Outback - 10. OB Chapter 10

Bryce also increased the staff numbers at Pondana, to include a teacher, a teacher’s assistant, plus an administration assistant to help Bryce and his mothers to cope with the extra work load, of running now a large business, of 8 cattle stations, 4 road houses and a remote area school for all the children that live on these stations. The administration centre also became the office of the Nullabour Plain Region Pastoralists Association or NPRPA.

NPRPA, with great deal of assistance from Bryce, were able to make many improvements, especially with the access road and depots. NPRPA, also helped the children from the other stations, by joining the local school network. This network was becoming more effective than the school of the air schooling that most were receiving, with very mixed results.

When Moopina Station was forced to be placed on the market by the banks, due to mounting debt, Bryce spoke to the other station owners in the association before making an offer to buy the 1.7 million-acre property. Located right on the edge of the state border, just 14 km west of Eucla road house, which was not for sale. The purchase of Moopina brought the total acreage of MPI up to 11.9 million acres, and includes 4 road houses.

Sue agreed to drop her shares to 15% to allow Bryce to purchase the station, using most of his own money for the current purchase, which brought his shareholdings up to 59% Once this transaction was completed, Bryce is now overseeing most operations with regular contact with all of his 6 station managers and four road house managers to ensure that everything is going well.

The 5 Murchison children had settled in very well into station life, but Marcus always wanted to spend more time with his big brother, but that was not always possible with the huge workload that almost 19 year old Bryce has. Now that everything was settling down to a routine, Bryce made a point of spending some quality time with his family, taking his two mum's and his two sisters and three brothers on a weekly picnic down by the river at his favourite camping spot.

Bryce was spending more of his time in the office than out on the land, but that was just how it had to be with such a large land holding. Bryce had twice weekly meetings with all his station and roadhouse managers, at 6 am every Tuesday and Friday, via video link for most of them. He also, had monthly NPRPA meetings with the neighbouring stations via video link also held at 6 am but on a Wednesday morning. Usually, neither meeting went longer than two hours.

For the next 18 months the NPRPA discussed and developed a plan to secure the future of pastoral stations in the region, including marketing their own meat, as well as developing tourism ideas for added income. One idea that did come out of nowhere un-expectantly, was to develop a training school for future station workers, to get the next generation of station workers properly trained in station operations. Everyone was very favourable with the idea but did not want to have it interfere with their station operations.

Bryce suggested using the Lochaber Station homestead, as it is only being used as an outstation camp during mustering and sometimes as a camp for water bore and fence repair work. Bryce mentioned that the homestead was in a reasonable state and could be used for classrooms and meals, while new transportable buildings could be used for accommodating the staff and students. All of the other infrastructure like the cattle yards, fencing, and sheds where in reasonable order.

Everyone at the meeting was agreeable to this idea, and Bryce was asked to put together plans and costing for this project. After the meeting was over, Bryce went ahead with renovating the homestead, employing a building firm in Esperance to travel and stay at Lochaber station with a team of 6 workers. They would be living in the basic staff quarters while they were there. He also employed a catering team to feed them during their 5-week stay, when the main homestead was completed in just 4 weeks, including new wiring and polished floorboards throughout.

The building team moved into the homestead so the 8 staff quarters could be renovated, and include air-conditioning, new wiring and turning two of the eight rooms into good sized bathrooms, so there are now six bedrooms, three bathrooms, laundry, kitchen and dining/lounge area in the complex. When the next meeting came around three quarters of the way through the renovations, Bryce informed the group that he had gone ahead with renovating the homestead and staff quarters, which were near completion, and that the only main costs would be installation of student accommodation and living space.

Putting a plan of the complex on each members’ screen via his computer, Bryce showed the other members that the 4 bedrooms would become 4 study rooms and the station office a small library, while the kitchen and dining room would remain the same, and the lounge room would become a lecture room.

Bryce said that there would be a chef and housekeeper, and four teaching staff to run the whole operation. He suggested a similar layout to what he has at the village on his station, consisting of individual rooms with their own en suite, plus an indoor lounge room, recreation room, separate TV room and finally, a large outdoor undercover decking for social and recreation space.

After some discussion, it was decided to have accommodation for a total of twelve students per intake. It was suggested that each intake be a 14 week - 3.5 months training course would be the ideal training period. That allows some space for R & R for the staff between each group. With a two week gap between each group and a 6 week holiday during summer, giving the staff the time to re-energise between each group. The classes would be a mixture of theory 30% and practical 60%, with the last 4 weeks being full on work experience that would be provided by the member stations of the NPRPA, with some station managers also prepared to do some of the practical training at Lochaber Station.

With everyone in agreement, Bryce and the station owners of Kinclaven and Seemore Downs, were elected as the Board Members of the Nullabour College of Station Training or NCoST. Together they spent the next three weeks travelling to other pastoral colleges over East to get assistance with setting up the college and getting accreditation. Six weeks later, they had the accreditation, and all the planning and course work set out.

The Board members, with the assistance of the new College Director, Dan Nickols, put together a team of staff. Dan Nickols is a former cattle station owner in Queensland, who has a Doctorate in Adult Education, Bachelor Degree in Education, and a Diploma in Business Administration. Dan would be doing most of the training. Meanwhile, advertising through a number of country newspapers and magazines had attracted a large number of enquiries. During the time Bryce and the Board were traveling, a transportable house had been installed to accommodate Dan and his family.

While a change of plans had two villages constructed, one for the staff, built next to the refurbished staff quarters, which will be used for guests, and the student accommodation village. This would also include a large commercial kitchen and dining room, to feed the students and staff, making the homestead dining room free to be made into a second lecture room. By the time the building work had been completed, the enrolments for all three intakes for the first year had been filled. This, and the regular advertising that the country media started to realise that this was no ordinary station training college.

"12 million acre Cattle Station Empire, run by 20 year old" the main headline read. "Twenty-year old cattle king, Bryce Silverton, has quietly built an empire in just a few short years, having taken over running his families station, since the sudden, accidental death of his adopted father at the tender age of 16. After some research we discovered that the NCoST is owned and managed by the Nullabour Plains Region Pastoral Association.

The Association consisted of 5 very remote stations that run along the Trans Railway line, plus another 8 stations between the railway and the Eyre highway, including four roadhouses on the highway, owned by the same company, known as Murchison Pastoral Investments totalling nearly 12 million acres. We have learned that this private company has a number of shareholders, with greater shareholder being the managing director, Mr Bryce Silverton. the only other information we have for Mr Silverton, is of the previous story of his 18th birthday party at the roadhouse, and his reasonable success as a rodeo rider from the age of twelve till he was sixteen.

This he stopped participating in due to station and family commitments, there were some old rodeo photos of him as a 14-year old, but nothing since. It is believed that he is a regular contributor to the RFDS fundraising, and hosts RFDS aircraft at his main homestead when overnight stays are required by the crews, all who refuse to comment in any way about Mr Silverton or his stations. The few attempts to approach to contact and interview Mr Silverton have resulted in threats of prosecution for trespassing, and this has been supported by the local law enforcement on a number of occasions."

Bryce didn’t like the publicity that he was getting, and he warned all of his staff, and asked the neighbouring station staff not to say anything to anyone that they do not know. This warning also went to the 12 new students who had arrived just a few days earlier, and were unaware of the large newspaper article about Bryce. In order to stay out of the way of the media he decided to make himself scarce from the main work areas of the station, using his hovercraft, Bryce went and visited all of the stations, to see how all the changes had affected operations, and see if all the staff were happy with all the changes.

When he was at Moonera, Brian informed the boss that he had too many hands for his patch of turf, and suggested relocating Daniel to an area of the operations where he would be more useful. During lunch Bryce reported that Daniel was being reassigned to other duties as he wasn’t needed at Moonera at the moment.

With Daniel in the Hovercraft with him, Bryce made his final stop at the roadhouse to refuel, before they begin the journey to the final destination – NCoST, where Bryce would remain hidden. He and Daniel would be busy with landscaping the College grounds, preparing the area for the plants Bryce had arranged to be delivered from Kalgoorlie arriving on the next Indian Pacific train. Mostly trees and shrubs, but also some lawn seed to put down. They were staying in the guest accommodation area of the college, and stayed out of the way of the college activities, as the first group of students, were starting their training.

Bryce had already had a quiet chat with the College director, asking him to have Daniel work at the college looking after the horses, and maintaining the buildings and grounds at the college. At 5am, having grabbed a bite to eat from the kitchen, Bryce started up the hovercraft and made his way back home to Pondana Homestead. In the main guest building, Daniel woke when he heard the engine of the hovercraft start up, and he quickly dressed and made his way out to the verandah but it was too late, turning to head to the kitchen for a cuppa, Daniel saw an envelope with his name on it.

Inside the envelope were instructions for him to remain at the college as a general worker, looking after the grounds and equipment and any other duties required by the college director. Daniel returned to his room and there for the first time in a long time he began to cry, as he flopped onto his bed face down. Sometime later, not knowing how long he had been lying there in that state, he heard a knock on his door, and the voice of the director’s wife enquiring if he was ok. He called out, that tea and toast were fine. While he straightened himself up, he saw signs of crying as he looked at the mirror.

After washing his face in the bathroom, Daniel made his way to the kitchen for his breakfast, and he asked if it was today or tomorrow that the train brings the plants. When told that it was today, and knowing the train would have already been and gone, he made a dash out the door, jumping into the 4 wheel drive Ute, dashing up the road towards the railway line over an hour away. On return from the railway siding, Daniel unloaded the wilting plants, placing them in the shade, and, before returning to the college, he gave the plants a good watering. After lunch, Daniel got to work to begin digging all the holes for the plants as per the plan drawn out by the boss.

Meanwhile, during dinner at the main homestead, Sue Silverton sensed that Bryce had something on his mind. She asked her adopted son, if everything is ok. She had noticed he was not looking good since his return from the last tour of the stations. She let Bryce know that she had received a call from Mrs Nikols at NCoST, saying that young Daniel has been miserable since moving to the College, and she had seen him crying at one stage.

Bryce said he would speak to Daniel in the morning to try work out what the problem is, but his mother said she already had worked out the problem. Bryce looked at Sue for a moment as she gave a slight smile before suggesting they have a quiet chat later, when dinner and dishes were over.

Later that evening while enjoying the cool evening breeze, Bryce and his adopted mother Sue were strolling down the road near the sheds, not saying a word for now, just enjoying the surrounds, eventually Bryce voiced, slowly, “I think I am the problem, I seem to have triggered someone’s affections, and I am not sure how to deal with it. I have not thought about a relationship of any kind really, and never this kind of relationship.” To himself, he had the fleeting thought that he wouldn’t mind having a son.

Sue smiled and said “I’ve had been watching both of you closely lately and had noticed how Daniel has become quite attached to you especially when the opportunity has come around to be standing or working close to you, I presume something happened at NCoST the other day which has caused this disruption”. Bryce thought about what Sue had said and could now recall seeing Daniel smiling a lot when they were close together. Eventually he decided and announced “I need a holiday to get away from the station and think about this more but on my own.”

After some thought on this Bryce asked Sue if she could have a talk to him with Daniel, explain to him that it’s all very new and confusing, but he can remain working on the station, however, until Bryce returns, there would not be any more discussion on this matter. Sue agreed to do her best to make Daniel understand, and she said she would make the arrangements for a holiday for him, first thing in the morning. After breakfast, Sue told Bryce that all arrangements have been made. He has to catch the west bound Indian Pacific to Kalgoorlie the following day.

After an overnight stop, he will catch a plane and fly to Port Headland, from there he would be collected by Mr & Mrs Edgerton, and you will stay on their property for two weeks.