(First published 8th July 1913)
Arrangements for the Qld leg of the research trips for our book are well underway and again, I am really looking forward to it.
But before I continue, a big welcome to the new stations which have just come onboard, along with a lot of people who have visited stations – and towns – in the outback, for holidays/work and have come from other properties, towns, cities or other nations. Having spoken with some of these people, face to face, when I passed through Blinman, Broken Hill and Cobar – their feelings about the outback and their visits/lives out there are really interesting. There are so many people coming onboard who I will be contacting by email or phone that I am now putting together a template to send to all of them. Hopefully, it will be the easiest and safest way to make sure that everyone who wants to participate is definitely included.
Wool shed on my own family station in SA.
I am able to include some of the new stations with personal visits but the rest will now be covered by email, phone and mail.
At the end of the SA/NSW leg I flew home from Sydney and threw myself into organizing the re-visiting of many of our wonderful retired pastoralists. This is now underway – but instead of formally interviewing all these people, I am simply asking them a few questions and taking their photographs and obviously giving them a chance to ask me whatever they like. I had originally sent all those who had agreed to participate in the book, one of the station packages which included a special questionnaire, put together for the retirees themselves. Many completed these and returned them quickly which is fantastic – and I have met a lot of these people and been given an amazing amount of information about their lives and histories as well as histories of their stations. All just so interesting.
I still have two (maybe three) stations in the Northern Territory which I hope to visit sometime in November. At this stage, not sure when I will begin the WA stations – had hoped for the end of this year but I plan to cover them in a couple of stages so it might be early next year. Remembering all the time that I am a ‘lone soldier’ doing this.
Saltwater crocodile, on the Adelaide River, south of Darwin in the Northern Territory. These are the really dangerous ones.
My trip to Qld commences when I fly to Townsville, via Brisbane, at the end of August. I then take a coach west to Mt Isa, stopping for one or two nights at six stations along the route (all going well), then back down to Brisbane, stopping at one station along the way. From Brisbane I travel by coach right up the coast, through Townsville, stopping at Australia Zoo briefly before arriving at Cairns. Another coach takes me from there out to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. I have three further stations along that route. Spend a day or two in Karumba before returning direct to Cairns and finally flying home, at the beginning of October. Yes, it’s a tight schedule – also a challenging one and I continue to thrive on all this.
Sturt’s Peas. Australian Wildflower
As I travel along this amazing road, new aspects/suggestions/thoughts are forever being put to me. Not long after I returned to Perth from the SA/NSW leg, I was interviewed (at 2.30 am on Saturday…AAAGGGHHH) by The Social Media Network Station in the USA. The purpose of this was to be questioned about the impact of the internet and social media on the people of the outback. I had managed to speak with quite a few people about this during that first leg and the answers were very interesting – and varied. Coming from different generations too. But from what I have heard the people in the USA seem to have somewhat of a fascination for our mighty outback and I have been sent more questions – things that I had never thought about and completely unrelated to the net and social media. But all so wonderful.
South Australia…
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