Past Talks 2005

QUEST FOR THE HONEY-POT MOUNTAINS

On 2 February 2005, Marion Blackwell told the story, showing photographs she’d taken, of her ongoing search for the ‘Mythical Honey-Pot Mountains of her Childhood Dreamings’. This search commenced at the age of 7 and culminated in the declaration of the Purnululu National Park, and subsequently, its Management Plan.
She told of the adventurous life she had had, as a little girl, living on a sheep station, high up in the Great Divide; and about receiving a 7th birthday present from her grandmother, at shearing time; of a Belleek Honey-Pot. When the shearers filed into the big homestead kitchen for ‘Smoke Oh’ as morning tea was then called, the man who sat down next to her, took a great interest in this beautiful little piece of china; and, after examining it carefully, he looked up and said: “Little girl, when you grow up, you just have to visit ‘The Honey-Pot Mountains’.  -They are over the other side of Aus, a long, long way away. -There you’ll see clusters of red domes rising up from the surrounding grassy plain, with circular bands around them just like this Honey-Pot of yours.”
There-from, as you might imagine, developed a life-long quest, ‘to find these mystical mountains’. Throughout her teens and long after, they remained as a vision, like Lassiter’s Lost Reef -a mirage, always beckoning, but ever elusive. But so like many another childhood dream, this quest proved not easy to full-fill. -Enquire as she might, no one she asked had ever heard of them; until she almost began to believe that it was all a myth.  -But never the less, her inner being was quite convinced that they were real and existed somewhere: and that like many a magical trail, she just had to find a clue; then the way to them would be revealed.
Even when she came to live in Western Australia in 1958, 23 years after hearing the story; still foremost and all-important in her mind was to find these Honey-Pot Mountains of her childhood vision.  She asked every likely person she met in Perth, about their whereabouts; but in those days, although she had by chance known of them since she was 7, Perth still did not know of their existence, ie the Bungle Bungles were not yet ‘discovered’.  (That event was to wait another 24 years, ie 47 yrs from when she first heard the imagination catching description of this ancient geological phenomenon).
But, at last came the day when good fortune shone upon her quest.  A chance query concerning them, to Enid Durack, mother of two of her university students; put her onto the track of their existence; when Enid replied to her question: “O that no good country, the cattle get lost down there, in those labyrinths of gorges.” & so, ‘At last she was onto the good oil!’
Subsequently Reg Durack told her that Nat Buchanan had droved a muster of 4,000 odd head of cattle up the eastern side of this massive in 1883.  He said that those were the first cattle to enter the Kimberley and that their purpose was to stock Ord River Station for the Victorian partnership of William Osmond and Joseph Panton.  Buchanan forded the cattle over the Ord River in the dry, when it was low, and travelled them up the creeks to the Station.  (By 1900 Ord River Station boasted between 80,000 and 100,000 head of cattle and wandering stock had long since strayed into, and foraged amongst the gorges of the Bungle Bungles).
In later years when Marion discussed the omission of this unique and outstanding massif with Dr David Ride, the then Director of the WA Museum and prime motivator of the “Conservation Through Reserves” movement; he said “I just can not understand how such an area could have been overlooked”.  The fact was, that no one who was involved in that far-reaching exercise had at that time, any idea that the Bungle Bungles existed.
But the knowing that they actually ‘were’ real was only the first step towards satisfying Marion’s driven curiosity about them, and ever heightened her desire to see them.
Her first tantalising glimpse gained of them, and then only in the middle distance, was in the mid 60’s while returning with three others, pack on back, across the foothills of the Osmand Ranges, after an exploratory foray; they suddenly appeared, in full view across the plain, just as had been described to her so long ago – “The Mystical Honey-Pot Mountains”. But infuriatingly as it might seem, on that occasion there was a deadline to meet and no time to stop and explore further.  This fleeting glimpse, nevertheless further whetted her appetite and determination to return, and explore. 
The Bungle Bungles first attracted wider interest and international media attention in 1982 when they were ‘discovered’ by a film crew flying over the area.  This revelation and media hype almost instantaneously drew an influx of excited tourist enquiry and intent.  Which phenomenon prompted the government to initiate action regarding management strategies - aimed to conserve the area, which is constructed of quite fragile sandstone.  (“Burnalulu” means sandstones in the language of the Gidja People of this area). 
This pressure of enquiry led to the commissioning of a preliminary botanical survey, which was undertaken in the dry of July 1984 by Kevin Kenneally and Steve Forbes. 
For Marion an opportunity arose, in April 1985; this time it enabled a detailed exploration of a small but different area of the Massif, from that which had been looked at previously.  This occurred with the mounting of a trek of interested persons into the southern side of the Bungles, organised by the intrepid Arthur Weston, a Botanical Ecologist of international repute.  In the 5 days on the site, in the Bungles, she collected 364 flowering species of plants and other living items of interest such as fungi, lichens, mosses, liverworts, ferns and cyanophytes; As well as gaining the certain conviction that this area was a very special place; in need of informed conservation.  Three of the reasons being: -
Firstly – that it is an area of outstanding errosional landscape value, of unique scenic beauty.  It has been derived from an ancient Devonian Reef and is characteristically made up of sandstone towers coloured red, due to Fe oxides, banded with horizontally with dark stripes due to the colonisation of disjunct consecutive layers by blue/black lichens and cyanophytes (blue-green algae).  It is a colourful wilderness area of great beauty and diversity with descending cascading terraces of pools, and deeply ravined gorges, bordered by Mountain Cones.
Secondly – it has great significance for Aboriginal people.  The Bungle Bungle Massif being rich in sites of enduring cultural significance.  Current management plans for the park developed by CALM provide for:
- permanent inhabited outstations within the Park for tribal people;
- Aboriginal Rangers,
- traditional hunting and gathering rights and
- high priority being assigned to the protection of important Aboriginal sites. 
Aboriginal people are even permitted to have their dogs in this National Park –(A first off occurrence).
Thirdly – it is of considerable scientific and conservation value, lying as it does on the overlapping border zone of the wet/dry tropics and the arid zone of western and central Australia.  It contains a complex mixture of the climates, plants and animals from both of these zones.  Due to its physiognomy it is rich in habitat diversity, and as a result, is greatly richer in its biological diversity than occurs in its arid surroundings; which, even within in a few hundred kilometres inland, is graveyard to so many unique animal and plant species.
This experience was the turning point in Marion’s lifelong quest, which as a result, turned thereafter into an all-out effort to achieve protection and conservation for this scientifically significant and visually outstanding area (as illustrated by her photographs).  For this purpose, it was important to obtain all possible substantiating evidence about its assets, and the diversity of specimens collected, helped. She had, by this time been appointed as a member of the National Parks and Nature Conservation Authority. She remembers that the negotiations and the drafting of the Management Plan for this National Park and Conservation Reserve, because of its complexity and the complications arising form the breaking of new ground; with regard to Aboriginal habitation and allowing of the presence of dogs (belonging to the Aborigines) within the park; took the longest time and the greatest effort to achieve, of any plan undertaken by the authority.
Surveys of this region highlight the significance the overlapping of two biogeographical zones in this area.  It is of considerable scientific interest that the Bungle Bungles contain the southernmost limit of existence for many Torresian species (those that occur in the Australian Tropics) for example 3 easy to recall animals, the Olive Python and 2 species of Gecko reach the inland limits of their habitats here.  In addition there are many Eyrean species (characteristic of the dry inland areas of Australia) also present.
In the areas of Purnululu so far surveyed, 616 species of plants have been identified/recorded (including 17 species of weeds), 149 species of birds, 81 reptiles, 4 mammals and 12 frogs.

  • These species are of very uneven distribution over the National Park and Conservation Reserve.
  • The most widespread species are Torresian occurring along the creeks and sheltered gorges.  This area forms the Southern inland limit for quite a number of the species present.
  • In contrast are the rocky range tops.  Much of these areas are covered with a diversity of Spinifex Communities.  It is of interest that there are, unusually, 8 species of Triodia present on the tops.  This locale provides the major habitats for Eyrean species.

One of the major concerns for this Park is that there are areas that have already undergone severe degradational change; chiefly as a result of the activities of feral animals (which had been active over the last 120 odd years) cats, donkeys, cattle, pigs, camels and water buffalo; with resultant trampling of riparian vegetation, destruction of water holes and creek beds and the elimination of their previous accompanying native habitats.  This feral pressure has led to the extermination of complete ecosystems, the compaction of soils, the disruption of the stabilising soil and of surface crust, which in time has led to the loss of topsoil, as well as to breakage of the brittle sandstone surface ledges.  These processes have led to erosion, siltation of water holes and trampling of, in particular the former Padanus Thickets, with their accompanying vegetation, flora and fauna.
Aboriginal people of the surrounding areas, report that there has been a loss from the Bungle Bungle area of several medium-sized mammals, such as the Bilby, the Northern Quoll, the Golden Bandicoot and the Northern Bandicoot.  In addition, two species of bird; the Purple Crowned Fairy Wren and the White Browed Robin, which were once common in the Pandanus thickets occurring along the fringing creeks, are now known to have definitely disappeared.
The wealth of native species growing in the Purnululu area have evolved to be adapted to the conditions of their individual habitats so that they cope with the problems of the climatic vagaries of the edge of the desert (the parameters and functioning of which relationships we as yet little understand), and if undisturbed, they cope relatively well. It is interference; usually in the form of the impact of feral species, that usually causes the problems of imbalance.
Although ongoing – the park has now been almost completely destocked.  But we are still a long way from stopping erosion and recommencing soil formation so as to reinstate the former habitats that existed in this area, with their diversity of vegetation formations and plant species, together with their former accompanying creatures, particularly the mammals, that in earlier days inhabited each of these niches.
The ecological integrity of areas such as this is fragile, often knife-edgedly balanced even in an untouched state.  Here natural conditions are widely variable and often extremely stressful, so it does not take much in the way of interference to tip the balance between existence and extinction.
In planning for conservation it is our charged responsibility to endeavour to fathom and unravel the parameters of the ‘existence’ relationships of the biota of such areas, so as to learn how to conserve, and where and whenever possible, to restore the unusual beauty and extraordinary grandeur, that previously existed.
Marion stated that her ambition for this park, which had constituted a great slice of the conservation effort of her mature years – whilst Deputy Chairperson of the NPNCA  (on which she served for the whole of its existence); had been for informed management to be set up and implemented ahead of the onslaught of uninformed usage, which could so easily and irrevocably destroy the beauty of its fragile structure and intricate ecology. 
It is to be noted that, when these geological structures originally evolved, the climate could well have been much wetter, and that, as ever, we learn on the rehabilitation side, that it’s so much easier to break than to remake!!
Still in this day and age, funding for conservation is comparatively so minimal, in the context of tourism pressures and demands, so that despite management strategies (in the face of staff shortages), aimed at restricting foot traffic to low impact areas in order to prevent permanent damage; it is almost impossible to maintain the initial conservation aim for this park.  Much of the area has not even yet been surveyed in detail.
Thus there is need for great concern regarding maintaining of the integrity of these ‘Honey Pot Mountains’.  They constitute such a fantastic, different and mystical place that we all should be acting to see that this area is allocated its rightful protection and care.

 


THE DISCOVERY OF THE EAST KIMBERLEY GOLDFIELD 1885

At the Kimberley Society’s meeting of 2 March 2005, a large audience heard from Dr Phillip Playford, an experienced geologist and an avid researcher and writer in the field of history. His summary of his beautifully illustrated talk follows.
In the mid 1800s Western Australia was the poor sister of the other Australian colonies.  It regarded with envy the wealth generated by the major gold discoveries that had been made in the eastern colonies. As a result, the WA Government decided in 1872 to offer a reward of £5,000 for the discovery of the colony’s first payable goldfield.
The Kimberley gold story began with the exploring expedition of Alexander Forrest in 1879. He traversed the district from west to east into the Northern Territory, and on reaching the Pine Creek mining centre he commented to the manager, Adam Johns, on similarities between the rocks at Pine Creek and those seen by his party in the Kimberley. This inspired Johns to mount an expedition to the area, with his mate Phil Saunders as party leader. They sailed from Darwin to Cossack and set out for the Kimberley in April 1882. Saunders found traces of gold in the headwaters of the Ord River, and reported this in a telegram to the W.A. Colonial Secretary, indicating that payable gold could probably be found in the area.
There was debate in the WA Legislative Council as to the best way of following up this report. It was eventually decided to appoint Edward T Hardman, a geologist from the Irish Geological Survey, to join John Forrest’s survey expedition to the West Kimberley in 1883. That expedition found no positive signs of gold. However, Hardman accompanied a second expedition, led by H F Johnston, to the East Kimberley in 1884. This time Hardman panned good colours of gold in several watercourses, especially in the headwaters of the Elvire River, where the Halls Creek gold discovery would be made in the following year.
Hardman made many excellent paintings and sketches during the two expeditions. Scanned images of these and others by Arthur Forbes (the police constable, Clerk of Courts, and Mining Registrar at Halls Creek in 1887-1890) were shown during the presentation to the Society.
In early 1885, as soon as Hardman’s results were made known, several prospecting parties set off for the East Kimberley. One of these, led by Charles Hall, headed east from Derby to the Elvire River area where Hardman had reported his best gold showings. They soon found payable gold, at what they named ‘Halls Creek’, on 14 July 1885. As soon as this find became known, the Kimberley gold rush began. Thousands of men made their way to the Kimberley from other parts of WA, the eastern colonies, and New Zealand. Most arrived by ship in Derby or Wyndham, and then walked to Halls Creek. Others came overland from the Northern Territory. Most had no previous experience in gold prospecting or of life in the bush. Illness and disease were rife, and when the first warden, C D Price, arrived on 3 September 1886, he found that ‘great numbers were stricken down, in a dying condition, helpless, destitute of money, food, or covering, and without mates or friends simply lying down to die’.
A few were lucky enough to locate rich alluvial or reef gold, but most had little or no success. Some found enough gold to survive or move elsewhere in the colony. It is estimated that as many as 10,000 men joined the rush, and when Warden Price arrived in September 1886 he reported that about 2,000 remained at the diggings. By the end of 1886 the rush had ceased.
In spite of the early promise of several underground mines, Halls Creek never prospered, as the ore petered out at depth and the alluvial gold was soon exhausted. However, the gold rush drew world attention to the colony and its gold prospects, and some of the experienced prospectors soon moved on to make rich discoveries in the Pilbara and Southern Cross districts (1888), the Murchison (1891), Coolgardie (1892), and Kalgoorlie (1893). Those major discoveries captured the imagination of the world, resulting in a flood of immigrants and investment capital that transformed Western Australia from an impoverished colony in the late 1880s to one of Australia’s wealthiest States in 1901.
Hardman left Western Australia for Ireland in 1885, resuming his duties with the Geological Survey of Ireland.  He died of typhoid in Dublin on 6 April 1887 at the age of 42 years, leaving a wife and two small children. Prior to his death he was not aware that his ambition to return to Western Australia was about to be realized. An offer of appointment to the permanent position of Government Geologist (and founder of the Geological Survey of Western Australia) had been approved by the Legislative Council on 13 June 1887. Soon afterwards members were saddened to learn of Hardman’s premature death.
Applications for the £5,000 reward for the gold discovery were lodged by H F Johnston, E T Hardman, P Saunders, C Hall and party, and several other persons who had found gold in the area. At the time of Hardman’s death no decision had been made regarding payment of the reward. The Government eventually decided, on 31 May 1888, that the conditions for payment had not been met and therefore the reward would not be paid.  The main reason was that recorded output from the field had been less than the stipulated 10,000 ounces. However, at the same time it was announced that £500 would be given to Hardman’s widow and another £500 to Hall and his party. 
The other prominent applicant for the reward had been Phil Saunders.  By 1907 he was 66 years old and working a small gold show, with minimal returns, near Mt Ida.  The Mt Ida Progress Association wrote to the Minister for Mines asking that Saunders be granted an appropriate annuity by the Government. They said that ‘the old gentleman is now rapidly declining and almost blind’ and that he would appreciate receiving appropriate relief to assist him when ‘his life is apparently very near its close’. This moving appeal had the desired effect, and Saunders was granted a Government pension of £75 per year.  If he was indeed close to death in 1907, he recovered well after receiving the annuity. Indeed he lived for another 24 years, dying in 1931 at the age of 90 years.
There can be no doubt that the discovery of the Kimberley Goldfield and the dramatic rush that followed are among the most important events in the history of Western Australia.  They marked the true beginning of our mining industry, leading to the major developments that now dominate our economy and have placed Western Australia among the world’s foremost mining provinces.

Further reading
Playford, Phillip E. and Ruddock, Ian. 'Discovery of the Kimberley Goldfield', Early Days, Royal Western Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings, vol. 9, part 3, 1985, pp. 76–106.
‘The Rush of '86’, Boab Bulletin, April 1995, pp. 5–6.
‘An Early Kimberley Prospector: R.C.S. Macphee’, Boab Bulletin, August 1997, pp. 5–8.
Burdett, F D, with editing by C R Long. The Odyssey of a Digger. First published 1936, facsimile edition, Hesperian Press, Carlisle (WA), 2005. See the book note for it in this newsletter.

 


KIMBERLEY CRUSTACEANS

On 6 April 2005, Diana Jones, the Curator of Crustaceans at the WA Museum, shared her extensive knowledge of marine life with the Kimberley Society. She used a PowerPoint presentation with many beautiful slides of the animals concerned. Her main interest is in barnacles, so these featured well in the talk. Biodiversity was discussed. It is the variety of all life forms, and includes genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity. All these are essential elements in conservation.
The oceans are the cradle of life on earth. Of the 33 major animal groups, 23 are found in the sea and 13 of these are exclusively marine. In WA we have 12,500kms of coastline covering the tropics to the temperate zone, which results in a very diverse marine fauna. In southern Australian waters, which have been geographically and climatically isolated for around 40 million years, about 80-90% of the marine species are restricted to that area. i.e. they are endemic. Conversely, in the waters of northern Australia, which are connected by currents to the Indian and Pacific tropical regions, only around 10% of the marine species are endemic and 90% are widespread tropical Indo-West Pacific species. The Indo-west Pacific tropical region is incredibly species-rich, with a diversity far exceeding that of other tropical regions.  Along the west coast there is an overlap zone where there exists a relatively high but decreasing diversity of tropical species from north to south. Tropical species are found down to Cape Leeuwin or even further, due to the effect of the warm Leeuwin Current travelling southwards off the coast. There are also a number of endemic species, for example, the Western Rock Lobster.
The habitats in the Kimberley are varied, and consist of rocky shores, very high tides, mangroves, muddy and sandy shores, and coral reefs. The WA Museum found 13 undescribed species on their first trip to the Kimberley islands.
BARNACLES. Goose barnacles, which are stalked barnacles, were shown on floating objects, hitch-hiking a ride. These are the barnacles that cause such problems on ships' hulls. They don't all live close to the surface though, as we saw a sea fan from a depth of 100 metres carrying barnacles. The mangroves around Broome were shown with barnacles on their leaves and trunks.
On rocky shores there are barnacles such as Tetraclita squamosa which is volcano shaped and most common high up the rocks.  Barnacles can also attach to other animals, such as Balanus trigonus which attaches to mussels as well as to boats. We are living in the Age of Barnacles and they have now reached their maximum diversity we believe. The relictual species now found on our shores originated as deep water animals. For example, the stalked barnacle Ibla cumingi is found on the shore deep in the crevices of rocks, and the stalked barnacle Lithotrya valentiana grinds its way into limestone boulders.
CRABS.  There are crabs living on shore as well as in the ocean. The Seaweed or Decorator crab has hooks on its back and camouflages itself by attaching the weed to its carapace. It eventually eats it off, so they carry their larder on their back! Hermit crabs are common on the shores of the Kimberley and make a tremendous noise as they clamber around in the vegetation at night. There are Rock crabs that swiftly skitter across the rocks and in the shallow water there are swimming crabs, which have their back legs modified into paddles.
MANGROVES.  The mangrove trees support a community of tiny barnacles, which live on the leaves and trunks and comprise 6 or 7 different species. Some mangrove crabs live in the mud in burrows that have a hood over the top. Their gills have become more like lungs and they have become almost terrestrial. These mud dwellers are shy and are seen only at night. There's one particular Mud Lobster that Diana has seen only twice in 27 years!  Here we also find Fiddler Crabs of which there are 8 or 9 different species. The largest is bright red and the male has one claw enlarged for display to encourage mating, the other is smaller for feeding. These occur in the mud and are called Uca flammula, or Darwin Red Legs. Those in the sand are yellow (Uca mjoebergi) and the large claw is used in a curtsy display.  The females semaphore in answer! Yet another is Uca elegans, found in the large salt flats behind the mangroves and described by Diana and Ray George in 1982.  These crabs line their burrows with blue-green algae, which may be their food source.
EPIZOIC BARNACLES.  These live on other animals, for example on shells, on Gorgonian corals and even on the flukes of dolphins. Some barnacles are found on sea fans, on bottles and even on a sea urchin at 70m deep. This was a naked stalked barnacle with no shelly plates. Some barnacles are even found on the feet of hermit crabs. Turtles carry huge numbers, and as many as 9 different species have been found on one turtle. These occur on the shell, underneath, on the flippers, in soft tissue, in the soft palate and some extend right down into the flesh, and are almost parasitic. The most primitive barnacles are stalked and live in deep water and the non-stalked barnacles are mainly found in shallow water and on the shore. Barnacles are crustaceans. They have a larval form which settles on its head and the antennae become cement glands. They have 6 pairs of legs, each divided into two hairy cirri (hence their name Cirripedia) which forms a feeding net.
CORAL REEFS. These reefs are full of life and there are many crustaceans associated with them. There are little shrimps which live in oyster shells as commensals. The mantis shrimps are prawn killers and of very bright colours, especially red, green and blue. The hunchbacked shrimp is camouflaged and lives in anemones, and soft corals and take any food scraps that they leave. The Beautiful Crab carries anemones on its claws for protection and the Banded Shrimp is very secretive and has very long antennae. Some reef crabs are colourful and have black claws and are poisonous as they carry toxins such as are found in algal blooms. Marine biologists use dredging, diving and use of transects to obtain their data since there is a huge array of animals under the sea. The WA Museum was founded more than 100 years ago, and their collections show that biodiversity is increasing.
Daphne Edinger

 


IT’S NOT THE MONEY IT’S THE LAND

On 4 May 2005, Bill Bunbury, Presenter of ‘Hindsight’, ABC Radio Social History Unit, spoke to the Kimberley Society about the outcomes of the 1965 Equal Wages Case for indigenous pastoral workers in Northern Australia. The following summary, which Bill generously provided for the newsletter, contains only a few of the oral history excerpts that he played to the audience.
Former Kimberley stockman Jacky Dann said:
We grew up in station and we bin ringin’ in there. And the station manager or the station owner we got to show him where the cattle run and how to get around – but when the works starts we were going from there and never stop – droving cattle, mustering and branding – because we was the cheap labour – Aboriginal people was the cheap labour – And in this land we pay the price – from all that we get nothing back.
Former Kimberley pastoralist Peter Murray said:
I think the tragedy of it all was that nobody sat down – nobody thought about the repercussions – they just let it happen. And what always amazes me is that we’re supposed to be a clever country, an enlightened country – and yet we allow decisions to take place without any consultation with the parties that are involved and we’ve got a disaster on our hands thirty years down the track.
Those excerpts began both the ABC Radio series “It’s not the money it’s the land and the book, which I later wrote, on the Equal Wage Case of 1965, and they illustrate the fundamental dilemma that the 1965 decision produced.
In 1997 I was asked to make a presentation at the National Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne. The paper I presented was entitled Chances Lost Chance Taken. I talked about opportunities for Reconciliation with the First Australians which were foregone or grasped. Looking back now that title now seems doubly ironic because it was at the 1997 Convention that I first became fully aware of the consequences of an economic decision that was to affect the lives of thousands of indigenous workers and their families throughout the Northern Territory and the Kimberley. Here was a chance well and truly lost.
Later, during the Convention, I found myself listening to Sir James Gobbo, then Governor of Victoria. He reflected among other things on his feeling about the 1965 Conciliation and Arbitration Commission’s decision to grant Equal Wages to Aboriginal stockmen. The consequences, he felt, had not been what the Commission might have hoped for.
It set me thinking. In the 1970s and early 1980s I had occasionally driven through small Northern Territory and Kimberley towns, Katherine, Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, recording stories and moving on. But what I’d failed to apprehend was why so many Aboriginal families clung to the edge of those communities. They were certainly living rough – often literally camped on the edge of town.
It took another year of research and even more time to interview some of the major players before I’d completed a 3 part radio series “It’s Not The Money It’s The Land”. These broadcasts went to air in ‘Hindsight’, Radio National’s weekly history radio feature, in December 2000. I followed up the series by writing a book with the same title, which Fremantle Arts Centre Press published in February 2002. The title is significant because it emphasizes the major loss for Aboriginal people, that of land, as a result of the 1965 Wages case. And that’s a long story, far older than the brief European tenure of Australia.
When pastoralists first entered the Kimberley and the Northern Territory in the late 19th century, their first contact with the original inhabitants was frequently followed by conflict over the use of land. Both wanted water and access to good pasture. Deprived of game by the introduction of cattle and sheep, the indigenous tribes took to killing the white man’s livestock, with inevitable reprisals by the Europeans. Conflict only ended when Aboriginal people entered the pastoral economy, on the best terms they could get. That meant that at least they could stay on their own country, even if they now depended on the pastoralist for food, clothing and welfare, in exchange for their labour.
That way of life persisted until the Equal Wages Case in 1965. Station life did provide an opportunity to stay on or visit one’s own country in some cases. Obligations to country through ceremony could be sustained and traditional law passed on to younger people. On the other hand the workers were tied to the stations, often with little freedom of movement or opportunity to seek work elsewhere.
The isolation of station life also meant there was little opportunity for Aboriginal people to become familiar with money, and how the money economy worked, because they rarely saw it. Apart from hand-outs of clothing and tucker and occasional pocket money, say at race-time meetings when the whole station went to town, there was little incentive or education which would have prepared indigenous workers for the receipt of regular wages.  
However World War Two caused the first crack in this laissez-faire regime.   The Army, when it recruited Aboriginal labour for defence project, paid wages, causing many station workers to question why this never happened inside the cattle grid. At war’s end, fewer were prepared to resume the semi-slavery of station life. 
Pastoral workers from the Pilbara set a precedent when, advised by a sympathetic prospector, Don MacLeod, they walked off sheep and cattle properties in May 1946, striking for a decent wage. The Pilbara strike preceded the Wave Hill walk-off by the Gurindji people in 1966 by twenty years. It was the first organised indigenous strike in the history of Australian pastoral life.
The role of Trade Unions in this story is interesting. They took no part in the Pilbara dispute and had, in fact, not intervened at all on behalf of indigenous workers in pre-World War Two Australia. If anything, the NAWU (Northern Australia Workers Union), in the 1920s and early 1930s, had evinced hostility and exclusion towards workers whom they saw as competitors with white workers in most work areas. Given that Aboriginal labour was unpaid, they were at least technically correct. Their view accurately reflected the White Australia policy of a high Wage, no cheap labour workforce. 
However, by the time the Equal Wage Case came up in 1965, union attitudes had shifted, partly due to the leadership of men like Union organiser Dexter Daniels at Wave Hill and President of the NAWU, J McGinness, both notable and respected indigenous leaders. These men were at the forefront of the campaign for Equal Wages.
When the Commission hearings took place in 1965, only two parties were present to provide evidence for and against the case. John Kerr, later Governor General, represented the pastoralists, and the NAWU represented the workers.  Their case was minimal. The Union saw Equal Wages as a long overdue restitution of almost a century of semi-slavery and assumed that the verdict would inevitably reflect natural justice.
QC, Hal Wootten, was then Junior Counsel assisting John Kerr, and despite his brief, personally sympathetic to the Aboriginal workers’ arguments. However he was keenly aware that those most affected by the decision were not present. One of the ironies most apparent to him was the fact that it was the pastoralists who raised the question of benefit to Aboriginal workers.
They said, “We can see this is going to be very painful for aborigines and we wouldn’t like that to happen but it’s going to be one of the consequences if this decision is made.”
Pastoralists, in effect, argued that once Equal Wages came in they could no longer sustain the traditional station economy, where the pastoralist or his manager fed and clothed everybody, including dependants. They argued they could only retain a few selected workers. The rest, wives, children, older people and less efficient workers would have to take their chance elsewhere.
The Commission’s hands were also tied. Inevitably Australia could not, in the eyes of the world, continue to tolerate a feudal economy within a democracy. It was also influenced by the assimilationalist climate of the 1960s. While the Commission was well aware that, as the pastoralists warned, payment of Equal Wages would result in massive disemployment and dislocation, it awarded in favour of Aboriginal workers on the grounds of ‘equal treatment for All Australians’. It hinted, as it did so, that the Commonwealth government would pick up the tab if disaster ensued. Sadly that is just what happened.
It is only fair to say that some pastoralists were well aware of the likely social dislocation and regretted the breakdown in European-Aboriginal relationships. Annette Henwood at Fossil Downs expressed this very strongly in a taped interview. She also told me that several pastoralists in her region got together to try to work out how to implement the scheme slowly so that it would not cause the major upheaval they anticipated. But the Award was pushed through and sadly, in most cases its application meant loss of country and loss of work.
The Commission had proposed a three-year delay in implementing the Award in order to give the pastoral economy time to adjust. Unfortunately this became the period of the greatest lay-offs and nowhere more so than in the Kimberley, where, although Equal Wages came late, they hit hard. 
For many years the state government had encouraged the retention of Aboriginal communities on station properties, partly because when the inevitable dislocation occurred after the payment of the Award, they were aware that the small towns of the Kimberley, etc. would not be able to cope with the influx of displaced people. Their worst fears were realised in the 1970s when hundreds of people left the stations and crowded on to the reserves of Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing and Wyndham. They had lost their work, their skills and most importantly their country, the essence of their identity and which gave spiritual and physical meaning to their lives. Now, in town, they were at risk from the worst aspects of white society, unemployment, alcohol and boredom.
One of the last stations to be affected was Gordon Downs, 120 kilometres south of Halls Creek.  Here the people were scarcely aware of what the Equal Wage decision would mean to them. Leaving Gordon Downs – as a result of this situation – meant exile in Halls Creek- temporarily losing their country. That was described on tape by Patsy Mudgabel and Basil Thomas.
One of the important lessons for me doing those interviews at Gordon Downs was to be vividly reminded of the spiritual meaning of land. In one sense people had to lose land in order to regain it. But I remember too, when recording the interviews at Halls Creek, how easy it was misuse word like ‘lose’. I’d been asking ex-Gordon Downs stockmen what they felt about losing their land. The conversations were in Djaru, with local interpreter, Patsy Mudgabel translating for the benefit of the radio audience later. In a break in recording Patsy tactfully told me that the stockmen could not understand my question about losing the land. In their view they had never lost it. Rather, the land had lost them for a while. Country and obligations to country were always in their consciousness in exile at Halls Creek. Land was in people’s heads and in their hearts, it only awaited their physical return.
But it’s at this point that the story begins to turn round.
While the 1970s and early 1980s was a period of massive dislocation, it was also a period of political growth and revival among the Aboriginal communities. Organisations like the Central Land Council and the Kimberley Land Council formed to help people cope with dispossession and to help them get back to country. As Kimberley land Claimant Rex Johns put it to me: 
It’s very important that we get our land back.
Bill: More important than the money?
Yeah – more important than the money – Our dreamtime land you know.
That phrase – or its gist became the title of both the radio series and the book.
Some Aboriginal communities have now regained their own country and are running pastoral properties on their own terms, sometimes simply as communities free from the pressures and problems of urban life. This is a vital part of the story. For indigenous station communities the loss of work, which accompanied the Equal Wages decision, was matched by dispossession from land where they could carry out obligations to country and preserve much of their culture. It is often hard for other Australians to appreciate how much this meant to people who had been taken out of their own country.   
Ribnga Green, who was Development Officer for the Kimberley Land Council at Halls Creek, went with the Gordon Downs people when they returned to land from which they had been evicted. He said,
The changes I saw in the people from the time after they first arrived in Halls Creek after being kicked off Gordon Downs Station to the time when they moved back to their country, started setting up their tents and organising their affairs which included ceremonies and things like that as well.
People were back in their country so they could sing songs again and dance dances and do things that they'd been doing for aeons of time. To see those sorts of changes was the highlight of my working career. I don’t think anything will quite equal that.
So what has this story been about? Have I simply described the inevitable process of change?
I remember driving back from Fitzroy Crossing to Broome early one morning in September 2000. Just as I turned south along the Broome-Derby road three helicopters rose up in front of me. I couldn’t see the cattle they were mustering. They were invisible in the scrub. It was a vivid reminder of how much had changed in the pastoral industry since 1965. Mechanisation and more intensive cattle raising have replaced open-range pastoralism where the stockman and the horse were essential.
It is inevitable that indigenous families would have left the stations at some stage. Many, with greater mobility, wanted more from life and often sought wider opportunities for their children. But the question remains. Could we have done it better? Could we have avoided the uprooting, the loss of morale and the heartbreak, which accompanied that sudden dispersal from country?
Former Reconciliation Council member Ric Farley thinks so. I put it to him that one could argue that the payment of Equal Wages was inevitable, one of those leaps across a ravine that simply had to happen. But as he responded: -
The ravine certainly was there and it had to be crossed but I’m not sure if it had to be crossed in a single leap. I think if the commission had approached the issue in a way that they’re tending to do now, recognising that there is a surviving Aboriginal culture and a surviving Aboriginal system of law. But if things had been approached in a more pragmatic way then perhaps the impact would not have been as great. But certainly it was an issue that was always going to arise. I think as in many other issues it wasn't addressed as well as it might have been.
So is this episode just a slice of history, one where we can shrug our shoulders and say, “Well it was a mistake and we wouldn’t do things that way now”.  Or is this story still important? 
Ric Farley’s response is also helpful again.
Yes, because it’s one of the reasons that indigenous people now find themselves facing the sorts of problems that they do. One of the questions often asked is, “Why can’t Aboriginal people get a job like anyone else? Why are so many people hooked on alcohol or drugs, living on the edge of river banks or around large towns and cities?”
People have to understand that a lot of Aboriginal people were really forced into that position. They were not doing it by choice. That’s not how people would choose to live if they had a choice but it’s what the forces of history have imposed on them.
Now if we’re to become a whole and inclusive society then people need to understand that and out of that understanding hopefully will come a much more informed debate about what needs to happen in the future.
Editor’s note: Bill Bunbury’s book, It’s Not The Money It’s The Land: Aboriginal Stockmen and the Equal Wages Case, is still in print and can be obtained through bookshops or Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

 


BAPTISM OF FIRE (A KIMBERLEY BUSH-WALK)
On 1 June 2005, Victoria Jackson, geologist and bush-walker, told the Kimberley Society about her experiences as a first time walker in the North Kimberley. She started the talk by showing a map of the route travelled from the cave where Bradshaw sighted the first Bradshaw (Gwion Gwion) figures, down Garimbu Creek to the Roe and Moran Rivers, and across the plateau to the Mitchell Falls. This summary relates Victoria’s account as if it were taken from her diary.
Originally we were to be a group of eight, but Dick Hewitt and his friend Martin Cole thought our trip would be a bit boring, and so chose a more challenging route. I would still be walking out from that one I think! Our members were Bryan Smith, leader, Nell Iliffe, on her 4th trip, David Cameron, a veteran bush walker, Michael Johnson, an Englishman and a great walker, Ian Jackson, my husband, and myself. A particular focus of our journey was to visit the historic site where Joseph Bradshaw first found the exquisite Bradshaw Paintings. The site was too far away from the Mitchell Plateau for us to walk from in 10 days, so Bryan Smith, our leader, arranged for a helicopter to drop us in, to spend a little time at the site, then get us dropped to the start point of our walk. The Gorges in this area were steep and tight, so the walk turned out to be a little more difficult than was at first anticipated. Several of the gorges were impassable so we had to go around them. With others, a lot of climbing was required.
The journey begins with a helicopter ride to the first campsite, which was the Bradshaw site. We saw, as shown in the many photos accompanying the account, tassel, clothes peg and stick figures as well as a great range of more recent Wandjina and animal art, something that looked like a mythical being, and clawed hands.
On Day 2 we were at Garimbu Falls, an incredibly beautiful place and a great camp-site. We experienced our first “peppermint foot bath” this evening after sipping Nell’s green ant tea cocktails. David carried a canvas foot-bath for the entire trip, and treated sore feet in the evenings.
The original plan was to find a way down these cliffs surrounding the falls and follow the Garimbu Creek to the Roe River. However, Bryan conceded that these were impassable so we had to take the long route the next day and go around the ridges.
As this was our first real day of walking, and Ian and my first Kimberley experience, we actually didn’t believe that Bryan anticipated negotiating these cliffs in the first place. When we realized that he was serious, you can imagine the huge sigh of relief we breathed when he announced that we didn’t have long enough ropes to drop the packs that distance!
We went back up creek a way and traversed the ridge and came across some stone circles, continued on, and, almost at the top of the ridge, came across a stone overhang that had a “ship” painted under it. Over the ridge, first fall of the trip was mine and I did the classic turtle on its back when I misjudged a step down a rock.
We then met an almost dry, narrow creek bed with remnant rain forest. Although it was pretty and a haven for birds, it was quite difficult to travel down as the forest encroached on it, and it was strewn with loose, irregular-shaped boulders and tree branches.
At the end of what seemed like a very long day, we found a camp-site near the junction of this creek and the Garimbu. We named it Morning Star because a resplendent Venus crept over the eastern ridge early in the morning, with a visible waning moon sinking over the western ridge.
Day 4. Still on the Garimbu with ceremonial standing stone on the ridge top. It was breathtaking scenery looking back from where we had come.
A most serious threat for us was never knowing if there were any rapids or waterfalls between us and the tidal reaches of the Roe River that salt water crocodiles could not negotiate. So, from this point until we left the Moran and headed for the plateau country, a good measure of caution was exercised when near deep pools.
Camp 3 on Day 5. Victoria’s Relief. The name of this campsite had nothing to do with ablutions! By now I was wondering how I would make the rest of the journey if it was all to be as challenging as the past few days.  Bryan “promised” that the gorge country would open up ahead for a less difficult journey. Wishful thinking I’m afraid!  David was such an optimist. He kept on saying that it will get easier round the corner. I thought that he knew what he was talking about and hung on his every word for the first couple of days. More rock paintings of a female crocodile laying her eggs.
The second pack drop occurred at the junction of the Roe. This is where Dave lost his cheap plastic cup, which, attached to the outside of his pack, smashed on rocks. It has taken us 3.5 days to reach this junction. By this time, I think we have all figured out that we are not going to make it back to the Mitchell Falls campsite on schedule, and to start budgeting for yet another helicopter flight.
Camp 4. Anticipation on Day 6. I’m still anticipating an easier road ahead! The strata in the sandstones here are quite thick and don’t offer the same ease of climbing as the sandstones of thinner strata. By the time we got here, we were all well versed in helping each other with bum pushes, leg ups, pull ups and bum slides!
Day 7. We meet the Moran; Dingo’s Lair to Trapdoor. We all enjoyed the spectacular scenery at the junction of the Roe and Moran Rivers. We walked around to the lowest point of the headland so as not to have to climb down the cliff face, but the descent was still extremely steep and lined with slippery spinifex grass and crumbling and loose rocks from the top of the spur to the river bed.
Bryan managed a dip in a shallow pool, but the rest of us just tried to shade ourselves from the sun and rest! Wary of crocodiles, we helped each other across the river to continue our journey.
Day 7. Approaching Trapdoor Camp. This is a particularly beautiful gorge. We were looking for footprints on the other side that would indicate that Dick and Martin had passed by but no luck. Those we did see weren’t theirs.
Camp 6. Day 8 at Trapdoor. We named this camp Trapdoor after we left it behind. By now, we were used to thinking the way ahead would be a bit harder than anticipated. This morning was no exception. Our intrepid Englishman took off downstream a few minutes ahead of the rest to see if we could pass through the gorge. Well, foot access dead-ended within about 500m and initially we thought we might have to retreat and go around again, adding yet further time to our journey. We persevered and, after doing belly crawls under narrow ledges, found a spot where, with great exertion, we could help each other scale the face of the gorge and continue forwards.
Day 8. Lost Camera Break. While Michael was busy assisting the rest of us scale the cliff, he put his camera on the ground. About half an hour later, he discovered that he had left it behind. Michael retraced his steps and, fortunately, found his camera while the rest of us took a welcome break at this picturesque spot. We were on our way to a waterfall on a tributary of the Moran, then to head upstream to plateau country and down to the Mitchell River. But we missed our turn off, ignoring the “tributary” which was a snaky, thin watercourse with some muddy patches full of feral bull footprints. When we took a GPS reading, it was obvious that we had taken the wrong path. But what a beautiful lunch spot. We had the usual confrontation with a wild bull, Michael in particular, trying to photograph it.
Day 8. Camp 7 of Skillion and Boab. It was getting late in the afternoon, and we kept moving forward looking for a suitable campsite. We had been a bit spoiled with camps along the way, but this was the best we could do this night. Most of us had a pretty uncomfortable night trying not to slide down the slope into the creek. We stuffed boots and clothes under the down slope side of our bedrolls to make an almost level surface to sleep on.
Day 9. Waterlily lunch. We were cutting across country to connect with the Mitchell River, and were on the plateau. We spotted a few brolgas, water monitors and a snake along the way and walked through fields of flowers to get to this pretty spot for lunch. The water here was really cold, and there was a patch of water lilies in the creek, but only one flower.
Camp 8.  Frogsong Day 10. This is our last camp and challenges our first to win best prize. The creek cascaded down to a big pool, making a natural spa. There was a natural amphitheatre for a fireplace with perfectly placed ledges for our seating around the fire. The frogs sang all night, but it was a real song, not a croak, and it was a wonderful sound to go to sleep with.
Last Lunch at Mitchell River on Day 10. Finally, we reached the Mitchell and by this time we were three days behind schedule. Had things gone to plan, we would have been back at Mitchell Plateau campsite by now. The trip had been quite arduous and we were all pretty tired by this time. The Mitchell was a bit of a disappointment as there was lots of evidence of feral bulls, the water looked pretty foul and there were lots of mosquitoes, flies and green ants around. Bryan called Captain Tim on the Sat. phone and I wasn’t shy about being the first to be ferried back to base! Tim did a loop so that we could get some pictures of the falls though it was not directly in our flight path. It had taken us nine days to travel 62 km.
Bryan Smith was the trip organizer and a great trek leader. We certainly appreciate all he did for us. Nell Iliffe’s friendship and Kimberley experience was a great comfort. Dave Cameron rolled up with every conceivable medicine and antidote known to man. With the omnipresent threat of Dave administering a Staminade enema, no one dared complain about being dehydrated! Michael Johnson was truly a great walker. He learnt his skills in the highlands of Scotland. He sustained an injury by stamping on a branch to break it up for the fire. Instead, it flipped up and nearly broke his nose! Ian Jackson went to battle with a big slab of rock. It was a couple of meters square and about 15cm thick. Several others had walked on it and it didn’t move. As Ian stepped off it, it slid off its resting place. Luckily it wedged between two other rocks that created a gap in which was Ian’s leg. Had it not stopped, it surely would have trapped him. Me, I couldn’t have survived without anti-inflammatory drugs and a lot of help from the others.
Both groups reunited at the Mitchell Plateau campground. On reflection, the best part of the trip was the rock art and the scenery and the worst part having to jump from one high rock to another and crying in fear!
 When we got back to the plateau, most of the group walked down to the falls and there, floating down the river replete with packs, were Dick and Martin. Their adventure is another story again.
Transcribed and edited by Daphne Choules Edinger

 


BENDING THE RULES:  FINDING, RECORDING AND SAVING THE BUILT HERITAGE OF THE KIMBERLEY
On 1 July 2005, Rosemary Rosario, an Architectural Heritage Consultant, spoke to the Kimberley Society about some of the work that she has done in her fifteen years as a consultant. Rosemary’s association with Cathie Clement goes back ten years, and their work has taken them to the Kimberley to assess structures from the grand to the more modest, some of which have great heritage significance.
Rosemary’s presentation was a photographic overview of some of the many Kimberley buildings she and Cathie have visited and studied over the past ten years. The focus of the evening was the varied range and style of the buildings in the region and the sometimes unexpected discoveries such as the extent to which concrete was used in Kimberley construction from quite early in the twentieth century.
The Broome Court House was built as a cable station by the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Co. Ltd, which imported it in 1889, prefabricated from England. It was a standard pattern with an iron frame, corrugated iron walls, cast iron steps and balconies, which remain from the original building. The building was erected with the help of Chinese workers from Singapore from where teak panelling was also sourced. A billiard room on one side was part of the original building. Rosemary showed a photograph of the cable station taken in 1900. It served as a cable station until 1913, and in 1921 was purchased by the state government for use as a courthouse and is now fully restored.
Also in Broome was the Coastal Wireless Station, built by the Commonwealth as part of a network of stations that communicated with ships sailing in waters off Australia. The Broome Wireless Station was used until 1967. It was vested in the Shire of Broome in 1973 and became the Bowling Club in 1980. It is a concrete building, cast in situ, and is in two parts with a breezeway between. Similar wireless stations were built at Wyndham, Roebourne and Esperance. Another concrete Commonwealth building was the Health Laboratory, built in 1937, to investigate malaria, leprosy and other tropical diseases, particularly malignant tertian malaria in the Fitzroy valley. This building is of interest because of the suspended concrete floor, poured over corrugated iron which has left its pattern on the under side. In 1955, it was transferred to the state and became nurses’ quarters for the hospital. Concrete was also used in the Customs House, which is now the Broome Museum. 
Double iron roofs and wind scoops are also a feature of Broome buildings. They were installed to cope with the climate before fans and air-conditioning were available.
Derby has, and had, some significant heritage buildings such as the police station, built in 1906 with a lock-up behind it in which prisoners were chained to the floor to prevent overnight escapes. The lock-up, which had no solid walls, consists of two sections of iron grill. The 1906 police station was used until a few years before its demolition in 1977; the lock-up has now been restored.
The Flying Doctor Base in Derby is identical to one in Wyndham, now used by an aboriginal corporation. More modest but still significant Derby buildings are represented by the house in Mrs Wells lived until recently. It has an iron roof and walls with push-out shutters enclosing the veranda. The Wharfinger’s house, built in 1928 to house the man who was in charge of the Derby jetty, has been restored. It is now used as a museum.
The Derby woolshed, built in 1900, was damaged by a cyclone, but was reconstructed in 1957 with a gabled roof instead of the original saw-tooth form. The huge doors have been restored.
The Leprosarium was built in 1936 and closed in 1986 when the need to segregate patients was replaced by new treatment.
Further afield, near Windjana Gorge, and probably visited by many members, are the ruins of Lillimilura, built in 1887 as the station homestead for the King Sound Pastoral Company. Much of the stone walls remain either side of the wide breezeway between the two halves of the building. The pastoral activity on Lillimilura decreased in the early 1890s, leaving the homestead available for occupation by the local police constables. It was here that Jandamarra, who was known as ‘Pigeon’, shot Constable William Richardson in 1894. Jandamarra was shot at Tunnel Creek in 1897.
All that remains of the Old Leopold homestead are the stone walls of the former homestead, built about 1900 and occupied until the 1920s. Other station buildings that have been assessed for their heritage value are Glenroy, built in the 1950s of concrete blocks with a stone building for staff quarters. Mt Elizabeth also built in the 1950s is another stone house. The grandest of all the station homesteads is Fossil Downs, near Fitzroy Crossing, a large two-storey homestead set in a beautiful tropical garden. It was built by the MacDonald family in the 1940s, using locally made bricks, and remains in the family. The interior was decorated in Art Deco style with a grand staircase, Art Deco furniture and furnishings.
Several more recent buildings in Fitzroy Crossing are of heritage value, such as the Post Office, built in the 1950s with a timber frame and fibro walls with a gap at the top for ventilation.
Old Halls Creek Post Office is known to all members through Cathie’s efforts in raising money through the Kimberley Society to assist with its conservation. It was built of mud bricks in 1889 and served until the town was relocated in the early 1950s. A photo taken in 1964 shows the roof and veranda posts intact but soon after this, the roof was removed and deterioration started. A photograph in 1975 showed the walls intact but by 1999 they were crumbling. Now a gabled roof with eaves, the same height as the original, protects them. In ‘new’ Halls Creek a trackers’ hut, built next to the Police Station in 1959, is an example of a simple building with walls, roof and even the fireplace of galvanised iron.
Rosemary and Cathie have also assessed or examined river crossings such as the one near Fitzroy Crossing where a concrete crossing was built in 1935 and raised in 1958 by casting concrete over the original. In contrast, the Mary River crossing is quite elegantly built of stone.
Rosemary’s meticulous work has found many important features of buildings overlooked by previous surveys. She took us on a fascinating journey of discovery through the Kimberley in search of heritage buildings.
Loisette Marsh

 


THE SHEEP AND CATTLE STATIONS OF THE KIMBERLEY IN 1916
On 3 August 2005, Dr Cathie Clement spoke to the Kimberley Society about the sheep and cattle stations that existed in the Kimberley in 1916. This summary is drawn from the PowerPoint presentation in which Cathie, a self-employed historian, used photographs and segments of maps to take the audience on a virtual tour.
Why focus on 1916? The year is important because it yielded comprehensive information about Western Australia’s pastoral industry. That information includes photographs, maps, and reports. Many of the photographs were taken between April and June of 1916 when the Honourable Rufus Underwood, the Minister for Aborigines, and A O Neville, the Chief Protector, toured the Kimberley. Some of the photographs, which are held by the J S Battye Library of West Australian History, were taken on Kimberley stations.
In 1916, the Department of Lands and Surveys published a map that showed the principal sheep and cattle stations in the Kimberley, North West, Eastern, and Central Divisions of the state. That map, based on information collected over a three-year period, was accompanied by lexicographical lists of stations and their owners’ names. The lists record approximately 300 pastoral holdings, providing the names and owners for 237, and only the owners’ names for the remainder.
A copy of the map and the lexicographical lists were placed on a departmental file (6180/10), which is now at the State Records Office of Western Australia. The map and the lexicographical lists contain litho numbers that identify the 300 chain to an inch plans that covered the state’s pastoral regions. Those numbers, which appear in red on the map, make it possible to locate the positions of the stations mentioned in the lexicographical lists.
While the department was producing its material, the stock and station agent Elder, Shenton & Company Limited compiled a report that listed more than 270 stations. That report, which was for private use, covered stations scattered throughout an area extending slightly further south than the departmental map.
The Elders report surfaced last year when Mr Jack Maslen, who had held a copy for almost 50 years, approached Hesperian Press to see whether the press would publish it. Peter Bridge, the owner of the press, considered it well worth publishing. He invited Cathie to write an introduction, and, on looking into the report’s format and coverage, she realised that the presence of the litho numbers in it indicated that the firm would have used it in conjunction with the Land Department’s map.
Only two copies of the map appear to have survived and, utilising segments of the one that is now in the Battye Library, the audience “boarded” the State ship Kwinana to make the trip north. Broome had a few motor vehicles in 1916, mostly for use in the town. The Elders report tells of six stations and a mission in the district but the map shows only four stations and the mission. It would have been interesting to take a T-Model Ford out to Streeter and Male’s Roebuck Plains Station and then swing south to Thangoo, but, with the ship due to continue on to Derby, no one could risk being stranded out of town. A reading from the Elder’s report had to suffice.
Today, people can read about Thangoo Station in Richard Ferguson’s Pearls of the Past or S M Kelly’s Proud Heritage. A lot of information about other stations in the Broome area has disappeared. “Stations” might be too grand a word for those holdings but their owners felt that it was warranted when they submitted their entries to the ‘Pastoral and Agricultural Directory’ that formed part of each year’s Post Office Directory. The Elders report mentions some of the small holdings, and the surveyors Hope & Klem recorded some on a station map produced in 1921. Frazier Downs is on their map as is Cherry and Flack’s lease, which became Nita Downs.
Back on the Kwinana, the audience followed the path of early travellers and, after passing Cape Leveque, sailed up King Sound to Derby. From there, the travel options were varied but basic. The Derby to Fitzroy Crossing mail coach was available but someone had to jump off and on to open and close the dozens of gates en route. The road ran along the north side of the Fitzroy River and the coach called at Yeeda, Mt Anderson, and Liveringa. Each of those stations is mentioned in Dr Battye’s History of the North West of Australia, which was published in 1915.
The coach did not pass Robert and Ellen Bell-Blay’s Ellendale Station. It was one of the stations omitted from the Lands Department’s map but shown on the Hope & Klem map in 1921. The Bell-Blays, who were generally known as the Bells, were one of the first married couples to obtain work on a Kimberley station. They worked for the Duracks on Argyle in 1900, and then for other Fitzroy River station owners, before they secured the Ellendale lease in 1906. They lived very simply and frugally and, in later years, they were best known for the many tiny dogs that were their pride and joy at Ellendale.
The 1916 gossip on this part of the river was very much about the activities of the Bell’s neighbour, George Layman, from Calwynyardah Station. Billy Wells, the manager of Ben Copley’s Oscar Range and Brooking Stations was sure that George Layman was rustling cattle but he could not get a conviction. The floods were also topical because the 1914 flood was the highest on record. The Emanuel brothers’ Noonkanbah Station, the next stop for the mail coach, lost 1500 sheep, all of its donkeys, and nearly all of its working bullocks. It is hard to comprehend that volume of water coming down the river because, by September, the bed of the Fitzroy tends to be largely sand. That meant that few motor vehicles could cross the Fitzroy unless people, donkey teams or anything else that was handy dragged them across.
It is obvious that life on the stations was no picnic. The homesteads were mostly primitive affairs, built from either the local stone or timber and galvanised corrugated iron. Each station had a large Aboriginal workforce and, regardless of whether it ran sheep or cattle, it could not have existed without the labour of those people. Their labour had always been important but, with the Great War taking experienced stockmen away in 1916, station owners and managers were more reliant than ever on their Aboriginal workers.
The virtual tour stopped at Fitzroy Crossing because, in 1916, the mail coach went no further. Unless people made their own way into the East Kimberley, their knowledge of such stations as Lamboo, Springvale, Argyle, and Hillgrove was likely to come from maps, lexicographical lists, reports, or articles.
The material mentioned above, excluding the photographs, will be published by Hesperian Press this year in a volume of source documents on Western Australia’s sheep and cattle stations. Cathie Clement and Peter Bridge are editing the volume.

 


STONE STRUCTURES OF THE WEST KIMBERLEY
On 7 September 2005, Sue O’Connor of the Australian National University delivered a PowerPoint presentation to the Kimberley Society. A pioneer archaeologist in the area, Sue O’Connor started fieldwork in the Kimberley in 1985 looking for sites, such as shell middens and caves, that would indicate the antiquity of Aboriginal occupation of the coasts and islands. She surveyed 13 islands in the Buccaneer Archipelago including Sunday, Long, Mermaid, Cockatoo, Koolan, Macleay, Rankin, Lizard and High Cliffy and the Wood and Montgomery Islands. These islands varied in topography. Many were high, steep sided, with little habitable ground with few beaches and mangrove inlets (eg Koolan). Others are very small low and flat. For example, High Cliffy, the smallest island, is only 1km by 300m, but at low tide its reef is exposed as the largest inshore reef in Western Australia – some 130 km2. Like most other smaller islands, it is poor in terrestrial resources but rich in fish, shellfish, turtle, dugong and nesting seabirds.
High Cliffy stimulated Sue’s interest – it has tens of hundreds of metres of built stone structures and surface scatters of thousands of chert stone artefacts. The structures take many forms from long meandering lines, geometric patterns, to substantial walled structures roughly circular in shape with narrow entrances. There are also standing stones, cairns, some with central supporting stones, and paving over some of the floors.
What is the function of these structures?
Were they built by Macassan trepangers or European castaways as some of Sue’s colleagues had suggested, or were they built by the ancestors of the Aboriginal people who use the islands to the present day? They are associated with numerous stone artefacts, grindstones, baler shell bowls and subsistence remains but no pottery or metal fragments. Also Aboriginal traditional owners attest their Aboriginal origins – Sam Woolagoodja in the 70s told Valda Blundell that they were windbreaks supporting paperbark and spinifex coverings – she said they were known as Windjarnugu. Khaki Stumpagee and Sam Umbaggi said they were wet season houses built on stone to allow the water to drain out, (no surface water meant they could not be used in the dry). They also said the basal grinding stones associated with the structures were used for grinding metal harpoon heads and they still had rust staining on the horizontal surfaces.
Sue excavated down to 20cm in the sediment in one site (HC2) and found fish bone, turtle carapace fragments and many thousands of stone artefacts (average density of 143 per 5cm per m2). Significantly, no metal, glass or pottery fragments were found within the structure. There was not sufficient material from the excavation for C14 dating but a Baler shell embedded in the surface sediments was dated at 370+/- 50 bp. Thus, the structures are of Aboriginal construction – many are house bases and others are associated with religious/ceremonial activities.
Why build these structures?
Possible reasons:

  • The rich reef resources could sustain a mobile population moving between islands.
  • Populations living on small islands needed to demarcate social space.
  • Protection from raiders from the mainland
  • Plentiful supply of suitable stone (ripple sandstone) that had to be moved to allow occupation and was a ready-made building material.
  • Love identified High Cliffy as the “sacred place of the Yanjibai”

Rankin Island has a similar range of stone structures including a long (over 100 metres) stone wall built on a natural raised cobble beach about 2m above high tide level. Sue initially thought this very long stone wall had a ceremonial purpose. However Len Zell (UNE) suggested it might be a fish trap but even the 2m higher sea level around ca.5000 BP (Peter Flood, UNE) would not be enough for it to operate effectively as a fish trap. Zell dated the coral in the wall at ca.4500 BP. As the high energy pebble beach probably formed after the sea level rise but before the mangrove embayment, this date might be expected for coral lying on the surface. The wall may well have been built thousands of years later. Photographs of the wall emphasised its incredible length.
There are other features on Rankin such as deep pits or depressions in the back of the pebble beach that are filled with evidence of stone working – called “tool pools” by Zell. There are bifacially flaked quartzite cobbles and flakes which are obviously produced from a different form of cobble core to the cores the bifaces are made on. Zell called these bifacially flaked cobbles “axes”. However Sue believes that they are more likely to be preforms for biface or point production rather than axe preforms. Kimberley axes are usually made of volcanics and are fully or partially ground, whereas large spearpoints are commonly made of quartzite. All recorded examples of biface or point production are made of flakes and blades; not by producing pebble-core preforms. Sue showed pictures of these tools and preforms.
Other pits in the rock pavement behind the beach, near the vegetation zone do not seem to be the same as the “tool pools”. They have no evidence for stone working and may have resulted from digging for yams.
The Kimberley stone structures are unique in their density and enormous variety in Australia and possible the world especially as they are so prolific on tiny offshore islands. They deserve further documentation and research. Other than the rich sea resources, is there any other reason that they are so prolific on tiny offshore islands? Is it possible to date them with the newer dating methods? What was their purpose?
At the conclusion, Sue thanked Mike Donaldson and the Kimberley Society for bringing her to Perth for the following weekend’s Rock Art Seminar; the people at One Arm Point and Mowanjum who guided her first efforts at seafaring; Len Zell for rekindling her interest in the stone structures; and Moya Smith for introducing her to the Kimberley in 1984.
Margaret Larke (drawing on the PowerPoint presentation)

 


WA MUSEUM’S KIMBERLEY COLLECTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

On 5 October 2005, Dr Dawn Casey, the Director of the Western Australian Museum, spoke to the Kimberley Society. The following notes, recorded by Susan Clarkson, convey almost the full content of the talk. A shorter version, covering only the Kimberley content, appears in the Boab Bulletin, June 2006.
Those of us who aspire to build and operate today’s museums have a great deal in common. Over and above the sheer volume of hard work, meetings, negotiations, budgets and paperwork, we share the challenge of having to make tough decisions about some extraordinarily complex issues. We also need to take into account high expectations, particularly from Governments (who allocate the funds), academics, friends of the museum, and museum practitioners.
Museums have evolved over a long period from privately held collections to natural history museums and then to the plethora of museums we have today. The 1980s and 1990s saw a considerable shift in museology. Conservation moved from a skill traditionally exercised by craftspeople to a profession dealing with increasingly complex scientific procedures and international environmental standards developed for the preservation of collections.
Research, scholarship, programs and exhibition development, particularly in history museums were transformed by the intellectual and cultural shift towards inclusiveness to reflect the multicultural nature of society. Museums in Canada, United States and Australia began the process of repatriation of Indigenous human remains and secret sacred objects, and some museums in the United Kingdom reluctantly followed.
The mid-90s to the present saw a revolution of museums. With visitor numbers falling, museums started to survey their visitors seriously and made a conscious effort to be more people and child friendly. Economic pressures—brought about by ever-increasing operating costs and the requirements by Governments and Boards of Trustees to run a more cost effective and commercially oriented organization—accelerated this revolution.
The British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum and the Natural History in New York were among the first to realize the advantages of having shops and cafes, not just to improve the visitor experience, but to raise much-needed revenue. The shops were transformed from libraries look-alikes to gift shops, with exclusive merchandise ranging from posters to exquisite jewellery. And don’t forget the tote bag for carrying newly purchased museum books and gifts that people take home and keep because it, too, is exclusive. Yet, museum directors who appointed during the 1980s and 1990s without a science or museum background were criticized for being managers and concentrating on the visitor experience and commercial operations instead of research.
A significant number of new museums have been built around the world. These include: the Canadian Museum of Civilisation, the Jewish History Museum in Berlin, Te Papa in New Zealand, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and the Museum of Melbourne. They were all purpose built with new approaches to architecture and exhibition design. In some cases the architecture reflected the content of the museum. The Canadian Museum of Civilisation reflected Native Canadian Indians’ totems and the significance they place on circles. The architecture of both the Jewish Museum of History and the Holocaust Museum emulates the horrific journey taken by the Jews to the death camps.
Museum practitioners internationally were incensed. Common criticism espoused was ‘the architecture had subsumed and overshadowed the exhibitions which after all is what a museum is about’. Then there are the curved walls, awkward corners, windows and use of colours other than white.
Can a museum be serious and scholarly if it is full of entertaining features and new technologies? I have been obliged to disagree with my friend Dr Tim Flannery of the South Australian Museum – a museum traditionalist when he claimed that the new ‘super museums’ had abandoned scholarship and concentrated on superficial entertainment – what he calls ‘bells and whistles’. Tim is of course confusing technology, which is simply a communications tool, with content and not applying contemporary museum practice of ‘inclusiveness’ and ‘accessibility’ for all visitors, particularly young people.
All museums, as storytellers, should aim to achieve the same for their stories. Museums have an obligation as custodians of the past, but an equal obligation as storytellers – to make the past accessible to all those who actually own it and not just to those who have had the opportunity and access to education.
So apart from cafes and shops how else are museums relevant today? Well, let me remind you of the soul-searching questions history museums in South Africa, Berlin, Vietnam, Canada, New Zealand are asking:

  • How is the nation defined?
  • Who should be told about its past?
  • Who is included in the story, and how?
  • How does local experience fit into the national narrative?
  • What happens when the community that we call nation does not fully mesh with the territorial entity that we call country?
  • Australia is being shaken by a number of fierce debates about issues that run deep and they include.
  • Who are we exactly, and how did we get to be this way?
  • What sort of people should we allow to join us in this nation continent, and why?
  • How many of us should there be?
  • What is the proper place of indigenous Australians, and do we owe then special consideration?
  • Does what happened to them in the past matter today?
  • Is the way we have developed the land a matter for pride in achievement, or is it a slowly emerging environmental catastrophe?

Essentially museums today provide a forum for debate, by offering a reflective space in which people can consider issues in context – against their historic background. We offer comfortable spaces and a stimulus for thought – ‘a safe place for unsafe ideas’, as the museum consultant Elaine Gurian says.
In the terrible days following September 11, many museums proved their worth as civic spaces. The museums of New York did more than offer a physical haven. The Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island children’s museums opened their doors free of charge to families, and offered special programs which enabled children to reflect and express their feelings. Parents and teachers found ways to encourage cultural understanding at a time when children wanted to know – ‘who did it?’ – who were the bad people? They needed someone to explain the terrible instances of blame and hatred they were seeing, directed against other kids at school, or Middle Eastern shop owners.
What makes museums different from a newspaper or a pub, when it comes to the discussion of hot issues, is our contribution to informed debate. Our foundation in scholarship and research enables us to give background information in a way not available to the front page or the soapbox orator. We provide a venue which is ‘safe’ in the sense of calm and comfortable, where the rules of engagement encourage respect for multiple viewpoints. Museums are the new civic space, and in museums, there’s a crucial interplay between intellectual and emotional knowledge, which brings me to the Kimberley.
Through museums hundreds of thousands of Australians are on their way to being better informed, a bit more thoughtful, and better equipped to deal with the claims and counter-claims of national public life. As a museum you do have to challenge or surprise people. You must albeit gently push them beyond the comfortable or the familiar. You have to keep on reminding them that their kind of person, or their experience of life, is not the only one. The way we do it risks the disapproval of some, but without risk there is no opportunity. Some people may well prefer a world without risk, where everything is fully guaranteed, pleasant, inoffensive, bland. But that’s not a world in which you could hope to learn – or to change.
About 33% of the objects registered in the Australian ethnographic collections registers are from the Kimberley – this is some 3035 artefacts made of wood, shell, plant fibre and contemporary textiles, paintings, etc. A representative range is included in Katta Djinoong. Some of the objects currently listed as “no data” are also clearly derived from the Kimberley. There are also several thousand secret/sacred items. Some communities request that the museum stores these on their behalf as they cannot guarantee their security in the community.
It is not possible to say what percentage of the archaeology collections derive from the Kimberley, although there is material from the excavations in various locations as well as stone tools from surface collections. Famous excavated sites include Miriwun (dating back over 18,000 years) and Monsmont, drowned by the rising waters of Lake Argyle.
In addition we have a reasonable large collection of photographs taken during fieldwork by Ian Crawford, particularly focused around Kalumburu between 1964 and 1994, and by Moya Smith in Dampierland (Lombadina area) between 1980 and 1997. Ian and Moya also collected plant samples as part of research into traditional plant use. Currently, Moya is keen to resume fieldwork with the Bardi people from One Arm Point, looking at stone wall fish traps and as part of continuing interest in traditional Kimberley maritime economies. Fieldwork of course is dependent on external funding.
The Department of Terrestrial Vertebrates has had a long involvement in research into the fauna of the Kimberley with projects initiated by the department and cooperative projects with CALM and other groups. Many of the surveys listed below were followed up by several trips later.

  • Ord River Survey prior to building the Argyle Dam (Ron Johnson) and many visits from 1972 – 2003
  • Price Regent River Reserve – with CALM (Ron Johnstone) 1975
  • Mitchell Plateau (Ron Johnstone) many visits from 1973 – 2003
  • Rainforest Survey with CALM (Ron Johnstone) 1989
  • Gardner and Denison Ranges 1997 (Ron Johnstone)
  • Survey of Kimbolton Station, Yampi for Environment Australia – 2000
  • Return to Mitchell Plateau to assess changes in presence and abundance of fauna.
  • Purnululu with Landscope tour
  • Mornington Station with WA Naturalists’ Club 2002
  • Survey of Kimberley islands to assess the morphological and genetic variation between islands and between islands and the mainland 2003, 2004, 2005
  • Possible return to the Ord River to assess changes.
  • Study of the frog fauna in Kununurra and area with Alcoa Frogwatch – 2005 ongoing.
  • Ord River Region – Ron Johnstone
  • Kimberley mangrove surveys – Ron Johnstone

The Museum’s Department of Aquatic Zoology has had considerable contact with the Kimberley region over the years. Expeditions have been undertaken to the Rowley Shoals and Buccaneer Archipelago in 1982; Scott Reef and Seringapatam Reef in 1984; Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island in 1986. In 1984 a marine biological survey of the Southern Kimberley was carried by WAM staff together with other institutions. As a consequence of the work carried out and collections made during these non-marine surveys, Dr Alan Solem of the Field Museum in Chicago, largely with USA funding, carried out a number of collecting trips to the Kimberley and published widely on the land snail fauna of that and adjacent regions between 1979 and 1997.
The Mollusc section of the Aquatic Zoology Department has ongoing contact with the Kimberley and its fauna through the work of other government departments. From our experience in that area and the collections of data and specimens made there we are constantly supplying identifications and other data on marine, land and freshwater molluscs (including introduced species and those important to commercial undertakings such as the pearling industry). We also provide such services to anthropological and archaeological researchers in the universities. An example of this is WAM staff, in the next month or so, under contract to an environmental consultancy, a survey of the land-snail fauna of Koolan Island as part of an Environmental Impact Study related to the expansion of the iron-ore mining on that island.
Museum conservators have established the principal mechanisms of deterioration of painted images of rock surfaces in the Kimberley on both sandstone (in the Mitchell Plateau) and limestone (in the Napier Range) sites. They have established micro climate modelling that enables prediction of the environment inside shelters and they have established the major role played by micro flora (bacteria, yeast, moulds and fungi) on the deterioration of the rock art.
The Museum Assistance Program (MAP) is continuing to work with local indigenous community groups in the Kimberley in terms of developing appropriate management procedures for their heritage. MAP has been giving advice to the proposed Mowanjum Museum near Derby and the proposed Bugarrigarra Nyurdany Culture Centre in Broome with planning for sustainable operations. MAP has also had discussions with a number of key stakeholders interested in establishing a regional archive service.
Currently the Museum is undergoing a period of restructure with the Maritime Museum now incorporated with the WAM. Another issue being dealt with at present is the repatriation of human remains and secret sacred objects to indigenous groups. A business case is being prepared for the WA Government for a new museum to be build in Perth.
The current staff numbers at WAM are 120 staff, 30 vacancies, with 10 staff in curatorial positions. Funding is a major issue with 8 museums housing a collection of approximately 4 million items. At the present time WAM receives cash funding of $12 million with $3 million in revenue. The Melbourne Museum by comparison, although double the size, receives a budget of $40 million.
In a new museum I would like to see at least some, or preferably all, of the following introduced.

  • Access should be free
  • Holding debates and discussions like tonight
  • Richness of history through exhibitions e.g. new spider species found
  • Indigenous culture, richness of around 40,000 years.
  • History of people e.g. C Y O’Connor
  • Shouldn’t be deliberately controversial.
Dawn Casey

 


ASPECTS OF SHOREBIRD MIGRATION IN THE KIMBERLEY
On 2 November 2005, Grant Pearson spoke to the Society on the importance of some of the Kimberley wetlands in shorebird migrations. Grant is currently Principal Technical Officer and Centre Manager at the WA Wildlife Research Centre, Department of Conservation and Land Management. He has been involved in the research and management of wetlands and waterbirds since 1973, including shorebird research around Broome and Eighty Mile Beach. Grant has also worked at Camballin, Lake Gregory, sections of King Sound, and ephemeral wetlands east of Broome.
The Kimberley region is included in one of the ten identified global flyways – the East Asian–Australasian flyway. Other flyways are the Indian, Mediterranean, East African, East Atlantic, West Atlantic, Interior American, Patagonian, West Pacific and East Pacific flyways.
Roebuck Bay is a wintering site for birds using the East Asian–Australasian flyway. This flyway includes non-breeding migratory birds that migrate from the Artic and sub-arctic areas including parts of Alaska, to Asia and Australasia. There are 90 species of shorebirds, 55 of them migrants, with a range of migratory strategies – from multiple short hops, to very long-distance jumps. A race of Bar-tailed Godwits, Limosa limosa baueri, is believed to make the 11,000 km southward migration to the southern wintering refuges in Eastern Australia and New Zealand in one flight.
As well as the other sites listed previously, the two main Kimberley Wetlands, Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach, have a most important role in shorebird migration. There are very significant shorebird numbers in these two areas, including (estimated figures) Great Knots 380,000; Bar-tailed Godwits 325,000; Red necked Stints 315,000; Black winged Stilts 266,000; Red Knots 220,000; and many others in the realm of tens of thousands in number.
Roebuck Bay is possibly the richest tidal mudflat globally, with an intertidal width that can extend for several kilometres. This intertidal zone contains about 200 species of macrofauna, with a very rich bivalve content. This is particularly important for molluscan shorebirds such as Knots and Great Knots. The area is attracting increasing interest from researchers.
Eighty Mile Beach has fewer fauna species than Roebuck Bay – about 112. It has an unusual formation consisting of extensive mudflats up to five km wide along a high impact line of seashore. There is a strong connection between the Mandora Marshes and the freshwater wetlands east of the fore dunes.
Roebuck bay and Eighty-mile Beach are especially important as they contain excellent conditions for migrating birds. Both are remote and relatively undisturbed by humans, with easily accessible food sources that are plentiful, uncontaminated and diverse. They are amongst the most important shorebird sites in the world
Globally, there are about a dozen intertidal mudflats that provide support for significant numbers of shorebirds. Outside Australia, these include the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ganges and Brahmaputra Delta, the northern Yellow Sea mudflats, the Alaskan Copper River delta, James Bay and Bay of Fundy in Canada, the Guyanan soft shores, the bays of Tierra del Fuego, the Archipelago dos Bijagos in Guinea -Bissau, large estuaries in the UK, and the Waddensea area of northern Europe.
Shorebird sites must provide abundant, high-energy food to replenish fat and muscle lost by the birds during long flights. The area must be geographically strategically placed for migration. Breeding success in their northern breeding grounds can depend upon minimal disturbance of wintering roost sites by human inhabitants.
Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach are comparable with significant northern hemisphere shorebird sites, including the Netherlands Waddensea and the Alaskan Yukon Kuskokwim Delta.
Waddensea has a similar sand flat sediment structure to the Yukon site. There are very low numbers of invertebrate species, but very high densities. There is extensive human impact on the area from commercial shellfisheries, and some species of invertebrates (e.g. the reef forming polychaete Sabellaridae sp.) have been lost. Large budget research is ongoing in this area.
The Yukon Kuskokwim Delta is a significant water bird refuge and contains an enormous density (but low diversity) of bivalves, which provide a rich food source for migrating shorebirds.
Each year, around four million birds migrate through the flyway between the Artic and Australia. Amongst the long-distance migratory birds, Bar-tailed Godwits are believed to fly from the Yukon area to eastern Australia and New Zealand in one flight of about 11,000 km. Eastern Curlews have been satellite tracked at 5–6000 km on their northward migration from Australia. Currently, studies are underway to determine if Sharp-tailed Sandpipers fly non-stop to Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach – a distance of about 8000 km.
Some interesting points: shorebirds have the capacity to shrink their internal organs in preparation for migration; they probably fly for 2–3 days without stopping; the birds ‘refuel’ at the Yellow Sea or North Korea and finish their flight in Siberia after approximately 10,000 km of flying. The birds then replenish for their eventual return journey, with Red Knots, for example, able to gain 4gms per day, to a total of 105-160 gms. This replenishing is essential as many birds arrive at their destination below fat free weights, having consumed muscle tissue for energy.
Concerns for management include maintenance of conditions of low disturbance to minimise impact on breeding potential. The effects of human impacts, such as disturbance, on our shorebird sites may be realised at great distances away from Australia; there is potential for industrial developments to impact poorly on shorebird areas.
Future plans include: progress towards a marine conservation reserve at Roebuck Bay; development of a Management Plan for the Bay; protection of the conservation values of Eighty Mile Beach; and promoting marine conservation reserve status for Eighty Mile Beach.
With many thanks to Grant Pearson for use of his notes.
Chris Brenton
Further reading:
Life along land’s edge: Wildlife on the shores of Roebuck Bay, Broome by Danny I Rogers, Theunis Piersma, Marc Lavaleye, Grant B Pearson & Petra de Goeij. Department of Conservation and Land Management, Kensington (WA), 2003.
‘Energy sources of the mudflats of Roebuck Bay and the Eighty Mile Beach’, a summary of a talk presented by Dr Andrew Storey, Boab Bulletin,No 65, December 2004, pp. 5–6.

 


THE LAST YEARS OF MOOLA BULLA, 1949–1955

On 7 December 2005, Professor Geoffrey Bolton, an eminent historian from Murdoch University, spoke to the Kimberley Society about the years that preceded Moola Bulla’s transition from a cattle station run for and by Aboriginal people to one run by private enterprise. At present, no summary is available for his talk.

Postcript
Moola Bulla material is available in the summary dated April 2003