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