Heavenly Beverley : Greetings From Gascoyne Junction (after three wonderful Wooleen days)

We are back in cyberspace, thanks to the communications hotspot that is Gascoyne Junction. No telly, except in the tavern, which really doesn't bother us one bit. What will do have is an ensuite site with our own shower and toilet in a very flash caravan park. The temperature is a balmy fourteen degrees, and tomorrow promises to be a divine winter day of about twenty-six. Great for washing and showering and hopefully fixing the busted plastic valve attached to our water tanks, which after breaking off, emptied the aforementioned tanks.

Thus, we are a tad crabby. On our maiden voyage, taking our 4WD vehicle and 4WD caravan on good 2WD gravel roads, a plastic doovalacky broke. So, we can't use the loo, the shower or the sinks, which are integral parts of Digger, designed to make us more comfortably self-sufficient.

Whinging over. Now I can reflect on our marvellous stay at Wooleen, a place that we have longed to visit for a number of years. We have been following the story of David and Frances Pollock in their quest to rehabilitate the station after decades of overstocking, which had led to severe degradation of their land. Destocking the station twice has been financially difficult and they are still only running cattle during the cooler months of the year. Hence, their move into eco-tourism was more of a necessity than a choice.

We left Mullewa in brilliant sunshine after making the acquaintance of Colby, a marine biologist turned CRC and tourism representative. He pointed us in the correct direction of the Mullewa-Carnarvon Road after two failed attempts to find it on our own. The gravel road was in excellent condition in spite of the recent rain that had left culverts full and the patches of ground coloured a vivid green. We were already spying the beginnings of what promised to be a magnificent wildflower season. Curious cows and risk-taking kangaroos added to the building excitement, but nothing too hair-raising clouded a great drive.

We arrived at our campsite, "Birdiny" right on dusk, so we had no real chance to properly view our surroundings. The four Murchison River campsites are sixteen kilometres from the homestead, so we felt quite remote from all civilisation we'd gladly escaped. The location of Wooleen is classed semi-arid and their rainfall averages two hundred millilitres a year, half of Beverley and less than the Goldfields. The native vegetation is predominantly hardy mulga scrub and the Pollocks are working hard to nurture other flora, such as the native grasses. Given the climate, their progress is long, slow and arduous, but we could see their ten years of grit and love beginning to pay off.

We had collected firewood prior to entering the station and we were very grateful to have come prepared. The night was clear and cold. We sat around the fire, listening to the magical silence, which was only interrupted by occasional bird calls. I fell into sleep fairly rapidly and stayed there all night, with only the odd wrestle with Michael for ownership of the covers.

Morning brought the awe of our setting. High above this stretch of the Murchison, we were astounded to discover several family groups of black swans were resident and completely unperturbed by our presence. We lost count after forty.

Our camping table was set up and we conducted some outdoor dishwashing. Walks along our bit of the river and the nearby temporary pond were conducted at a leisurely pace. Later, we ventured further afield in Lily, visiting a permanent and stunning waterhole and walking along the river floodplain to view the ingenious envirorolls that the Pollocks had placed in strategic spots to slow the flow of water during a flood and provide a more fertile environment for ongoing regeneration.

Our second night was spent outside, more appropriately dressed with beanies and scarves and a roaring fire. After yet another simple and quick meal, we retired to bed with better-organised bedding, in order to negate any further fighting over the covers.

We pondered our choices of activities in the morning. We were keen to see the station outbuildings and also the rubbish dump. And we had neighbours again, in the next campsite. They had rocked up in the pitch black of a moonless evening and set up their spacious camper trailer and associated tent. We were highly amused at their stash of canoes, as we were at least fifteen metres up very steep slopes from the river. Perhaps they should have done more homework...

The rest of our day passed very pleasantly indeed. We poked through the sheds and the "Bowerbird Museum" and stopped for lunch in the homestead's lovely gardens. Whilst enjoying a break for pate, cheese and tomatoes on crackers (yes, we were roughing it), I watched Frances greeting several carloads of new arrivals. Frances is, I believe, still in her late twenties, but her welcoming assurance and easy poise suggested that she was an absolute natural for the life she had chosen. She offered her guests her interested and animated focus, spending as much time as needed with each group. On an enterprise the size of Woolen, I expected Frances had a neverending list of tasks, yet she gave freely of herself as though she had all the time in the world.

After strolling through the impressive kitchen garden, I joined Michael on a drive through the immense area that was the station's rubbish dump and resource centre. With only a hint of order in some parts, we were fascinated by what had been collected over a hundred years as well as acknowledging the hillocks of general rubbish. This is a continuing issue for places that have no rubbish collection. All that garbage has to be stored somewhere...

I remember, with incredulity, the comment of a lady city-slicker, who somehow found herself with her far more adventurous husband, in Burtville, an abandoned settlement near Laverton -

"How dirty these people were," she announced to the universe in general. "They just left their rubbish everywhere".

There are some people who should never venture beyond the confines of the city!