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Outback Links reaches into the Kimberley, Western Australia

My wife and I had the privilege of visiting Charnley River Cattle Station on behalf of Outback Links.

The journey taken to arrive at the station took three weeks by road, via the tourist route through Katherine, Kakadu, Darwin, and Kununurra. Then down the infamous Gibb River Road to the station. We drove a Nissan Patrol pulling a small off-road AVan. It was a great adventure, especially the excitement of driving across the Pentecost and Durack Rivers, both of which entailed pulling a van through a swiftly flowing river, infested with crocodiles, and some 500 mm deep, over a very rough and rocky bottom and up to 100 metres wide. But the real adventure into the unknown began when we arrived at the cattle station.

Charnley River Station, formerly named Beverley Springs, is located deep in the Kimberley country 29Okms north east of Derby, about midway along the Gibb River Road. The station is approx 3500 sq kms in area and it is “cattle country” currently running approx 2000 shorthorn and Brahman cattle. The landscape is exquisite: ranging from gentle grassy hills and valleys to sharp rocky outcrops and deep ravines with the most beautiful gorges and billabongs containing picturesque waterfalls and crystal clear still water pools rimmed with colourful water lilies. The water courses attract an abundant variety of bird life including blue-winged kookaburras, honey-eaters~ corellas, brolgas, scrub turkeys, wild peacocks and western rosellas. The bush in the Kimberley region can be described as “clean” as there are very few standing dead trees due to the proliferation of wood termites and so most of the trees are healthy and vibrant and include boab [bottle], paper bark, wattle and grevillea as well as a whole variety of eucalyptus trees, and around the homestead there were cashews and huge mango trees.

The station, together with a second station “Kalyeeda”, located south of Fitzroy Crossing, is owned and managed by Peter and Cheryl Camp and family. They employ several cattle mustering crews together with homestead-staff who mainly look after the catering as well as the station’s tourist home-stay accommodation and camp site facilities.

Outback Links’ purpose was to provide some “stress relief’ mainly for Cheryl who, along with being a wife and mother of four children, [the younger two girls, aged 15 and 9, living at home], was also the full time administration manager of the two cattle stations, supervisor of the paid homestead staff and supervisor of the two girl’s long distance schooling via the “School of the Air” which operates out of Derby. The previous year saw some sickness within the family which greatly added to the accumulated stress upon Cheryl’s shoulders.

Peter, the head of the family and business manager, is frequently away from the main homestead doing things “cattle” eg; cattle mustering, improving station infrastructure and carrying out general maintenance duties including maintaining an extensive road network and so much of the day-to-day running of the
homestead is Cheryl’s responsibility.

My wife Cathie, [known to the station’s people as Kate] is a very experienced school teacher and was able to provide individual tutoring to the younger daughter Wave, as well as providing help in the kitchen and with other domestic duties. I spent my time building some much needed concrete steps to ease the passage up onto the elevated concrete floors of the main homestead building, the staff quarters and the station’s office. Also some general repairs were done along with the laying of two concrete pads, around the homestead BBQ and side entrance.

During the short time Peter was back at the homestead during our stay, I had a growing sense that this was a man of some substance and I wished to know more of him, so late one afternoon I asked Peter if I could ask him a few personal questions:

Peter is 47 years old, a 3rd generation cattleman, a rugged individual, who left school at the age of 14 to follow his father, working cattle. He has a firm grip on what he wants to achieve and how to go about it. I would describe him as a man’s man, highly intelligent and skilful in all things “cattle”. He treats his workers with a firm but fair hand and expects and gives both respect and loyalty to his family, employees and tourists alike. His goal is to develop the cattle station as a diverse operation with an improved cattle management program including building up the herd to 6000 head, along with developing the agricultural and tourists aspects of the station.

When I asked Peter to tell me about his dad, he left the room and came back carrying a small timber-framed glass cabinet which contained an old pair of horseman’s spurs, a pair of very worn silver cuff links and a piece of writing which read:

There was a man on the western side
With a heart as big as his hands were wide;
For his squatter friends he had an open door,
And a helping hand for the weak and poor,
He was the heir of an ancient race,
With a firm hand-grip and a laughing face,
And a country style and a record fair:
And they called him the White Man.

And the swagman passing at any hour
Had their pound of meat and their pint of flour;
And the drivers bogged on the black soil plain
Never asked for the White Man’s help in vain,
For the farmer’s team with the spade bar brand
Would slew them out to the nearest sand;
And the teamsters swore as they took the track;
“He is the Whitest Man out back”.

But the droughts made havoc of grass and sheep,
And lined his forehead and wrecked his sleep;
And troubles came to him one by one,
Till the bank took over his river-run,
And left him one paddock that men might say
They had not taken his all away:
And he toiled at the plough behind the hill:
And the bushmen knew him a White Man still.

And there came a day when the White Man died
And the neighbours gathered from far and wide,
From far and wide and the fenceless west,
To follow their friend to his last long rest;
And the bushmen crowd from far and near,
Brown cheeks wet with a silent tear;
For out in the land of the sunsets red
They know how to honour a White Man’s dead.
[author unknownJ

As I read this writing I was fighting off tears, as Peter I’m sure, would not come at that!

We were very sad to leave Charnley River Station as we had made good friends and drawn close to them. It was a great honour and privilege to be Christ’s servants in that place.

Bernie Kestel
Berowra Uniting Church
June 2006

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