Good Bye to Mount House Station

“Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-bye is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties the past to the future.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

I have now returned home to Perth and it is good bye which applies to my adventures at Mt House. Guess what? "Cooee" was used by parents to summon their children who would be some distance away!

My time at the station was harder than my gig in Bangladesh, which was strange as I was supposedly working within a familiar culture and the Anglo-Australian paradigm. I do not use my blog to bag about a situation and always try and reflect the positive stuff that has happened.

So here are the positives I take back with this experience:

• Another situation of cultural shock but as I had done several units at University on Australian history I was prepared for a little of what I witnessed and lived in.

  

• I made some great friends who ironically are not West Australian or Kimberley folk but are Kiwis who are imported as a source of labour into Australia.

• I was situated in some incredible and spectacular scenery. The sunsets equal those of Africa and the night sky is stunning.

•  I climbed Baobab (boab) trees. I swam in crystal clear fresh water. I jumped into gorges. I fished for my supper. I got an idea of how stations of over 1 000 000 acres are managed.

  

• The food I ate was wholesome and healthy.  I learnt to cook starting from basics.

• I have become a better educator because of the difficulties I encountered.

• The Kimberley School of the Air staff are wonderful and the station children who have this kind of schooling unfortunately do not realise how privileged they are as they not only have top quality teachers but their school is better resourced than the average metropolitan state school here in Perth.

 

 

I agonised for about three weeks  whether I should return to do the fourth term at the station when I picked up a PD James novel and found written in 2002 a most strange inscription on the opening page.

Interestingly it was written by one of the owners of the station pastoral lease who resides most of the year in Sydney. 

Read it for yourself and make what you want of it! LOL!

I will not dwell on the negatives but my final photo might tell its own story! I wonder where my next gig will be?

 

 

Kimberly Kamping!

Generally speaking those of us who have camped in Africa take along time to “get” camping in Australia. African camping is seldom a swag thrown down round a camp fire as the wild life might become overly nosy and dangerous. It can also be dangerous from a human predatory prospect in that other humans might be nefarious in the early hours of the morning. But African camping is spectacular with its amazing scenery, wildlife and incredible service and food (if you are doing the luxury safari)! One huge negative is that swimming is not recommended in the rivers and waterholes  because of bugs that cause havoc with your body or animals which wish to eat it.

So for an African such as myself it has taken an inordinately long time to enjoy camping here. Generally it is too hot or too cold. The flies are a nuisance, the wildlife and bird scene is a bit pauce and the buggers go to sleep as soon as the sun cracks the horizon and only reappear late at night when mosquitoes are extremely active. The noise at night is subdued. Gee, it does sound as though camping in Oz is pretty ordinary. But it is NOT. Australia offer vistas of immense magnitude and landscapes which are stunning. Distances are vast and the human being is in its perspective until the mining magnates come along with their monster machinery to vandalise and trash the area. Is Gina Reinhardt a human being?

The Kimberly region of Australia offers the camper grand gorges, sweeping landscapes, art that is dated 40 000 years applied by our Indigenous people. The night sky is luminous with the milky-way. For the swimmer – wow! Fresh clear permanent waterholes, billabongs, tumbling rivers and water between spectacular gorges. Most are crocodile free. Catch a barramundi (Australian iconic fish) and it will be as fresh as you can get it on the open camp fire. Australians are good at making tea in the billy and cooking damper (campfire bread). Camping here is just lovely. It can just be a swag thrown down and very minimalist.

I have now done some Kimberly Kamping and I “got” it and I love it.

Donna Quixote and the Mt House Windmill.

“See that pony over there?” say they,

“Where?” ask I,

“Way over there!” they reply pointing to the middle distance. “Catch it and teach it some manners! We want the children to learn to ride it!”

“Righty oh,” I gulp, responding in Australian slang.

Well I caught the little ripper (who is called Rip) saddled him and went trotting off.

I thought by having a name similar to my Hash tag we would get along fine! To say I have not ridden a pony for 30 years would be an understatement.

Pony riding is quite different to horse riding. And this one had some tricks up his hind leg. First time out I was thrown and then he cantered off into the whoop whoop. I had to trudge back home as I had no Sancho to dispatch for help.

Commandeering a vehicle and co-driver and set out on my first sortie. Rip was easily found and easily tempted back when a bucket full of horse cubes are rattled. “What a slut,” I thought. I accuse him of being a whore except that he is the wrong sex. The ride home was very similar to a charging windmills! Rip decide every contour on-route and every fluttering leaf was something so terrifying that he would stop and drop his head. Was he going to charge? Were these the windmills of La Mancha. But Donna Quixote aka Ripper is no delusional Don Quixote, the age of chivalry is dead, I knew what was going on. The little tyke was trying to flip me over his head. So holding his head high we gallantly trotted off home, well not really it was stop start all the way.

Second sortie Rip and Ripper aka Donna Quixote: Rip has decided that he will show me a thing or two. So the ride is a constant battle of wills because Ripper is valiantly trying to avoid using the riding crop. In fact she has left it home in La Mancha. We go to the airstrip and we just canter up and down, up and down, up and down because there are no windmills here just an windsock and the little bugger still tries to tip me over.

Round three, Rip refuses to cross the creek and I am nearly in the water head first. I pick up a stick and wave it, in lance like fashion just as Don Quixote. I had forgotten that horses espying a whip out of the corner of their eyes generally step back into line. Also I had pocketful of cut apples and Rip likes his apple treats.

Bribery is what makes Rip behave and we have a pleasant outing. Hope I get a fat Rocinante soon?

Don Quixote fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha , is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra It follows the adventures of Alonso Quixano, an hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire and names his skinny horse Rocinante.

Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote).

The Mesa which is Mount House.

The mountain after which this station is named is a mesa (from Latin mensa meaning table, in Spanish mesa is a table) and is the American English term for tableland, an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs.

The mesa was named Mt House after Dr Frederick Maurice House, born in 1865, England, dying here in WA 1936 in Gnowangerup. His descendants still live and farm in the area today! In April 1901 he left with a Government exploring party, to explore the last extensive area of unmapped land in Australia - a rugged triangle of country in the north west Kimberley. House was the doctor and naturalist for the team. While on this trip, Mt House was named after him, he discovered the Black Grass Wren, and he took the first photographs of sites of Aboriginal paintings at Manning Creek and other sites.

So with this in mind - it was time - I decided to climb Mt House.

I had hoped to be able to trot over to the base of the mountain on a horse but unfortunately (for me) this is a station that is currently not in possession of horses. However I found an old bicycle which was once a fine specimen with gears but is now in a very sorry state. Some simple repairs and I got her going. Riding her is reminiscent of learning to ride my bike in the 1960s. In those days first bicycles were gear-less unlike the first push bikes Marinus and Savanna had, which were so geared up as to be almost in the league of the Le Tour bikes! So my trusty steed took me over some challenging roads to the base of mesa House!

As you know weekends are tedious dull here! So this activity was a Saturday filler. It took me about 5 hours from setting off at 6.30 and returning at 11.45. Gee it was fun. I felt I was the only person in the world. Typical of Australia, she presents vistas grand, enormous and uncluttered. Climbing up was a scrabble through an eroded and overgrazed landscape becoming so steep that only a mountain goat would venture there. So the grass re- emerged and was as tall as me and cut like paper! You know paper cuts can sting and bled! Then came the steep cliffs which presented some great bouldering. Descending was exhausting and the equivalent of a workout in the gym with the focus only on squats probably sumo squats!

Suddenly the mesa gods favoured me and I had 100 m of scree to slide down and in no time I arrived at my “horse” and an hour later home in time for lunch from our gourmet cooks.

Two Fat Ladies

Clarissa and Jennifer on their Triumph.

Two Fat Ladies is a BBC2 television cooking programme starring Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson for four series, from 1996 to 1999. The show was produced in syndication by the BBC and has also appeared on the Food Network and Cooking Channel in the U.S. and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Joyce and Annemarie  aka Clarissa and Jennifer

The show centred on the ladies traveling the United Kingdom, on a Triumph Thunderbird motorbike driven by Paterson. It sported the registration N88 TFL (the British bingo call for number 88 is "Two Fat Ladies") and had a Watsonian GP-700 "doublewide" sidecar where Dickson Wright rode. They traveled to various destinations, such as an army garrison or an all-girls school, where they prepared large meals, often with unusual ingredients. And now they are residing at Mt House Station. I kid you not! They are resurrected and cooking delicious meals here.

Our cook house is run by two Kiwis who produce really yummy meals for us. Brekkis at 05.00 – I do not turn out for that! Morning smoko (equivalent of morning recess at school) at 08.30 which I attend on the weekend and regard as my breakfast. Lunch at 12.30 then what I call supper but they call tea is at 7.30. A lot of beef is served up but then we are on a cattle station.

As I do not get paid on weekends (and holidays) and these two days of the week have now become very long and tedious I have decided I shall learn about catering and cooking for stockmen. The result is that on weekends I do get up at 4.00 am and cook breakfast. I now am becoming quite the hand at making bread. The great thing about this “voluntary” work is that I have to learn cookery at a really basic level. Trifle is now a desert which I realise takes almost the whole day to make and it is wolfed down in less than 5 minutes! I made the smoko today and it was delicious, my choice was banana cake, paella and toasted sandwiches, my instructions were, “ Helen, use these left overs and make a meal from them!” Last nights' left over veg became the paella, the overripe bananas became a yummy cake and breakfast left overs became toasted baked beans and cheese sandwiches.

Smoko at 8.30 is home-made banana cake, paella and toasted sandwiches

My Cottage & My Views

My arrival at the station was delayed by three days, just because these guys are pretty laid back.

The side effect was I got to explore one of our iconic towns, spent a night camping on a salt pan then had a leisurely drive to Mount House Station. 

As you know I prefer to arrive at night totally exhausted because then most things look quite rosy. Weird huh? This night arrival was no exception. 

 

My little fibro (asbestos) cottage is probably over 60 years old and is what real estate agents would describe a “renovators dream.” I have an outside dunny with a resident green frog, a cold bath but warm showers, power is solar. A hills hoist washing line! 

My three bed roomed cottage is also the school. Two bedrooms have become classrooms. My home faces east south east and so I get to enjoy beautiful Kimberley sunrises and sunsets. 

 

I have the pleasure of constant dust and constant lowing of cattle. There is a flock of guinea fowl, several roosters who only appear to have one chook each in their harems, two habituated brolgas and a mad emu.  Wallabies every evening. These creatures are just wondering around randomly. Its great. 

 

Landis!

Goodbye Landi 110 and Hello Landi ex ADF

This charming creature featured was my companion for 2 days as I drove her from Broome to Derby,  two medium sized towns found in the far north of Western Australia in a region called the Kimberly, and then onto Mount House Station off the Gibb River Road

You'd think I'd be pretty blaze about driving this vehicle as I already own a LandRover. But they are all so different and this one is a solid girl and did her task with panache. She was there to greet me when I landed in Broome. Her owner, Peter reluctantly allowed me to drive her and frankly I stuffed up. I rode the clutch. How embarrassing! But I think the pressure of proving I could drive something with no power steering and a non British engine must have rattled me. It is quite sobering to have a driving lesson from someone who is going to be your future boss. Anyway I passed muster and was asked to drive on my own to the station. It was brilliant - stop for “smokos” whenever the feeling grabs you, listen to your own music choice and sing along to it really loudly and no-one whinging. Music had to be via ipod 'cos this diesel engine with only a canvas roof is not quiet. 

Sometimes driving long distances in Australia is tedious and its just lots of the same interspersed with road kill but this trip of about 600km was really quite pretty and very changeable. It is also spring now so lots of flowers, ranges and rivers to ford, vast Australian vistas with azure blue skies and just me to watch and enjoy. The day ended with my safe arrival and a brilliant scarlet/ pink sunset to greet me.

Some of you might recall that I have stated that arrival at night is best. And my arrival after sunset was well timed.  Hot water shower and yummy nosh ready in the cook house, too tired to notice anything which might upset my good mood.