Ronnie Down Under

We’re so excited! After a year in Australia we decided to adopt two cats. We’ve always enjoyed having animal friends around the house but because we go on long trips several times a year we didn’t want to adopt. Now it’s possible because Mary’s mom & dad have agreed to care for them when we are away. We’ve taken them to their house for several weekends and they feel right at home there.

They are both black and white and their names are Mimi and Sophie (named by Mary’s mother Norma).

These poor kittens were abandoned, at only several weeks of age, at a shopping center parking lot in a suitcase (in the middle of summer). They were turned over to a woman who rescues strays and we were able to adopt them from her.

Here they are the day after we picked them up. Mimi is on the left and Sophie is on the right.

A more recent photograph. Mimi is on the left and Sophie is on the right.

Sophie can sleep in the most odd positions.



We'll post new photos every now and them.

This was still station land and the road was dotted with cattle grids where there had once been gates. There had been nearly a hundred so far, yes I was counting. Trucks used to travel in convoy and take turns opening and closing gates, but a lone truck driver would have to stop, get out of his truck, open the gate, go back to the truck, drive through the gate, stop, get out, close the gate, get back in his truck and drive off. One hundred times already, whew! This was not to be the way for Peter Gurachi, a Herculean like driver who carted stock. He drove straight through the gates demolishing them en route. Gurachi had once won a bet for carrying a 150k bale of hay down the main street of Mullewa. No one was about to confront him. Instead, pastoralists designed gates that smashed his radiator. Not to be outdone, Gurachi hired a gate opener, a young Wajarri (Aboriginal) man named Emporer Hamlet. When Hamlet leapt from the truck to open the gate Gurachi would drive on, not waiting for him. Hapless Hamlet would close the gate and sprint through the truck’s dust to the rear trailer, haul himself on, clamber over the load and back into the cab. Ready for the next gate.

Here is a gate!


On the far side of the Great Historic Gate we, or rather Ronnie, almost ran over a family of emus. One continued the dash in front of us, while the other four sagely turned and fled the other way.

Lunch was at Billung Pool, a rare oasis in this arid landscape. It had been a watering hole and rest stop on the stock route. The drovers would take months to move stock from the Ashburton and De Gray areas to market at Mingenew and Mullewa. Billung Pool was a welcome respite.

Sidenote: Heard on radio fruit juice helps prevent Alzheimer’s. Gave Ronnie orange juice for lunch.

Billung Pool:





To augment the natural watering holes wells were dug, initially by drovers and then by the state. Well requirements were for 3000 sheep or 300 very dry cows. Fences were built over the troughs to stop them being trampled by thirsty stock.

Famous Historic Well:


Finally leaving the Murchison and entering the Gascoyne region.



The road was hot and dusty, and we were still not using air conditioning. The effects of heat and counting cattle grids left us spent.

A common site along this road.

A not so common site along this road.

We decided to spend the night at Gascoyne Junction. It was a small place, with the town on one side of the road bordered by gates and cattle grids. A man in a ute (pick up) stopped by the tourist information center where cattle meandered. He let his dog out of the cab and it proceeded to round the cattle away from the info stand.

Gascoyne Junction has a small school with satellite dishes for mostly Aboriginal students, a police station and about 15 houses. In the centre of town was a large dirt lot filled with shipping containers that had been converted to workers quarters, not unlike our $90 a night hotel room.

The luxurious Gascoyne Junction Hotel.


Our room was half a container with no TV.


The hotel was located next to a quaint pub that had skimpies (scantily glad girls) and free bar snacks to draw the clientele in. We met Barry and Pam, from Victoria, who travel to the west often. Pam had met the two bartenders and was asking them about the town. They had only arrived the day before so didn’t know much, and had driven through and beyond the town before realizing they were there.

While hot and dry now, torrential downpours occur. The pub showed that the 1980 flood level had almost reached the bar top, and the house across the river still had a dinghy on its roof.

Tomorrow we head off to the Kennedy Range National Park.