Adventures in Western Australia

Adventures in Western Australia

Adventures in Western Australia

Western Australia features a wild, untouched side of the Commonwealth. Alighting from the plane means stepping into an overwhelming 9AM heat to fight your way to the sole hotel in Derby, Western Australia. There's no one in the office and the dining room with large fans swishing from the ceiling, is empty.

But all around you is the sound of heavenly opera. Light, cool beer is being consumed by a group at the bar. A tall jackaroo with sideburns, bush hat, tight jeans and high heeled stock boots is playing billiards with himself.

The small, quaint Derby metropolis consists of a single square, and a few houses, single-story offices, and a school scattered along the road to the airport. The population of Derby is a mere 1,000, compared to the 96 million population of Indonesia, only 900 miles away. On closer inspection, Derby citizens are not what you would imagine them to be. The only character left out of this generalization is the one at the bar named Lucky, a pot-bellied Scandinavian who delights in telling of five pound minimum bets in two up games in Kalgoorlie. The pilot who flew you to Cockatoo and Koolan Island 40 minutes north, where iron ore is extracted, had previously traded in his life as an English pilot. He tells you it was the smarter choice, because he can save more in a month in Derby than in a year at home. And with air-conditioning in his house life is pleasant if restricted. However, most come to see the Kimberleys and its surrounding cattle country.

Tales grow long and exaggerated in Perth bars, making the mountains even taller, the valleys steeper, the bush more impenetrable, and the men more imperturbable. A reliable cattle rancher is available for interview that night. It is best to leave for the Kimberley Downs before 6AM to avoid the heat, and you must scarf down a big breakfast of steak, eggs, and coffee before leaving. Land turbulence is all you'll find on the road. The vehicle is enveloped by a thick, red cloud of dust that blurs the fat bob trees and bush all around. One and a half hours into the trek, black cowboys ride up in two pairs to the gate where you have just arrived. It would be correct to assume that they are aborigine stockmen.

The gate opens to a last rice that makes way for the Kimberley Downs below. A duo of flat hills surround the homestead, stockyards, and horse corrals. Between these can be seen a grass plain accented by sporadic trees stretching to the Blue Mountains in the far distance. Run jointly as a single unit, the Kimberley and its neighbor, Napier Downs, span two million acres.

Its population is 12 white people and 150 aborigines, 700 horses and 40,000 cattle. You think that some rich man must have let his lush garden turn brown, but it is only the December weather. There hasn't been any rain for six months and you can see horsemen heading for the corrals kick up clouds of dust.

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