Outback Corporation - 13. OBC Chapter 13

Chris said to me that he hadn’t told anyone that we were arriving home today, so it was going to be a big surprise, meanwhile at the front of the plane; “Pondana Station, this is ZXG 047 requesting permission to land, over”, the pilot said over the radio, and soon after came the reply from Daniel, “ZXG 047, this is Pondana, what is the purpose of your visit, over”, and the pilot asked me over the PA to come forward to the cabin, and just as I arrived I heard the radio. “I repeat ZXG 047, what is the purpose of your visit, over”.

I was given the headset to reply, “Pondana station, I hope you are going to let us land as I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again. over” and the pilot laughed at my reply as he received the headset back.

“Hey boss, great to hear your voice again, inform the pilot that the wind is easterly at 32 km's per hour, so land from the west, over”, I nodded to the pilot and returned to my seat, strapping in as we were making the final approach to land, and as I looked out the window I could see three vehicles racing towards the airfield.

As the door was opened and the stairs lowered, I saw Jonah and his family, plus Daniel and my boys all rushing towards the plane to welcome me home. And I was swamped with hugs from everyone. When we arrived at the homestead, the cook had afternoon tea prepared and announced that dinner would be a barbeque on the veranda to celebrate the return of the boss.

After a nice cup of strong tea and some freshly made scones, I made my way to my office to see what needed to be done since I had been away; I was surprised to see that the desk was tidy and did not have much paperwork on it.

Chris followed me in soon after, and he grabbed a single folder off the desk and sat down on the lounge, I sat next to him, interested at what he had in his hand, which he silently handed over to me to look at. Inside the folder was a summary of some stations that have come onto the market while I was away.

The first two stations are Kim Kimble and Bunda Stations, both situated just over the border in the Northern Territory, on the same road as the other three stations that I own in the East Kimberly district, the other station is Granite Peak Station, located in the Interior, just South west of the other three stations in the region that I own.

Having read all the information in the folder I gave it to Chris and told him that I would think about it and let everyone know my decision in the morning. Chris nodded his head and after placing the folder on the desk, he made his way outside, while I sat down at my desk and started to make some phone calls to my cousins who were managing the stations in the other two regions to get their views on the possible purchases, and to let them know that I am back home safe and well.

Soon after completing my phone calls, as I was just sitting in my chair thinking about what has happened in my life over the past ten years since leaving high school, when I heard many footsteps on the veranda, and I knew that it was my boys, coming to see me.

The four oldest boys rushed into the office not bothering to knock and wait for an answer and they dashed into my arms, and I just laughed at all the youthful energy that they had. Once I had them seated on the lounge I said to them that I have a very important question to ask them, and this quickly had them settle down and listen to me.

“Although I have lived on this station most of my life, and I have loved every part of it, even though some of it was good and some of it was bad, I feel that it is important that you boys get a more balanced upbringing with other kids of your own age, not just the people that live and work on the station, and so I want to see if it is alright with you boys that we move to a new home closer to a small city, but still close enough to come back to the stations when we want to” I said to the boys as clearly as I could, knowing that 3 year old Micah was probably too young to fully understand what all of this meant.

I said to them that in a few days’ time, we would be making a trip to Albany and Esperance to look at several properties that were available for sale, and that it would be like a mini holiday for the boys and I, plus Chris and Daniel who are coming to help with managing 6 young boys.

The flight to Albany on a chartered aircraft was non eventful, apart from 6 boys being very restless, once we were settled into our motel rooms, Chris and Daniel went to arrange pickup of the hired 4WD vehicles, which had been arranged before leaving home, and over the next four days we inspected a number of properties on the edge of city and some further out in the countryside, but none of them felt very homely, and so we packed up everything and loaded it into the two vehicles and made the six hour drive to Esperance.

By the time we arrived at our booked accommodation, the boys were all very tired and grumpy, and I made sure that they all had a lie down for a nap before dinner, and while the boys were sleeping, Daniel, Chris and I sat in the lounge and we looked at the list of properties that we were to inspect over the next few days.

The first of them is a 162-acre property which is named “Gentle Creek” after the creek that runs through the property, flowing out to Southern Ocean, and is located on Stockyard Road, Merrivale, about 45 minutes east of Esperance, the property was on the north western border of the Cape Le Grand National Park, and has a private access track to the beach.

This was the most distant property that they would be visiting, and the rest were less than ten minutes from the centre of Esperance, they were looking at a map of the area where the property was located, it was remote enough to be away from the media, but close enough to be at the nearest town in less than an hour. After the boys had woken up and had a shower, we all went to the restaurant for dinner, and afterwards we all went for a walk along the beach, something that was new to the boys, who hadn’t seen the ocean before, and it was just a wonderful experience for them.

The following day, we all climbed into the two vehicles and made our way to the property out of town, it was easy going for half of the trip with it being a narrow bitumen road to Merrivale, and once on Stockyard Road it was a well-graded gravel road for the remainder of the journey. Finally, they arrived at the large double gates at the end of the road, were a small sign read; “Gentle Creek Estate – No Trespassing”, I had the keys for the gates that the real estate agent had given me the day before, so I climbed out of the car and unlocked the gates, to allow access to the property.

The boundary fence was post and rail, with three rails and a strand of plain wire between each rail, the double gates are made of thick steel pipe, with each gate being six feet wide and five feet high, with barbed wire along the top of each gate. Once back in the vehicle we drove down the driveway, passing a track on our right, which follows along the inside of the fence line. As we continued down the track and we eventually came to a very large house, with no gardens, just a post and rail fence that marked the edge of a large lawn area with numerous trees.

The house was like a typical farmhouse, with a large kitchen and dining area, large lounge area, a rumpus/ games room, a large laundry and utility room, the farm office, a library / study, a master bedroom with private ensuite, and three large bedrooms, with two shared bathrooms. In addition to this, there is a guest wing where there is an additional lounge room and two more bedrooms and a bathroom.

The house has very wide verandas around the entire house, and at the back attached to the veranda is the triple size garage and next to that is a large workshop shed. Just 150 metres behind this is, on the edge of the lawn area is the horse stables, with 6 stalls on each side of the central lane, and a tack room and feed room opposite each other after the 2nd stall on each side.

At the end of the stables are two doors directly in front and a door at each end of the side lane that runs long the furthest wall of the stalls.

The two doors at the end wall lead out to two circular working yards, while the doors at each corner of the stables building, lead out to a small lane that leads to three – 5-acre paddocks on each side. On either side of the two work yards there are two large water tanks, which I was informed stores all the bore water from the submersible pump for the farm.

After seeing the main buildings including the house, we all climbed into the vehicles and started to explore the remainder of the property. Firstly, returning to the track near the front gate, this leads to several sheds, machinery shed, hay shed, and a small pump shed, which houses the diesel generator and backup pump for the water supply for the farm.

Another track leads off this access track heading in a south westerly direction, and much to everyone’s joy, they ended up at the beach, where there is a shade gazebo located at the top edge of the beach near the dunes.

The four oldest boys stripped off their shorts and t-shirts and dashed for the water, in just their underwear, with Daniel and Chris chasing after them, while I helped the two younger twins to take of their shorts, but left their shirts on, so they would not get to cold, before leading them towards the water. After nearly an hour at the beach with swimming and building sand castles on the sand, we bundled the boys back into the vehicles and made our way back to town.

After having a shower and changing, we made our ways to the restaurant for some lunch and the two older twins asked at the same time, if we were buying the property we saw today. I looked at Chris and Daniel who both smiled and shrugged their shoulders to say, its fine and I was not sure if it was the perfect place, but knew that it was damn close to it, with the distance from town being the only main issue.

After we had eaten lunch we went to inspect a few more properties, and by the end of the day, it was obvious that everyone had fallen in love with the Gentle Creek property. So just before the end of the close of business for the day, I made my way to the real estate agent who was handling the sale.

I walked into the real estate office, and within half an hour the deal was completed, and within a short three weeks, the property would be officially owned by Silverton Investments Corporation Australia or SICA for short, which is the new parent company of all the companies that the family owned.

The previous owners wanted a very fast finalisation of the deal, so that they could go ahead with their plans for retirement, and I was very happy to oblige, since I had the money available for an immediate outright purchase. After a second, more thorough view of the property the following day, we returned the vehicles and were soon on our way back home to Pondana Station.