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.

The Wool Wagon Pathway is a road, mostly dirt, 1160kms long. From Geraldton to Exmouth via the desert, it traverses two regions, the Murchison and the Gascoyne.

It tracks the path taken by pastoralists droving sheep to claim land in the 1860s. The land they claimed was immense - million acre sheep stations (ranches).

The Pathway, in its heyday, was a serious matter. The markers at historical sites showed photos of horse teams harnessed to mountainous wagons of wool. The conditions were so brutal, and the teams driven so hard, that horses dropped dead while pulling the loads.

We packed our tiny tent, did a last lap around Mullewa and headed off, ready for adventure. East and 30 kms away was a tiny settlement called Pindar. At Pindar is a working sheep station and old rail depot. There were lots of rusted old tractors, trucks and other odds and ends of farming implements. At its peak there was more wool freighted out of there than anywhere else in Australia.

Until noon we had hardly seen another vehicle, in fact only one, but once we stopped we realized the Pathway was a fairly well traversed road. It was a relief to know that others traveled here too, and if we broke down stood a good chance of being rescued and not left to the heat and feral goats.

We drove on, past saltbush flats, once seabed, and white barked eucalypts, over dried river beds that flood in the wet and flood plains. And by mid afternoon we were at Murchison Settlement. Murchison Shire is over 40 000 sq km, sparsely populated by 160 inhabitants on 29 leasehold stations (ranches).

With our tiny tent set up we walked through the Settlement. It has a shire office, a road house and garden, caravan park, polo cross fields and a wonderful little museum documenting the pastoralists’ history of the area. It also has a botanical walk, but it was temporarily closed due to the five year long drought. We befriended a local horse, and were happy to spend the last day of the Australian winter sitting outdoors in shorts entertained by the caravan park’s pet kangaroos.

Four days ago a stray chicken decided to live in our front yard! It's living in a dense bush where it has made a crude nest and has been collecting fruit and stones and placing them in the nest. It's already gotten rid of most of the locust that were in our yard. ;-) The stray cats outside seem to have accepted the chicken so I guess it can stay for now. Judging by the location of bald spots on this bird I think that she must have spent a lot of time in a chage.

Update: Our neighbors found out who the chicken belonged to and got permision to slaughter her. She's gone and we miss her.

We might be taking in a stray kitten soon. It's still to young to take from its mother. So, we'll wait a few more weeks and see. Here's a photograph. The kitten is on the ground by the bench (on the right side) located in our neighbors back yard.


Update: The little kitten we wanted to take in is gone. We don't know what happened to it.

I don't mind guest dropping by unannounced but not unwanted. These two had to be tossed out today:

This first is a locust. They showed up by the millions. Several decided to sun themselves on the window sill inside the house. Took a little bit of work but I figured out how to catch them and out they went.


This next one is some type of a spider. It's the largest one I've caught in the house so far. This one is about the size of my hand. That’s a large soup pot he's next to.


Here's a close-up. I caught him in a jar and transported him to the field behind our house.


Now, where is that little mouse I saw this morning.........?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here but things have kept us very busy for the past few months. We recently returned from a month long vacation up north but before we start posting those images I want to show you the new garage Mary and I built ourselves (our nephew John laid the foundation) and some shots from our garden.

We were so busy trying to get this garage built (took us a few weeks) that we didn’t think about photos until it was almost finished. These first shots are of me working on the roof.

Here I’m cutting some sections for the roof.

Installing roof sections.

And, the finished garage with side garden and trellises. This little garden contains rosemary, cilantro, strawberries, two types of passion fruit vines, oregano, sage, basil, and lavender.

These next images are from our vegetable garden.

Here is a list of what I’ve got growing in the garden:

Lettuce (four types)
Asian Cabbage (two types)
Spinach
Silverbeat (like spinach)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Onion – Spring
Onion – Yellow
Garlic – Elephant
Sugar Snap Peas
Scarlet Runner Peas
Snap Beans
Potatoes
Turnips
Radish
Asparagus
Artichoke
Watermelon
Rockmelon (Cantaloupe)
Pumpkin
Corn
Fennel
Tomatoes (five types)
Asian Eggplant (the long purple ones)
Cucumber – (for pickling)
Bell Peppers (green and red)
Hot Peppers (six types)
Okra
Beatroot
Parsley (two types)
Sunflower
Zucchini

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something but I think you get the picture.

Here’s Mary putting in our first flower garden in front of the house. Our plans are to make the front yard a cottage garden.

As we were about to leave on our vacation I noticed that our fruit trees were starting to bloom. We missed most of it but other people in town said our whole back yard was full of color.

Here’s a list of the fruit we are already growing:

Nectarine – Fantasia
Orange – Washington Navel
Peach – Double Jewel
Fig – Preston Prolific
Peach – Tasty Zee
Plum – Mariposa
Pear – Mirandino Rosso
Plum – Narrabeen
Orange – Seedless Valencia
Apple – Golden Delicious
Apricot – Newcastle
Cherry – Stella
Loquat – Chatsworth
Olive - Frantoio
Blueberries

You know you live in the country when you read articles like this in your (our) local paper:

Just in case you can't read this scan I'll provide the text here:

It was a case of 'can someone please tell me what is going on here' for this poor carpet snake who was found making his way across the car park at the Katanning Leisure centre last Tuyesday during the Seniors' Expo.

Rather tired and confused by Katanning's unseasonable June weather, the snake is thought to have woken from his winter nap and made a dash to higher ground after the morning's shower of rain.

Luckily for him and those afraid to go near, Leo Page came to the rescue and took the bewildered reptile off to a safe hidey-hole where he can enjoy the rest of his break in peace.

Publiched In: Great Southern Herald, June 28, 2006, Katanning Western Australia.

Back in April Mary and I took a few weeks off to go on a camping trip to Ningaloo Station. Ningaloo Station is a sheep station located on the NW coast of Australia. The biggest attraction this camping site has is that just a few hundred meters from shore is the Ningaloo Reef. The Ningaloo Reef is a virtually untouched barrier reef of 260km length protecting a shallow, brilliant white sandy lagoon of clear tropical waters. One of the rare places on earth where you are able to walk from the beach straight onto a coral reef. More than 500 species of tropical fish and 220 species of coral make up the Ningaloo Reef; a protected marine park. The only thing separating our campsite form the reef was a sand dune. The site cost us $15 per week each.

Just down the beach from us was another camp with two families that are friends of ours. It was nice going down to visit them for cocktails at sunset. We also had a great time walking on the beach, reading books, and snorkeling on the reef. I think the most exciting time we had was on one of our snorkeling trips out on the reef when the daughter of one of our friends, who was following along in a kayak, shouted that she had spotted a shark, a big one, and that it was heading straight for us. I never did see it but it sure got my heart rate up.

These first images are of our campsite:

This image of our camp site was taken from the top of a large sand dune (see the waves breaking over the outer edge of the reef).

This is our camp site taken from the top of the dune that separated our site from the beach.

This is our site viewed from the beach. That high dune in the background is where the first image in this series was taken.

This is our sleeping tent.

Our cooking tent.

Our tarp for sun protection.

Our toilet tent.

The shower I put together (solar powered).

Solar Panel to recharge the vehicle battery during the day (used to run a refrigerator).

Our generator, which I used to run the refrigerator for an hour each day while it also recharged our tent battery.

We even had a laundry. ;-)

When you walk over the sand dune to the beach this is what you would see

Looking to the left and this is what you see. Note the lack of other people.

Looking to the right you would see this. Those people down the beach (small dots) are our friends by their camp site.

One day it got so windy and sand blown that we had to spend most of the day in our tent. This is what you do on those days (drink beer and read).

Mary invited our friends' children to our camp one day to create art using found objects. Kids can sure be creative.

They created so many nice pieces of art that we decided to have an exhibit for their parents. Here you see them posing with the art.

And what would an art exhibit be without live entertainment. The kids sang several songs, one of which they wrote themselves.

There was lots of wildlife around. Here are just a few of what we saw.

A little ways down the beach from us were some huge sand dunes. Here are a few shots we were able to get. The first one is mine and the second is Mary's (note that both of these images are going to be exhibited in a gallery in a few weeks).

After we took those shots we walked back to the beach and I was able to get this shot (also going on exhibit). Our camp is just on the other side of the point in this shot.

Not everything went well during our trip. On the way out the clutch burnt out on our vehicle. We had to leave our trailer and get our friends to tow us about 80 miles, 20 of that on dirt roads, to the nearest town to get it repaired. They saved us a $1000 towing fee. After the vehicle was repaired we had to return for our trailer.

Here's a shot Mary took of me refilling our tires after clearing the roughest section of the road (you have to reduce tire pressure to get better traction).

One of the sites you see along the road to the highway is termite mounds.

Heading back south we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.

If you want to know what the Tropic of Capricorn is visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn

Anyway, that is about it. We are planning another trip up north for the month of August (4 to 6 weeks long).