Gillespie but serious romantic latitude has been taken in the later book and film about the legend.

John Stazzonelli, it seems, was a bit of a legend in his own right. At Point Sampson we parked Isabel in the driveway of John and Debbie Potten, identities in the Pilbara since the early 1970s. They reminisced about the legend over a beer.

“About 50 women – mainly married woman – in the area were weeping when John was killed,” said Debbie Potten. “I know of at least two married women who sobbed all the way to his funeral in Perth.”

No one was sure if Stazzonelli was Polish, Hungarian or Yugoslav. “He was definitely East European and quite a nice looker,” said Debbie. “Short and dark. I obviously didn’t know him as well as some women did.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said her husband John, who was a service manager in the good old days of Hamersley Iron (pre-Rio Tinto). Red Dog would turn up at the workshop now and again.

“He would let you know if he wanted a drink or anything and then he would hop in the ute and come for rides wherever I went. After about three weeks he would disappear again.

“He seemed to be looking for something but he was a wanderer long before John arrived.”

Debbie said the Red Dog film had been popular in the Pilbara, even though parts were fictionalised. “They did the role of the vet Rick Fenny very well. I could have sworn it was him.”

Debbie and John love the history and character of the Pilbara towns. They have run their own businesses, are semi-retired and heavily involved in the community. John was president of the chamber of commerce and is busy as master of the Freemasons lodge.

We dined in their elegantly restored 1930s home at Point Sampson, decorated inside and out with fascinating antiques and memorabilia assembled from throughout Australia. Around the interlinked towns of Tom Price-Dampier-Karratha-Roebourne-Wickham-Cossack, the old interlaces with the new.

Just down the road from Debbie and John’s home, Cape Lambert is on the brink of becoming the biggest port in Australia, pushing more than a million tonnes of iron ore through every day, 40 trains, one passing through every 40 minjutes. It’s a chaotic economy of ups and downs as frenetic building projects evolve into operational phases, then new projects surface.

Roebourne, with its picturesque port of Cossack, is the north’s oldest town, says Michele Heymans who volunteers on weekends at the quaint visitors' centre built from the town’s historic old jail. She used to babysit for Rick Fenny, who still owns the vet clinic in Karratha after moving south.

Rick put Red Dog down after he was baited, left demented and in pain. He buried him somewhere in the bush around Roebourne. “I never actually saw the dog but loved the film. So many people are now coming here wanting anything to do with Red Dog.”

She sells them T-shirts, caps, mugs, stubby holders, CDs, books …… Red Dog post mortem is good for the tourism business here.

Michele’s been in the Pilbara since 1965. Her husband was a railway contractor, moving from Mt Isa and Townsville to build the Perth-Kalgoorlie line and then north to the Dampier-Tom Price railway.

“We were in Dampier before it was Dampier,” she said. “It used to be King Bay then. Ding Bay we called it.”

The port was opening up. She lived out on the construction site by the water, separated from the “Yankee village where all the bosses’ wives lived”.

“We got to know how to get food if you went to the side of the mess and waited in line for ages. The Yankee women always got served first. There were some massive steaks in those stores.”

Michele, with (now-ex) husband Peter and her small children lived in the railway camps as the Tom Price line was built. She loved the atmosphere of the old days. They moved to Kununurra for the Argyle Dam project. That was before the famous pink diamonds were discovered.

“When they drained the river we used to pick out all the brightly coloured agates from gravel. We used to throw away lumps of smoky looking stuff. We now realise they were probably diamonds.”

Great people and colorful stories are part of the wealth of the Pilbara.

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By George, Graeme's got it

5/23/2014

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He was easily spotted as a bird-spotter. A pair of shorts, no-nonsense boots and socks, grey-haired and 70ish with a serious pair of binoculars around his neck, Graeme George had that alert manner and focus that distinguishes avid bird watchers.

He was more than that. A permaculture ecologist from Victoria, he studies habitats as well as noting species of birds. He likes to figure out why certain birds are found in some areas and not others; what food, fauna and climate they need to survive. He also has some pretty strong views on how the human species is going to survive in its habitat.

We found Graeme prowling around the homestead campsite in the Pilbara’s Millstream Chichester national park. He was in good spirits, buoyed by a refreshing plunge in the nearby Deep Reach pool and well pleased with his first sighting of star finches.

Tony and I had had a grumpy introduction to the park, being given the runaround because the first two campsites we wanted were closed without much notice but, as can happen, it didn’t work out too badly.

We had more time to explore the cool, airy Millstream homestead (above) and its surrounds. The pastoral lease was taken up about 1866 for the station along spring-fed pools rising from the plains and forming a tributary for the Fortescue River. Explorer F. T. Gregory noted in 1861 that the stream was “running strong enough to supply a large mill”, giving the station its name.

At its peak Millstream covered a million acres and carried 55,000 sheep. It once held the Australian record for the highest price paid for a fleece.

The second homestead was built in 1914 with wide verandahs and altered only minimally when turned into a visitor centre in 1990. A detached corrugated iron kitchen with a high curved roof still contains an impressive wood stove with ovens.

A rambling walk goes past what was once an ant bed tennis court, beside what was once an expansive vegetable garden (rice and cotton were among plants grown but apparently no one knew how to harvest them) and wanders through a grove of hundreds of date palms to the water-lilied lagoon. Scattered along the paths were plaques peeking into the past with slightly haphazard first person quotes.

Millstream is a rare haven in the ancient, parched landscape of the red-rocked Pilbara. Rare too was the camp kitchen which almost made up for our disappointment at not being able to have a campfire when we became reluctant overnighters.

Possibly one of the finest national parks kitchens created to date, Millstream’s offering to campers has been built on the same design as the detached kitchen at the homestead, with a curved corrugated iron roof, verandah and clean tiles.

A long tiled central bench separated the gas stove with barbecue at one end and the washing up area with Graeme at the other.

He had hit the road in his trusty ute for a two-month break from busy rounds of meetings back home in Victoria. Semi-retired and still lecturing, he explained that permaculture had evolved because the heady growth of everything in the world was believed to be leading to a global collapse.

Transport, communication, food production and energy supplies could fail dramatically so those who had the means to be self-sufficient would survive. Permaculture had broadened beyond its initial grow-vegies-spin-wool base sustainability to encompass much more of mankind’s activity.

I had to ask the question. “What do you consider to be the greatest threat to mankind and the planet.” The answer came without hesitation. I nearly hugged him. Here was an educated, environmentally aware Victorian with a clear focus on the root cause of our problems but one that never seems to get air in the subjective, emotional and sneakily financially self-serving debates about carbon, climate change and rising sea levels.

“Overpopulation – and over-consumption,” said Graeme firmly. Unless we fix those two things civilisation as we know it will collapse. Yes! Here’s a bare-chested Victorian environmentalist singing my song.

We agreed that education of women was critical to saving the planet. Not higher education in developed countries so well-heeled females could spend, spend and spend but basic education for women in developing countries that would lead to them controlling their fertility. We also need corporate success to be measured in regenerational growth, not exponential growth.

I slept soundly. Maybe it was the wine. As we watched Graeme stalking birds the next morning I wondered if I should start growing grapes. Then I remembered my mother’s vintner foray with a potent poison that was supposed to be nectarine wine.

We drove off to admire the dramatic landscape in the park of almost 240,000 hectares, heading for the Python Pool that had been our initial destination. It was not at its most spectacular, a little stagnant but with prettily green algae on the surface around the edges. A sign said not to swim if the algae were in bloom.

A procession of work-like vehicles arrived and disgorged occupants who plunged into the pool. Apparently after driving a few hundred kilometres to get there from anywhere else you are not going to be deterred by a fluffy bit of algae bloom.

We slipped the swim and headed for the coast. I wondered what effect the algae had on Pilbara swimmers and whether gentle permaculturalists had extended their preparations for doomsday to include defence strategies.

How would they protect their pockets of self-sufficiency from invasions from hungry hordes clutching high heels, pushing Ferraris that had run out of fuel and fanning themselves with dead tablets? You would have to have a hidden cellar for the wine.

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Some days are not diamonds in iron ore country

5/20/2014

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ABOVE: A potentially hazardous encounter in a gully of paprika custard. Thank God his wide load sign was nearly falling off. Tony supplied large zip ties for repairs.

As we rolled back into the Pilbara, Pannawonica’s pies, a fright with firewood and frustration over fire put stones into a day that should have been all diamonds.

It sparkled in brilliant sunshine. Rain had speckled and splashed the reds and oranges of iron ore country with emerald grass and a buff frosting from flowering spinifex.

We popped into the mining town of Pannawonica in the morning with our favourite travelling indulgences, pies and coffee, on our mind. We are suckers for flat whites and local bakery pies in small towns, rating them out of 10 when we succumb. The pie evaluation scale has as a 1 the lumpy Scottish lady on the microwave-heated cellophane pack around cardboard pastry and stew.

Pannawonica lets you know what it’s about with its welcome sign: “Please drive carefully. Let our minors become miners.” And like all mining towns, it is neatly laid out with no garish advertising signs. So subtle is its signage that is it bloody frustrating trying to find something like a supermarket.

Find it we did. We picked up a minimum of supplies (think about double your usual cost for most goods; the meat on sale coyly did not display any prices apparently on the assumption that you commit to buying before you faint at the expense). We asked about pies. At the delicatessen next door, we were told.

Even “next door” it was difficult to find but we were pleased to learn the pies were just coming out of the oven. Happily we ordered flat whites that turned out to be passable and settled down to munch our local pies. Aaaargh. The lumpy Scottish lady beamed on us from the cellophane.

A little less cheerily we headed for our destination, the Millstream Chichester National Park on the edge of the Hammersley Ranges. All our pamphlets and maps showed the park had three camp sites and we had decided we would camp at the Python Pool, a little further on than the others but apparently a salubrious spot.

First we had to stop on the dirt road to gather firewood, which took an hour in the flood debris of a gully. As Tony hitched the wood on to Isabel’s bum, I climbed into the passenger seat. My eyes widened as a semi loaded with a grader sailed around the corner towards us.

Robust dust swirls and billows. What flowed from the semi’s wheels did better than that. It rippled and rose like slops of velvety paprika custard. Isabel was going to be engulfed. I squeaked at Tony to shut the driver’s door. He was on to it. Then I realised I couldn’t put up my window.

Isabel’s interior was saved from a russet snowstorm by a small miracle. The semi’s front wide load sign was falling off. Tony signalled to the driver; he slowed and the paprika custard subsided as he reached Isabel. Tony produced a couple of zip ties; the semi went west and we eased Isabel east.

Around Australia national parks compete to confuse visitors. Some say it’s a conspiracy because they really don’t want people in their parks. That was what we were figuring about Millstream after we arrived at the self-help entrance. We had an annual parks pass and couldn’t see where to note that or where to register for camp sites.

We drove 7km north to the visitors’ centre to talk to someone who could put us straight. The centre was in a wonderful old homestead but unmanned. We spotted an unobtrusive notice: the Python Pool camp was closed. Damn. Well, we would go back to the entrance, try again to register and stay at the Crossing Pool, our second choice for a campsite. We drove back 7km, studied all the confusing signage and spotted another modest notice saying the Crossing Pool was closed. That left only the homestead site open for camping. We found another discreet piece of advice saying camping fees were to be paid at the entrance to individual campsites, so we drove back 7km to the homestead and alighted at the entrance sign with a fee box. Another sign said fees were not to be paid there any more; they would be collected by a camp host.

As we drove around looking for a camp site, sad realisation dawned on us at the same time. Unlike the other sites, the Millstream homestead campsite does not allow campfires.Time for a beer. I flicked open the pamphlet I had picked up at the visitors’ centre. It said camping was available at the Python Pool, Crossing Pool and the homestead. Time for another beer.

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It's not just the flood: Shirley and Stuart might not be back

5/7/2014

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For eight years Stuart and Shirley Jackson have travelled halfway around the world to escape the English winters and revel in Western Australia’s turquoise coastal waters.

They will not quickly forget the night the waters rose to greet them, sinking the front wheels of their home, sending them clambering out the back and hurtling their trailer out to sea.

Two weeks ago the 73-year-old couple (above) was relaxing once again at one of their loved holiday spots: Cape Range on stunning Ningaloo Reef.

They had camped for three weeks at a few spots along the national park in the pop-top camper van they have holidayed in for five months of the last seven years. Along with others relaxing at the popular Lakeside camp they had been warned heavy rainfall had been predicted.

About 30mm of rain fell on the Thursday and as it eased the Britishers sniffed a bit. If Aussies called that heavy rain, they needed to pop over to England.

About 5am the next morning the storm slammed into the sand and sea. Rain teemed, thunder cracked and lightning lit up paradise tossed. The sea surged in and swirled on to the steps of the Jacksons’ camper.

It subsided as darkness fell.

“We thought worst was over,” said Stuart in the Yorkshire twang that drops the odd “a” and “the'' and puts a “were” where there should be a “was”.

“We climbed inside and started playing cards.”

Somewhere between 250mm and 400mm had fallen in the hills behind them. It hurtled down, built up in the lake and ripped through the campsites. Vehicles had been moved twice to higher ground but that was not enough.

As the couple calmly played their cards, some sixth sense caused Stuart to turn around. He dropped his kings and aces as he saw water lapping into the camper. Shirley grabbed passports and valuables.

The front suddenly lurched down as sand was torn from beneath the wheels. The Jacksons clambered out the back in the dark and found themselves in fast-flowing water up to their hips.

The 6x4 trailer they had bought in January disappeared, swept somewhere out on the fabled reef. With it went most of their belongings, including Stuart’s shoes and boots, tools down to the last screwdriver, diesel, fuel, water and a carton of beer.

After a night milling high on the sand dunes with other bedraggled campers, the wreckage was examined in the morning light. The Jacksons’ camper was relatively intact but wouldn’t start. The camp hosts emerged from their caravan where they had been trapped after a lazyboy chair wedged against the door.

“We were towed out of the park but stuck for three more days because the rest of the road was blocked,” said Shirley. “The rangers brought us bread and water every day.”

Some of the Cape Range camp sites on Ningaloo, including Lakeside, are unlikely to open again and will be used only as day sites.

We met the Jacksons trying to dry out at the Oasis Caravan Park in Carnarvon, another one of their favourite spots in Australia. They seemed philosophical.

“Our daughter back home kept warning us something would happen when we wander around for months,” said Shirley. They had assured her there was no need to send money or fly out to be by their side.

They are not sure if they will keep coming out to Australia, however.

“Our first trip were not great,” said Shirley. “We were in Perth and found it odd that there were no people around in the housing areas in day. We later realised Australians go to work earlier and trickle in and out of the houses. They stay inside too because of the sun and the flies.”

On their second trip Shirley and Stuart discovered the beaches. “I were gobsmacked,’ said Shirley. The white sand, clear turquoise waters and lack of people convinced them to come back for the English winters, prowling from Esperance to Cape Range.

“We live in a seaside town in Yorkshire but the water’s grey and you can’t see your feet,” said Shirley. “And when the weather’s nice everyone heads down to crowd every bit of beach.”

The beaches might not be enough to pull them back again. It’s not that they have been frightened off with the flood experience. It’s Stuart’s crook back; the flies seemed worst this time; they will have to start putting together a lot of new camping equipment if they can’t get insurance.

And then there’s the skyrocketing cost of living in Australia as prices rise to match high incomes.

Shirley is staggered by the prices rises she has seen in eight years. Some goods now are three times what she pays in England.

“You can feel here that the bubble’s going to burst soon.”

She muses that Australia seems to be 10 years behind England in handling its affairs.

“The immigration mistakes, the corruption and the dishonesty in politics. We’ve been through all that. He (Prime Minister David Cameron) is trying to fix it but there’s a long way to go. You would think Australia would learn from our mistakes.”

We sighed and headed north as they prepared to head south and fly home, maybe for the last time.

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The Warrior of Kokoda: pride and outrage over Pottsy

5/7/2014

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If you mention the war in Kojonup, you need to make sure you are supporting the right side. Pottsy is the hero, “that bastard Blamey” is the villain.

Pottsy is the man who saved Australia with clever tactics to thwart the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail. Instead of being venerated, he was relieved of his command by “that bastard Blamey” and his men humiliated in an infamous “rabbits that run” speech.

Kojonup has half a dozen delightful attributes all within a couple of hundred yards of the excellent statue (above) – paid for by private donations in 2007 – that immortalises Brigadier Arnold William Potts set in a shrine beside the Albany-Perth Highway.

The town should be a mecca for freedom campers: across the road from the statue is a stretch of old railway land where self-contained vehicles can overnight for $5 (get a sticker from the nearby visitors centre). Water and a dump point are on site.

A memorable full-scale replica of a wool wagon is at the edge of the rail land and brilliantly lit at night. Beside the visitors centre is a remarkable rose garden maze tracing the history through the recollection of three women – Aboriginal, European and Italian. An innovative museum of old and modern history is also there. (Another museum is at the old military barracks on the outskirts of town near the spring that gave birth to the town in 1837.)

Kojonup’s old railway station has been preserved with intriguing apparatus and a quaint old train from the Perth zoo makes runs through the industrial and rural areas on the first and third Sundays of the month.

Just up the street from the statue and station is the superb Kojonup bakery with pies to die for but make sure you don’t walk past the historic Commercial Hotel, which holds the oldest current licence in Western Australia. Mine host and devoted Carlton fan David Jackson will show you old memorabilia and, like most of the rest of the town, bristle with pride and indignation when you mention Pottsy.

David will give you a potted history of why Pottsy – who died in 1968 – is so treasured in the town, where his daughter and other relations still live. Don’t expect a free beer if you are any relation to Blamey.

Kojanup has other attractions – the spring which led to the town being founded in 1937 and the old military barracks built in 1945 but Pottsy’s memory envelopes all. He was born on the Isle of Man but spent most of his life in Kojonup. He served at Gallipoli and in France in WWI, and did sterling service in Syria in WWII before he became the legendary “Warrior of Kokoda” only to be pilloried by the pudgy, self-serving head of the Australian defence, General Thomas Blamey.

After the Japanese landed on the northern beaches of PNG, Brigadier Arnold William Potts was sent to turn them back. His Australians were outnumbered five to one, fighting in mountainous jungle terrain with uncertain supplies. Hampered by rain, mud and disease, they were also slowed by a determination to stretcher out all their wounded over perilous paths: they had heard the tortured screams of captured comrades.

Pottsy devised tactics of strategic withdrawal, harrying the weakened Japanese as they were stretched further down the Kokoda Trail. In sight of the Port Moresby airfields they aimed to capture to attack Australia, the exhuasted Japanese gave up and struggled back to the northern beaches.

An energetic, brave and smart leader, Pottsy was a hero to his men and fellow officers. Instead of being hailed for saving Australia he was dismissed by Blamey and sent to Darwin. His men were lined up, expecting to be congratulated on turning back the Japanese, but were instead berated in a scathing address by Blamey, who was probably prodded by the arrogant US General Douglas Macarthur who was annoyed that Pottsy didn’t hurl his troops down the track to death and defeat.

As the parade became “almost molten with rage and indigation”, Blamey told them they had been beaten by inferior forces, and that “no soldier should be afraid to die”. A medical officer, Captain “Blue” Steward wrote: “The troops could have withstood the field gun more easily than what they received. Blamey got them on edge at once … then made his famous remark that ‘the rabbit that ran away is the rabbit that got shot’.”

Hostility towards Blamey was such that the “eyes right” to his dais was ignored by many troops as they marched out. When Blamey visited a hospital the wounded nibbled lettuce and sang “Run, Rabbit, Run” softly. Several officers tendered their resignations in anger.

The fighting withdrawal over the Kokoda Trail is rated as one of the most critical triumphs in Australian military history and one that an apathetic nation has still to honour. Contemporaries and histories regard the sacking as one of the most disgraceful actions of Blamey (who has other deeds to his name that were far from honourable). Pottsy’s policy of strategic withdrawal and ambush became a textbook for future warfare tactics.

Writes Peter Brune: “It is staggering to contemplate that an Australian brigade commander could be thrust into a campaign with such damning inadequacy of military intelligence, support and equipment and yet fight a near flawless fighting withdrawal where military and political stakes were terribly important and that he could then be relieved from his command as a reward.”

Maybe they will make a movie one day of the man in tropical military uniform standing beside the highway 120km north of Albany.

Two hundred yards away, the lives of three imaginary women are welded into a poignant peek at life around Kojonup in the early 1900s. Actual quotes from several women have been extracted from diaries, interviews and letters and placed on plaques around the maze created from 2000 Australian-bred roses.

Here’s a sampling:

(European 1910): Clearing the back block of bush has been heavy work. Even with the help of an Aboriginal couple Donald is exhausted. If it were not for the children I would be out there helping too. I wonder if this fence they have built will stop the rabbits coming west. If it does not there will be rabbits on the menu along with parrot and kangaroo. Tomorrow Donald is to chop and burn the bamboo that has grown up near the house. There are snakes in it and we are far from help if anyone gets bitten. It’s the children I worry about.

(Italian 1911): Cara Mama. Our handsome son has a sister – Katerina. The lady from the next farm helped with the birth. Thank God it’s over. I have planted many vegetables and olive trees. Cara Mama, I do not cry so much now. Giovanni works hard clearing the land. Plants grow here that make the animals sick and sometimes die. We have a cow so I make butter and cheese. Soon we will plant vines for wine.

(Aboriginal circa 1913): Sometimes Mum showed us how to find bush tucker. Sometimes Dad showed us how to catch goanna and cook it. That was really good. When show time came we all dressed up. Wore our best clothes to go into town.

1915: Word has reached me that Donald was amongst those who landed at Gallipoli to fight the Turks. Everyone justifies this war as fighting for “God, King and Country”. Though I am proud of him joining as a volunteer I silently wonder at the sense of it all.

(Circa 1925): When we were older my sisters and me worked for wadjelas in their big houses. Cooking and cleaning. Got to eat things we had never seen before. Never liked spending too much time inside. Better in the bush.

1932: Today another swaggie at the door. This one was lucky. We took him on for a few weeks poison grubbing and root and stone picking. We can’t pay him but he’s happy to work for his keep. At least we have our own meat and a plentiful supply of milk, eggs and vegetables….it’s my turn to accommodate the lady teacher. If I don’t the school will close….

1940. Cara Mama. I do not know if this letter will arrive in Italy. Giovanni says our countries are at war. How can that be? I have children born in Australia. I am from Italy but live in Australia. I cannot be at war with my insides. I cannot be at war with my children.”

Circa 1948: New white people came on to the land and then got farms and houses for free for fighting in the war. We still living in our tent. One wadjela he knew in the war looked away when he seen Charlie in the street. I asked Charlie where our farm and house was. I said “What those wadjelas do that you didn’t do Charlie?”

1946. Cara Mama. You tell me there was so much bombing near the village. …. We did not have much fighting in Australia but many of the women lost husbands, sons or fathers. Stefano was in the internment camp. He was there two years. The Government said he did not have Australian papers so maybe he was a spy.

The roses have stories to tell through different eyes but when it comes to that statue in Kojonup one version exists. Pottsy was one of our greatest war heroes. Blamey was a bastard.

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As the year died, the world looked to Dumbleyung

5/2/2014

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Nancy and Tony on Pussycat Hill where the triumph and tragedy of Donald Campbell is told above Dumbleyung Lake, now a salty expanse.

Community spirit oozing through the wheat fields, wildflowers and woolly sheep of the great lakes district propelled Donald Campbell to a world water speed record in Western Australia in the dying hours of 1964.

After tootling across Dumbleyung Lake at 442.08 km an hour in Bluebird, the fastest man on land and sea paid tribute to the townsfolk of Dumbleyung. When the Bluebird team had arrived unexpectedly at the biggest lake in Western Australia, men and women from the town sacrificed hundreds of hours to support the effort to set a water speed record.

Without the community swinging behind him, Donald said, he would never have made that victorious spurt when his team was within hours of having to call the whole thing off. “It’s very much their record as ours,” he told the victory dinner.

We arrived at the eastern end of the lakes and wheat belt in the dark after taking the lonely Cascades Road through the back country from Esperance. We had dreamed earlier in the day of a cosy pub where we could park Isabel nearby and enjoy a hearty meal.

We had given up hope but drove into Lake King and presto! The Lake King Tavern turned up trumps and showed us why it was a finalist in the “best regional tavern in WA” awards in 2013.

Remnants of an ancient great river that flowed and dramatically ebbed millions of years ago, the lakes used to regularly fill with fresh water after rains and dry up into salt pans in drought. Picnics and horse races have been held in dry times; in the wet sailing races, speed boating are other activities are held on water up to 4.5m deep.

Lake King has a causeway stretching over 10km of lakes that were pretty much salt pans when we drove through. Where water a few centimetres deep remained changes in the wind created tides, sending water scooting from one side of a lake to another.

Land clearing and farming has hastened the salt pan formations. Everyone is pulling together to try to reverse the salination because that’s what they do in these towns: pull together.

Newdegate’s fabulous public loo is evidence of the community spirit and it shone through at Lake Grace. Tourist officer Anna Naisbitt told us how the town rallied in 1923 when postmistress Eileen West decided to campaign for an Australian Inland Mission hospital.

The 15 AIMs built by the Presbyterian Church were the brainchild of Rev. John Flynn, who had a vision to spread a “mantle of safety” to women and children in outback Australia. He had seen too many lonely outback graves. Later Flynn of the Inland was to found the Royal Flying Doctor service.

The Lake Grace AIM was agreed to in 1925, the same year Eileen organised a line of pennies to run from the post office for the appeal. The building was opened in 1926 and the debt paid off by the community. The nursing home was outgrown by 1952 when a new hospital was built next door. It had a number of uses but in 1983 was shabby and empty.

“Demolish it,” said the State Government.

“Bugger that,” said the people of Lake Grace and the community spirit went into action. More than 100 volunteers raised funds, replaced floorboards, guttering and fences, restumped the verandah and saved a cracker tourist attraction that is now on local, state and national heritage registers.

Brisk and friendly Elsie Bishop bustled into the tourist centre. She’s 86, volunteers at the centre every Thursday and is a lively escort on tours around the AIM. She and her husband Bill are retired wheat and sheep farmers.

“The old families around here are the mainstay of Lake Grace,” said Anna. She listed a few. My ears pricked up when she mentioned Slarke.

“That’s an unusual name,” I said slowly. “They didn’t by any chance have twin sisters …?” Yes, said Anna. Kelly and Stacey Slarke from Lake Grace were among the 15 young people who died in the ghastly Childers backpacker hotel fire in 2000.

A sombre touch came to our day as Anna recalled the day the little town was shattered by the news from Queensland.

We pushed on eastwards, past the town’s cemetery where school kids had gathered in January 2006 to be ferried to school by boat. A gruelling drought had been broken by 13 inches of rain in 24 hours. Lake Grace turned into a sea.

At Dumbleyung Lake we surveyed the salt flats from Pussycat Hill and tried to envisage that marvellous day in 1964 when a blue bubble hurtled across the water, taking Donald Campbell to glory and earning Dumbleyung legendary status.

Donald’s dad, Sir Malcolm Campbell, was a speed demon in the 1920 and 1930s. Father and son set 21 world speed records between them, 11 on water and 10 on land.

Donald remains the only person to have broken land and speed records in one year – with a few hours to spare thanks to the good folk of Dumbleyung.

In 1964 he set a new world land speed record at Lake Eyre and set his sights on breaking both land and water speed records in one year. He had a crack at breaking the water speed on Lake Bonney in South Australia but conditions were unsuitable. He was about to give up when he was told about the lake with a strange name in the WA southern wheatbelt.

Donald and the Bluebird team arrived at Dumbleyung on December 12 and the whole town pitched in to help. Next day conditions were ideal but Donald had to abandon a trial run because flocks of ducks arrived too. In hot, frustrating December days that followed, wind stirred up waves to make the attempt impossible.

Donald had all but given up hope when New Year’s Eve dawned. Suddenly, with hours to spare, the wind stopped. Everyone (including people appointed as duck scarer-offers) rushed to their positions. Donald completed two blistering runs and blasted the old record.

Two years later Donald tried to push the ageing Bluebird to a new record at Lake Coniston in England.

The transcript of his last words to his crew:

160kph: “Passing Peel Island, tramping like mad, full house.”

320kmh: “The water’s very bad indeed …. I can’t get over the top.”

480 kmh: “I’m getting a lot of bloody row in here … I can’t see anything.”

550kmh: A new world record.

460kmh: “I’ve got the bows out … I’m going.”

Three seconds from victory, the Bluebird lifted out of the water and killed Donald instantly in a backwards somersault.

On Pussycat Hill at Dumbleyung, December 31, 1984, 20 years after the world record was set, Donald’s daughter Gina unveiled a monument to the king of speed. On that date every year (provided it’s not overcast, I suppose) a shaft of sunlight shines through a hole in the monument at 3.43pm – the exact time the record was broken.

The full stop for our run through the wheat and sheep belt was in the next town of Wagin, where a 9m high, exceptionally well-endowed ram made a couple of emphatic punctuation marks. At 13m in length, the biggest damned ram in the southern hemisphere was fund-raised for and then raised in all its masculine glory by – you’ve guessed it – community spirit.