Long Road - 8. Lon Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I shook their hands and indicated for them to load up their luggage, and to get in. “How far is it to the homestead?” James asked before yawning loudly, “Oh just 450…”, “What, 450 kilometres?” Linda said interrupting me in a raised and shocked voice, and I just laughed.

“If you let me finish, the homestead is 450 metres away, so nice and nearby,” I said, “Oh, sorry” I heard Linda say softly, as I turned the vehicle around and drove slowly down the driveway, so as to not wake up the others. “Linda, you will be staying in the cook’s quarters, which is attached to the homestead, Andrew and James, you will be staying in the old homestead, which you will be sharing with the other station hand – Danny,” I said.

As I drove up to the back of the main homestead, where the station kitchen, dining room, laundry and cooks’ quarters are located and stopped by the main door. “This is your stop, Linda, breakfast is usually at 6 am, but you lot can sleep in, as the boss has given you all the morning to get settled in” I announced, as we waited for Linda to climb out of the vehicle, gather her luggage, and make her way inside.

Once that I saw the light was on, I set off again, this time towards the other side of the old homestead, where I noticed that a light was already on, and as I stopped at the front, Danny stepped out onto the verandah. “What do we have here, so extra station hands?” Danny commented as he took a sip of tea.

“Yes, I guess you could say that, this is Andrew and his younger brother James, apparently they have had some family trouble too” I responded, “Fair enough, well grab your gear fellas, and I will show you around before you get some more sleep. I presume, this is your brother Logan, is it?” Danny commented.

“Yes, Logan, this is the senior station hand – Danny,” I said making the introductions, “G’ day, hey Harrison, where am I sleeping?” Logan responded, “In the dog house, or better still you can sleep with Bonnie” I replied, “What, hell no, she will roll over and squash me” Logan replied, sounding shocked, and both Danny and I were quietly laughing.

“Where do you think I am living at the moment?” I asked my brother, “Your trailer?” Logan replied, “By Jove, I think he has got it,” Danny said, as he turned and headed back inside, and I indicated for Logan to get back into the vehicle, and moments later, we pulled up alongside the trailer and helped carry my brother’s luggage inside.

After Logan has showered, we both headed to bed, to get some more sleep, and I automatically woke up just before 6 am, and quietly dressed, before going and giving Bonnie her morning feed and a brush down, before heading over to the main homestead kitchen, where Lance and Danny were enjoying a cup of tea.

“Good morning, Danny here, informs me that we have two extra people on the station,” Lance said to me, as I went to get myself a cuppa. “Yes, it appears that Andrew’s little brother has some sort of problems at home, so at the last moment, he tagged along too, and by the looks of what I saw in the light of the vehicle, he has been bashed around a bit too, as he had a real big shiner,” I commented.

“Well we can’t have that happening, can we, so I guess we have two extra station hands,” Lance responded, and we chatted about what needed to be done today, with finishing off the extensions to the airfield, and installing the tyre markers at each end and both sides of the runway.

Lance suggested that I go with Danny to do the long water run with him, which would take the whole day, and he would stay around to keep an eye on the new arrivals, and to look after Bonnie, and the airfield work can wait till another time. After breakfast, and packing some food supplies, Danny and I loaded up the ute, with everything that we would need for the day, and set off shortly after 7 am, driving south then east towards Narndee Station, with the most Eastern water point being just 18 kilometres from the Narndeen homestead.

Although we had just 7 water points to check, they are scattered over a large distance, and so we had our swags and food with us, in case we had to stay overnight in the bush, and Danny informed me that it was a regular event to do just that, if there are delays with making repairs.

Although it is a main access road for the stations, it was not in a good condition, with plenty of potholes and washaways, so we had to take it easy, and it would make the day even longer for us, which I was not too pleased about, and it took us less than half an hour to get to the first water point, known as Galyon Well.

This first one, is fairly close to the road, and everything with the windmill and tank was in good working order, so we continued on to the next one. When we reached the second water point, known as Kiabye Well, which is just 75 metres north of the road, Danny cursed when he saw that the windmill was not moving as it should be.

Firstly, he shut down the windmill to stop the fan from moving and climbed the tower to tie it off for extra security before we got to work to lift the rods until we came across the problem, which was a very bent rod.

Luckily, we had three spare ones with us, but before the long a difficult task to replace it, we had to pull up the rest of the rods to find the cause of the bent rod, which was an excess of corrosion to the outer casing, which restricted the movement of the pumping rods.

Three and a half hours later, we finally had the windmill operational again, and it was pumping plenty of water into the nearly empty water tank. Since it was nearly midday, we decided to have lunch at Kiabye, before we set off south to the next water point, known as Tootawarra Well, which is about 12 kilometres down a rough station track.

As we were finishing our lunch, the sat phone rang, and Danny went to answer it, and he wandered back to the shady tree where we ate lunch, to help me pack up as he was talking. “Yes, at Kiabye, but it is going fine now, and we have just finished a quick lunch, so we are heading to Tootawarra now” I heard Danny say and watched his face as his expressions changed.

“Yes, it looks like we might have to if we come across any more problems, but that is fine by me, and we both have our swags with us… ok boss sees ya whenever we get back” Danny said before ending the call.

“So, we may be camping out tonight?” I asked, “Depends on how the rest of the water points end up, we just have to wait and see, and the boss said not to worry about Bonnie, your brother is taking good care of her,” Danny replied, as we put our meal supplies in the back of the vehicle and climbed in. When we reached Tootawarra, it was working perfectly, and so we continued on, now heading north-west to Chalk Well, which was less than half the distance, between the last two water points.

Chalk Well was also working well, and we were now looking at getting back to the homestead today, but as it is always with Murphy’s law, that was not to be. Yalabaranga Bore had a similar situation as Kiabye, where we would have to pull up all the rods, to find out why it isn’t pumping, and it was already after 3 pm in the afternoon. “Sorry mate, but it now looks like we are camping after all,” Danny said as we began the job at this bore.

It was just an hour before sunset, when we finally had the pump operational again, and Danny said that if we get a move on, we can get to the next well before it gets dark, so we quickly packed up and set off again, and the sat phone rang, shortly after we set off, so I answered it.

“Hello, Harrison speaking,” I said as I pressed the answer button, “Hey buddy, how is it going, enjoying all the exciting work?” Lance asked me, “Ha, ha, very funny boss, we had a filter screen that was clogged up at Yallabaranga, and we are heading to the next well, hopefully getting there before dark” I responded.

“That would be Eubaloo Well, so you only have three more to go, that is good. Well get a good night’s rest, and we will see you before lunchtime tomorrow, goodnight,” Lance said, before ending the call.

When we arrived at Eubaloo Well, we began to set up camp, using some large dead branches, and some rope, Danny was able to string up the canvas from the rack on the back of the ute, to give us plenty of undercover space, to keep the night dew off us.

While he was doing that, I gathered up some firewood and some stones, to set up a fireplace, on the edge of the camp, and I pulled out the steel cooking plate, that sits over the fire, so we could cook our dinner of steaks, sausages, and onions, plus we had some bread to make it into sandwiches. We also had a billy with us to heat up water for cups of tea, to help keep us warm, as the temperature started to drop quickly.

As I was washing up the dishes after dinner, I stopped for a moment, when I heard a rumbling noise, and Danny chuckled, “That will be a truck passing on the highway, we are only about 5 kilometres away from it” Danny informed me. “How far south of the homestead are we?” I asked.

“It is about 18 kilometres, once you reach the highway, why, are you missing your comfortable bed in your trailer?” Danny replied, and I smiled and nodded my head.

“As the boss said, we only have three more to do, this one here, Taurawydgee Well, which is about 8 kilometres south-west of us, and lastly 4-mile well, which is just south of Narndee West Road turnoff, with the last two located just off the highway,” Danny informed me.

I was surprised that I fell asleep so easily that night, after spending a little time looking up at the clear sky and all the stars, but when I woke in the morning, it was so damn cold, I didn’t wasn’t to get out of my warm Swag, so I dozed for a while, ignoring the sounds of Danny getting up and getting the campfire going again.

Only when I heard the sound of a good fire crackling, did I open my eyes, and watch, as Danny complained about the cold air, and he went back into his swag to warm up some more, till the billy was boiling, and we could have some tea to warm us up inside.

After checking that Eubaloo was operating well, we packed up camp and set off to our 2^nd last destination, which Danny said would take us less than half an hour to reach.

It was just after 10 am when we finally arrived at the machinery shed, with the last two waterpoints, also in good condition, and I was very relieved to be back. Lance appeared shortly after, as we unpacked the ute, and stowed all the tools and equipment away.

“Good morning, did you have a good campout?” he asked us cheerfully, “Next time you can go and do it, as it was bloody cold when we woke up this morning,” I complained, and Lance just chuckled, as he picked up the esky and food supply crate, and headed back to the homestead.

Once finished with emptying out the ute, I headed over to the stables to check on Bonnie, who was standing in her yard, munching away on some hay, and as she saw me approaching, she walked up to the fence, so I could say hello and give her a pat.

Soon after, Logan appeared, pushing a wheelbarrow, full of horse dung. “If I had known you would be back this early, I would have left this job for you to do” Logan said to me, and I just laughed, “No way little bro, you have to work for your food around here, so looking after Bonnie is your main job here, plus anything else that Lance can find for you to do” I responded, before I continued to talk to Bonnie.

When Logan had finished mucking out the stables, I asked him to follow me, and we headed to the station office to speak to Lance, who had just finished a phone call as we entered.

“I was about to call you, I need you to go and make a quick trip up to Mt Magnet, to get a spare part for me, it is a 90-kilometre journey one way, so you can get there in under two hours,” Lance said to me. “Ok, what is it that you want me to collect?” I responded, “An oil filter for the tractor and a spare one in case the front-end loader needs one too,” Lance replied.

“Ok, not a problem, by the way, I have made a decision, that you will not be too pleased about, but since you now have plenty of staff on the station, I will be leaving at the end of July, and I guess my brother will be coming too, if he hasn’t already been shipped back home by then.

Mum was pleased to know that Logan was safe and well, but not happy that he had left home and come up here, but she has agreed for him to stay with me for a while. Anyway, I want to check out a couple of rodeos in the far north-west, before taking the long road home to Perth” I replied.

“Oh, that is not what I was expecting, and I will miss you, the last few days with you being here has been awesome, and I was hoping that you would stay a whole lot longer” Lance responded, sounding very disappointed.
“Yeah well, with Logan up here with me, I need to look after him, and I think it would be best if it is done back at home, and it will be a lot easier for me to continue my studies,” I said to him.

After six weeks on the station, the time has come for Logan and me to leave, I was due to participate in two rodeos before making the long trip home. The first was in the town of Derby, an 1880-kilometre journey, that would take us two and a half days to get there, being mindful that I was carting Bonnie into the Kimberly district of the Western Australia, where it gets very hot.

The second rodeo is the following weekend in Broome, just over 200 kilometres to the West, and we would be stopping at a Kilto station, which is 80 kilometres from Broome, where Mum had arranged for us to stay there for a few days in between rodeo events.

After Broome, we would be travelling south, for the final Rodeo at Dowerin, 2350 kilometres along the coastal route, as we had 6 days before we needed to get there, and there are a number of station stays along the way, to allow, Bonnie time to have at least a day’s break between each of the three travelling days, so as not to stress her too much.

With the last rodeo being in the Midwest, and just two hours from home, it would be an easy last stage of the journey home, after a tiring and long road home.