Living and working in the Kimberley Part 1

PART 1

CAMBALLIN HOMESTEAD

     On the 16^th June we arrived and moved into our new home in the small town of Camballin, approximately 240km east of Broome and 120km southeast of Derby near the Fitzroy River. At the present Camballin is a small community made up of people like teachers, nurses, store managers and builders who work in the Aboriginal Community Looma which is 14km away. There is also a very small corner store come take-away shop which does most of its trade on a Saturday afternoon and Sunday which is when the Looma general store, that I work in, is closed. There is a caravan park here, if you could call it that. It is called the Camballin Campers Base and is under the care of the Aboriginal Community and an aboriginal family live on the base. For those who don't know much about how the aboriginals live let me just say that their camp looks like a wrecking yard! In all there would be about 20-30 homes in Camballin. 

     Our home is the actual Camballin Homestead and for what I can find out it was built in 1951 by Kim Durack, Frank Rodriguez and another man by the name of Dick. Slowly I am finding out the history to this house and soon I hope to add a section into the blog for our records but for now I will just show you around.

 I am writing this blog in late September and things have changed around our little home so I will show you the past and present.



 This is taken from a small hill behind our house and gives you a bit of an overview of the land.The track you can see leading away form the house on the right  is Pete's track he takes to work on the station, a  9km drive. You cannot see the station but its location  is just to the right of the track in the distance.

A closer view but it still cuts off our large shed on the very left where we
keep our camper trailer along with the other junk and  bits and pieces collected over the years of the house and its many owners. The township of Camballin is to the left we are the last house, there is a gap like a bush block between
our house and the others.

This is looking back towards town showing you our corner. The road straight ahead is Camballin Road, the road to the left is Durack Road, which goes through the small town meeting up again at the other end with Camballin Road. If you were to turn to your right you would go down Pete's work track ( photo below)and if you were to turn around and look behind you you would go down the road which leads you onto more of Liveringa property with a small creek called snake creek only 200 meters away from here which I will explain about later. This road is also a gazetted road which leads you down to more sections of the Fitzroy River where there is a very popular camping spot at the Barrage ( 70 kms away) which I will show you later. There is also more stations down this road.




  So now you have seen a bit of the house you may be wondering why the columns? We have an article on Frank Rodriguez who built this for and with Kim Durack and he was born in the village Frexio in Spain. The article explains Mr Rodriguez  has built a few houses throughout the Kimberley region and they all have some kind of Spanish influence on them so I guess this house got the collums. Frank passed away this year in March at the age of 91.
The house is also very interesting in its design for it is actually three separate buildings all under the one roof along with a large veranda. They call them breeze ways and we believe this is meant  to help with cooling the stone down.I am not sure it really works cause the stone absorbs the heat and really holds it and the rooms heat up very quickly. There is no way we would be able to sleep at night if we didn't have an airconditioner! 


Here are some close ups of our home before and after.......

Looking with Camballin Rd to the right. Notice the piles of rubble, they had just dug up
the garden to do the septic tanks and we were left to clean it all up.



Same view, we have started painting it to try to give it some life back. We found this old stone path on the right
so decided to expose it. This is looking out our bedroom and the white add on part is the laundry. Green Grass!



From the other end now you can see our wonderful old Boab tree.
This is now looking at the boys bedroom with the kitchen & family room
in the middle block. Yes that is an old flag pole to the left.



Same side as it is now, still need to finish painting.

This is looking at the same just from further away. The two very leafy green tress are mango trees and they
are currently loaded with fruit, you may be able to see them if you blow up the picture.
Cannot wait till they are ripe, yum!







This is the view from Durack street. There is a very large area between the stand of boabs and the front fence. From photos we
have found from back in its "working" days this area once had many large sheds on it, now we call it a car park.



The stand of Boabs on Durack Rd. I have heard a story that these 6 boabs
were planted by Jack Fletcher when he lived here I think in the 70's or 80's and they
represent each of his children. I am yet to confirm it but a nice thought.

A closer view. You can  make out a rock garden edge I have done just behind the front fence. The fence has been painted along here as well.

 

This is a close up now looking across our lovely large veranda. The garden bed along
here was full of weeds and grass and didn't have a border. This was my first garden rock edge I did.  I also pruned the bougainvilleas ( the bush on the right) who got  their revenge on my arms! ( Very large thorns.)
This photo was only taken 2 weeks ago.



Here is our spectacular old boab tree, just like on old man leaning over having a rest,it has to be over 500 years old. It is a great climbing tree for the boys. 



Just another picture of our boab! You can tell this was taken
not long after we got here, no green grass!



Looking out from the veranda. When we first arrived here this dirt patch was a mess, there were bits of concrete pipe, foam and junk everywhere. In December 2010 a very strong storm blew through here and knocked over a
very large tree which then landed on an old shed which had a cool room in it and a carport. The mess was never
really cleaned up till now.  



This is what two truck loads of dirt and compost, a big front end loader, manual raking , a pack of grass seeds and lots of water can do! Over in the corner is another rock feature built by mainly myself, Pete marked it out!! ( a close up below)



Our fire pit. We did get to use it when Tony, Cate, Daniel and Sarah came but I hadn't totally finished it then. Now it is
way too hot at nights to have a fire, but it makes a nice feature in the garden.

Shows the fire pit a bit better. Many trips to the rock collecting hill were
made to build this because we had to hand pick flat rocks. Tom and Charlie were
good helpers.



This is the gap between our bedroom on the right
 and the kitchen. It is the same the other side for the boys bedroom. You do get a bit sick of having to open doors all
the time.






 
 

This is our veranda.

Looking into our bedroom, the door at the other end
leads to our bathroom and the laundry.





The laundry.






























The family room and kitchen.



Our kitchen.






Our eating area beside the kitchen, that cupboard is my pantry.



Tom and Charlies room. They are enjoying having
 their own room with their own bathroom as well.
The door to the right is to the kitchen the other is their
bathroom.

 


So that is Camballin Homestead as it stands today, looking green, neat and tidy. Unfortunately it may not stay that way because this land is very prone to flooding, along with this house. There is a mark on the wall from the 1996 floods which reached 1/3rd up the wall. Last year it also got wet inside but only about a foot of water. The kitchen is new and they have thought about it and done it  in stainless steel so hopefully they won't have to keep fixing it when it gets wet next. They have also put drain holes through the walls to assist with the clean up when it gets flooded. Those holes are stuffed with foil at the moment to stop the vermin from getting in!

Below are a few photo's of the wild life that have visited us since we have been here......




Green Tree Frogs were a constant find in the toilets
and showers when we got here, We kept putting them out
they kept coming back in. Slowly we won the war. Now the
weather is changing and becoming hotter we are getting
frogs of all sorts everywhere!!! 























  

A small children's python which Tom saw
going into their bedroom as they were just
about to go to bed. Of course he made it hard
to get him out because he went behind the boys wardrobe!!
It was only about a meter in length.

The bigger calf somehow made it into our yard so Pete herded the little one in. We thought them cute till
we left them for the day in the yard while we went to work/school and got back to find they had eaten
my plants, so out the fence they went. We told the station to come and get them but they didn't.For days they hung around and we gave them water. I have seen that a lady up the road has let them into her yard, probably fattening them up for Christmas dinner!!!!

This is our new pet, her name is Kitty. The boys brought her home from school
on the bus one afternoon, luckily no one else was on the bus. She is a very
affectionate cat and yes she will be staying here!!

Some of the lovely birds around here.

So now you have seen where we live. It is a lovely place very peaceful and now very green. The sprinklers run off a bore so we can have them on all day. We have 14 boab trees on our patch of land all different sizes and shapes. 



Sunrise