Long Road - 6. Lon Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“Geez, give me a heart attack, why don’t you,” Danny said when he finally saw me standing in the room, looking around.

“Sorry, I did knock but received no response, so I walked inside,” I said to him, “That’s ok mate, I just have to get used to having more than just me around, that’s all” Danny replied smiling, as he finished serving up three plates of cold meat and salad.

Lance walked in a few minutes later, and dropped down into a chair, while I followed suit, as Danny made up some tea for all of us. “So, what have you been doing all morning, while I have been out exploring?” I asked Lance, who wasn’t looking too happy.

“Bloody office work. Not one of my favourite pass times, but Uncle Vince has been getting me to spend time with him in the office over the past 6 months, so I should be used to it by now eh” Lance replied.

“I had a good look around those hills, there are some really nice views from out that way” I commented, “Yeah, well maybe after lunch, while Danny is doing a water run, we can take one of the station utes out that way for a bit of a look around,” Danny suggested, which I agreed to.

After lunch, I helped out with cleaning up the kitchen, before Danny headed over to the sheds to get his ute loaded up, and setting off on a water run, to check the water bores, troughs and tanks, and in some cases, windmills, to make sure that the stock, is getting a plentiful supply of water.

“I have been making arrangements to have some extra staff come to the station, namely another station hand, plus a backpacker jillaroo” Lance announced, “Oh wow, do you have enough work for both of them?” I asked.

“Yea, there is lots to do, after seeing the list of daily, weekly and monthly jobs that need doing here. By the way, although he looks younger, Danny is actually 26 years old, and this new guy, Andrew Parsons is only 19, while the Canadian backpacker, Linda Cameron is 24. They are catching the road coach up from Perth, leaving at 9 pm tomorrow night, and they will arrive at 3.30 am the next morning” Lance said to me.

“Ok, so what happens about accommodating them?” I asked, “Well first I need to know if you intend to stay in your trailer during your stay, or here in the homestead,” Lance asked.

“In the trailer, I would prefer to stay close to Bonnie, especially in this rough climate and terrain” I answered, “That’s what I thought you would say and since there is a cook’s bedrooms are in the station kitchen wing of the homestead, Linda can live there, while Andrew can be in the old homestead, where Danny lives. Can I get you to help Danny to get the two bedrooms ready for the two new arrivals please” Lance replied?

“Yes, not a problem, now that we are alone, I have something to show you, that I found by chance, up in the hills, as long as you agree that we share it 50/50” I announced to my friend, “Now that has me wondering, what the hell you actually found up there, where it is hot, rocky, and miles away from the homestead… Ok, whatever it is we go 50/50, as long as it isn’t a dead snake” Lance said.

A few minutes later, we walked inside my trailer, and I opened up the small safe that is hidden away in a cupboard, near the master be and pulled out the cotton bag, that I had placed the rock in, after giving it a bit of a clean, placing it on the dining table, and I sat down in my usual seat.

Once Lance had sat down, he stared at the bag for some time, before looking up at me, and I indicated to him to look inside.

When he did, his eyes went very wide with surprise and he looked at me, wondering if this was some sort of joke. “Take it out, it won’t bite you” I stated, and at first, he hesitated, then carefully pulled out the rock, and placed it on top of the bag, before resuming staring at it.

“This is real?” Lance asked me, after a very long period of silence, and I smiled and nodded my head in the affirmative, “Wow, and it is so big and heavy… what do you think it is worth?’ Lance said. “I weighed it just before lunchtime, and it is 269 grams in total weight, but there is a lot of quartz in it, and I don’t have internet coverage to be able to check how much that is worth” I replied.

“My office has satellite internet coverage, on the office desktop computer, and Uncle Vince happened to add an Internet Router to my luggage so we can get Wi-Fi too, I just have to set that up” Lance replied, and I put the rock of gold back into the bag and locked it back up in my safe, before we walked back to the homestead.

Lance gave me a full tour of the homestead, before stopping at the office, which is just off the front verandah, and it was already on, so, within a few moments, we had a gold value calculator up on the screen, and we adjusted the settings to Australian Dollars, before entering 269 into the Grams column, and in the Total Gold Value box, it read $15,704.

“Holy shit, we are rich, like $7,852 each rich” Lance said in surprise and shock. “Yea, we would be if it was solid gold, which it isn’t, so it could be a lot less than that,” I responded. “Really” Lance replied, in surprise with a higher than usual tone, and I just laughed.

“If it is ok with you, I would like to get a Miners Right License so we can do some more exploring, and I want to ask if I can stay and help out on the station for a while,” I said to Lance.

“Sure mate, but what about your university studies?” Lance replied. “I can easily do it via correspondence since I have already completed three and a half years of the five-year course” I responded.

“Great welcome onboard, now do you want to stay in the trailer, or would you like to take up residence in the homestead cottage?” Lance asked me.

I thought about this for a while, as it is nearly 200 metres from the homestead to the stables, and I didn’t want to be too far away from Bonnie.

“How about, when the extra staff arrive and have settled in, that we build a large shelter and exercise yard, just behind the cottage, so you are close to the homestead and your horse” Lance added as a suggestion.

“Yes, I will agree to that, show me where you are thinking about putting it,” I replied, and we headed outside, and around the corner, to where the one-bedroom cottage stands in the back corner of the homestead yard.

Using the fence line of the homestead paddock, which is post and rail, we would use that as one side of the horse yard, and from the homestead yard corner, a new fence would be built ten metres out, and along the side of the access road, and back to the homestead fence, near the storage shed.

Where the yard is close to the cottage, we would build a large semi-open shelter, that will be 3 metres high, go the full width of the yard, and be 6 metres wide, with some of the shelter, sitting nicely underneath a big shady tree. The back section of the shelter will have two stable pens and a small tack room, and there will be water and feed troughs in both pens, and two outside in the main yard.

Back in the office, we drew up a plan of the layout of the new yard and shelter, which covers an area of 400-metres square, plenty of space for Bonnie to get regular exercise. Lance informed me that there is plenty of building material around to build the fence and the shelter, with a stack of corrugated iron laying around, that can be used for the roof of the shelter.

Over the next two hours, Lance and I looked over the station topographical map, showing where all the water points are located, as well as the orchard and packing shed, which is 5 kilometres north of the homestead. I also went online and filled in the application for gaining a Miners Right License, and sent an email home to Mum, to let her know of the change of plans, and I gave her the postal address and phone number for the station.

Another thing we discussed was the airstrip, which we knew is 780 metres long, from the information in the folder that Vince had given Lance, and we decided to go out and check it, as it was close to the homestead, and runs sixty metres from and alongside the main highway.

Arriving at the north end of the airstrip, the highway was not visible, even when it was so close, hidden only by the high shrubs. The runway appeared to be in reasonably good condition, even if it hadn’t been used much.

At the south end of the airfield, we followed a track that is fairly straight in line with the airstrip, for another 300 metres before it bends slightly. “According to the odometer, it is 320 metres from the end of the airstrip to this point,” Lance said after stopping just before the bend in the track.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, “I’m thinking that once we have the horse yard and shelter built, that we get that old truck and grader going, cart some gravel down here, and make the airstrip a little bit longer, but while we are waiting for the extra staff to arrive, we can start by clearing the shrubs on both sides by an extra 5 metres, and clearing the shrubs to make room for the extension” Lance announced.

“Sounds good to me, and do we have any old tyres that we can paint white, to make as markers for the sides and ends of the airfield?” I responded, “Yea, good thinking, I will have to ask Danny about that one,” Lance said.

When Danny arrived back, announcing no problems with the water points that he had checked, Lance announced that work was over for the day, and after grabbing some cool drinks, we sat down on the homestead verandah to relax, and Lance informed Danny of the new staff arriving in just over a days’ time.

Danny cooked up a wonderful BBQ dinner for us, which we really enjoyed, and as we ate, he informed us, that the supply truck which left yesterday, would be passing through at about 2 pm tomorrow afternoon, as the driver usually stops at Payne’s Find for lunch, then stops at Oudabunna Station, 30 kilometres south of us, before coming here.

Danny said that after dropping off supplies here for us and neighbouring Nalbarra Station, which is 48 kilometres north-west of us by road, and Kirkalocka Station, 38 kilometres north of us, he backtracks 6 kilometres, to the Narndee West Road, so as to go to Narndee, Boodanoo and Meeline Stations, and once back on the highway, he heads north again to Mount Magnet.

“Sounds like we are in the middle of a group of stations” I commented, and Danny nodded his head in agreement, “Yes, I have spoken to the owners or station managers of our three closest neighbours, they seem to be very nice people” Danny commented.

“Oh, oh, I can see Harrison was a brilliant idea,” Lance said, when he saw the expression on my face, as I was thinking, how great it would be to have a small station rodeo here, just for the neighbouring stations. When I looked t Lance in a bit of surprise, he just laughed.

“Mate you did it all the time at school, every time you came up with a great idea, you had that same goofy expression and smile on your face,” Lance said to me.

“What? Oh, do I really?” I responded, feeling like a kangaroo caught in the spot-lights, ready to be shot, “Yeah well, I guess I was thinking of how great it would be to have our own small community rodeo, maybe here on this station, just for the station owners and staff of the neighbouring stations,” I added.

“Yeah not a bad idea, but lets concentrate on getting settled in here first, we have too much work to do at the moment, to worry about any extra work, with a project like that, plus we will need to build a large arena and yards to have something like that happening” Lance said to me.

After dinner, while helping to clean up the kitchen, the telephone rang, and since I was closest to it, Lance indicated for me to answer it. “Good evening, Wydgee Station, Harrison speaking,” I said after picking up the receiver.

“G’ day Harrison, this is Vince speaking, is Lance about?” came the owner's voice, “Sure Vince, we have just finished cleaning up the kitchen after dinner>” I replied, “How are you settling in, do you like it there?” Vince asked me.

“Yes, very remote, but yes, I took Bonnie my horse for a ride before lunch and the surrounding area is quite spectacular, especially when you see it from the top of the small ranges,” I replied, before handing the phone over to Lance, before I said goodnight to Lance and Danny, and I headed over to the stables to check on Bonnie.