Living and working in the Kimberley Part 4

PART 4

Liveringa Station and cropping in 2012



Logo on the cars.







Liveringa Stations title is now Liveringa Pastoral Co. Milne and Agri Group; a large company. Under its “umbrella” it owns Milne Feeds Pty Ltd which is one of the largest stock feed milling operations in the State. The Milne’s operations extend to poultry with Mt Barker Chicken which is the largest free-range chicken producer in WA and pigs through Australian Natural Pork, a free-range pig producer at Cranbrook.  Liveringa also owns a neighbouring station called Nerrima which runs cattle on 500,000 acres. I have been told it recently bought an old winery as well called Fox River Wines which is in the same area as the chicken and pork companies it owns. The head office is in Perth. All this owned by one man but managed by many.

So the station itself; Liveringa has two business units; Live Stock and Cropping/Operations both with their own management and teams. The station is still on 1 million acres with its front fence being about 60 km along the Great Northern HWY and its back fence running about 120km along the Fitzroy River. The station has around 44 paddocks which can be several 100 acres each. I am not sure how many bores there are on the station now but most if not all paddocks would have one for the cattle. The driveway in from the HWY to the station hub is a 17km dirt/ sand road. 



This is Liveringa Station the whole 1,000,000 Acres. It shows the frontage on the highway across the top and the back fence along the Fitroy River ( the green line at the bottom).  The lines all over it are the paddock fences.

 



Here is another map of most of Liveringa and I have tried to show you the where abouts of each  place I have mentioned and where they are all positioned to each other. Main roads are in red and again the river is in green across the bottom. I forgot to place a label on the Barrage; it is the last black word on the green river line on the right tucked into the bend. Looking at this map the red road line from Camballin which goes off towards the left then heads up to the top left corner takes us to the Hwy for  Derby/ Broome, this is my 24km dirt drive.   



    The living arrangements on the station are that managers and their second in charge people get their own small house, so do the cook, helicopter pilot and mechanic, then the rest such as stock and cropping crew and drivers get dongas with a bathroom block to share. All the accommodation is spread out near the huge workshop shed. There is a recreational room, with the stations “bar”, an in ground pool and a kitchen with a compact dining room attached.




It is very hard to give you a good idea of how the station hub is set out because it is very spread out. This is the veiw you get as you come into the station. Looking over one of the pivots ( number 3 they call it) the cattle yards are the closest buildings then to the left are worksheds storing machinery then the very last shed on the left is the main work shop. The kitchen and houses are behind all these where you can see the trees and they spread down to the left.

 




Here a few of the houses as you can see they are spread out, the pool is under the sail .
There are 6 houses/ cottages; 1 is built out of rammed earth, 3 are rendered brick and the other two are older fibro cottges. The main hub is to the right of this picture . This picture is taken from the airstrip if I turn a bit to my right...........

 


you see the main work shop shed in the background. That huge tank is the stations water supply which is pumped from a bore. Pete is driving the truck and the boys are in there with him. Then if I turn around......

 


you have the stations airstrip and the place where all the wrapped bails are kept. (The truck has gone up the runway and has turned around.)

 





View of the cattle yards from the water tank. A good point of reference is the wheat silos which can be seen in most photos. The green patch just below the yards is that number 3 pivot seen as you drive in. All the white spots are birds, like cockatoo's  ( Little Corrella's)

 



This is Ian and Dawns house, they have done a great job with the garden.

 


The pool, we have spent quite a bit of time here. When
we first got here you couldn't get in it the water was so cold,
now it is like a warm bath!

 




The kitchen on the left looking across to the Rec area.

 





Inside the kitchen. First is the dining area which can be a
bit cramped when everyone is here.
  The kitchen is through the door.

   






The kitchen
On the left is Carmel who helps out in the kitchen and is the mechanics wife
and she is with Rachel who was the cook here. Rachel  worked on the station in many
different positions for 4 years, she left September. 

   




Looking from the kitchen down to the Donga's. Basically where the
young and single ringers and cropping crew lived.

  



The Rec area, our social activity centre with the bar. The building behind on the right is the main workshop and to the left you can see the huge carport for everyone to park their own cars and camper trailers under. The kitchen and dongas are off to the left and the houses to the right.

 





Hanging around the bar.

  


Inside the rec room. Those doors on the back wall and to the right are bedrooms for guests that visit such as; vets, enviromental reasearches, people doing studies on the land etc... Liveringa has allot of visitors doing all different kinds of research.

CROPPING OPERATIONS

Ian is the manager of the cropping/ operations side and is Peter’s boss.  Ian's position covers general running of the stations facilities and the crops so; maintaining the buildings/houses and all farming equipment/ tractors. So he has a full time mechanic- Terry, truck driver- Greg, grader driver- Ken, maintenance person- Pete, Gardner - Julie and a cropping crew of three, Jake, Lisa and Pete. 

 Ken the grader driver is kept busy by not only trying to maintain the tracks and dams but by also grading firebreaks along all the fences and roads on the station; a very important and necessary job when fires are easily started in the dry season and move rapidly with the wind. Pete has had a few experiences with fighting fires and doing back burns which is all interesting and new for us and very much part of life around here. 



The station has a licence to grow Sorghum and is also experimenting growing corn for feed. They have been able to get this licence because they have permits to use the Fitzroy River for watering.   

THE BALING PROCESS

Grow, mow, rake, bale, load and wrap.

Step 1. Seeding and growing




This is the seeder, a huge piece of machinery pulled behind a huge tractor.

 

A close up of the seeder.






One of the pivots in action, this was taken just a few days of us arriving so
you can see the crop just shooting.

  




A pivot with the mower in front gives you a bit of an idea of how long they are.

  

They call the area where they grow the crops "pivots" but the actual sprinkler is the pivot. The area is 100 hectors with pivots 550 meters long which move by electric motors attached to each set of wheels. For those who care for figures, 153 litres a second is pumped out of these pivots and they water every 2^nd or 3^rd day.

The first crops on the pivots are sown around May so when we arrived on the station they were in and shooting. The machine has a GPS guide in it which makes it easy when sowing the seed. The growth rate of a crop depends on water and weather but it roughly takes 6-8 weeks  

The water comes from canals that run off the Uralla Creek, (also called Snake Creek) which is fed from the Fitzroy River, as seen in the previuos blog). The station pumps water from the canals to the pivots. The water level in the canals is determined by the level in the Fitzroy. When the water no longer naturally flows into the canals the gates are shut and a pump is set up to pump water over the gates into the canal. The station is only allowed to pump water from the Urella Creek till it gets down to 37.5 meters above sea level. One of Pete's jobs each month was to take and record the rivers depth.




This is the canal with the pump house. There are two very large motors sucking up the water for the sprinklers. 

 
The station has 3 Pivots on its own land and another 38 acre pivot which it leases from a neighbouring station across the HWY and is watered by its own bore so it usually gives them a few good crops.

Sorghum is used because it can be harvested up to 3 times meaning they chop it off as low as possible and it reshoots again and again depending on weather and how much water they can get onto it. 

Step 2. Mowing


So once fully grown it is ready to be mowed. This is the main mower used but if this mower is in having repairs there is a mower attachment which can be pulled behind a tractor.  The mower leaves the cut sorghum in flat rows but they are insufficient for the baler so next it needs to be raked.




This is the main mower with Pete driving on the number 2 pivot. The shed in the background is the pump house. It is very common to have the eagles flying around him because they are after the mice and lizards which are running out into the open. Other animlas which also like the crops are wild pigs, kangaroos , ferral cats, Brolgas and stray cattle that think they are in heaven with all the green feed.

 





Pete took us all for a ride, this is Charlie having his go. It is a very weird feeling with just a huge sheet of glass infront of you and looking rught down at the mower. There are 24  blades inside the head and these have to be replaced every week when in continual use. The mower is driven by independant front wheels, so it can turn on the spot and be  lined up ready for the next row, it looks really funny. 

  

Step 3. Raking




The raking machine is toad by a tractor. It is in the shape of a "V" so it collects 2 rows of cut sorguhm and channles it down the "V" and out the back into a single thicker, taller wind row ready for the baler. Pete has driven this as well.

 



Showing the set up of the rake behind the tractor. Jale drives this mostly and I reckon he would ahve a very sore neck at the end of the day for he spends most of it looking behind making sure it is all running smoothly. Pete tells me when he was raking he turned around to check that all was good and there was a lizard running as fast as it could to keep in front of the fingers and escape, he slowed down enough for it to escape but what a funny sight!

 



A typical scene in the pivot; bales waiting to be collected from the day before as they start the process all over again on the next section. With a good run they can do a whole pivot in 7 days. 

 




I am trying to show the difference between the raked rows on the left and the mowed rows on the right. The left ones are higher and thicker compared to the ones on the right.
You can see Lisa in the loader in the background going around collecting the bales and putting them in groups ready to be loaded onto the truck.

 
 The turning over [ raking] of the sorghum also helps with the drying out process. This sorghum is made into bales still green; it needs to be at 60% moisture which they test by chopping up a handful and putting in the microwave, then weighing it and then they can see how much water is in the sorghum, high tech!!!!!

Step 4. Baling




The baler. It looks plain but quite an amazing machine. You can see it picking up the sorguhm at the front then out the back comes the completed bale. Again Jake spends most of his time looking backwards!

 
I think this an amazing machine because of what it has to do. It picks up the loose sorghum and has to compact it tightly into what they call ‘biscuits’; these are like layers which make it easy when you go to pull the bales apart. The bales are held in place with several rows of knotted baling twine then when completed they are pushed off the back of the baler and dropped ready to be picked up. Quite an amazing machine when you see the loose crop go in and come out as a 700 - 800kg tight block all within minutes. But, when things go wrong with this machine it is a real pain in the backside to fix because everything gets caught up in blades and baling twine and has to be pulled out and restarted, not much fun with a hot machine on a 40 degree day! They were trialing corn and it did cause quite a bit if grief with this machine. They can alter the cutting thickness in the machine and it took quite a few goes to get the right consistency to make the bales stay tight and not fall apart.   The 100 hector pivots can produce 800 - 1000 bales, of course depending on water and weather. 

Step 5. Loading




Lisa driving the loader. She goes around and collects the bales and groups them together ready to be loaded onto the flat bed truck.

 


Loading onto the truck to be taken to the runway for wrapping.

 

Liveringa lines the sides of its airstrip with the bales I have no idea what other stations do with theirs. The person unloading the bales from the flat bed needs to place the bales in a nice straight line so the wrapper can come along and do its job without too much fuss.

 

Step 6. Wrapping

 

This is the most mesmerising piece of machinery to watch and has become Peter's main job. As you will see it runs behind a tractor but it sits out to the side of the tractor to be able to pick up the bales and that is why the bales need to be in a straight line for it takes a bit of manipulating  the wrapper to pick up a bale that isn’t in line.

 The bales are picked up via a metal toothed conveyor belt.

Once in position it is lifted up onto the yellow rollers and starts rotating, as it rotates the outside arms with the plastic rolls spin around wrapping the bale in plastic.

The bales do two full rotations then the arms stop spinning and the plastic cut.

Then the bale is lowered back down onto the platform.

Then the conveyer tracks push it off the back and they are completed.

 When the wrapping is all done the tails of the plastic need to be tucked in by hand so that is the last thing done for the person operating the wrapper. Pete does around 100 bales at a time which can take anywhere from 2- 3 hours, depending on how many problems he has with the plastic. He has found the hotter the day the more problems he has with the plastic ripping.  Depending on how far into the cycle the plastic  rips he can sometimes let it finish with one roller, otherwise it is turn off  the machine, out of the tractor, tie the plastic back onto the machine, back into the tractor and start again. In the heat of the day he may have to do this 2-3 times a bale, which becomes very frustrating… So to miss the heat of the day and whenever possible he will start wrapping at 5 am and get through the bales without hardly any problems. 

The bales are airtight and within 10 days they are ready but they can last for months as they are.  Within the 10 days  the 60% moisture sets of a fermentation  which makes the sorghum sweet and vinegary smelling and irresistible to cattle.  This feed is much better for the cattle with a higher percentage of protein and many stations around here buy it from Liveringa. Liveringa sells it back to its own cattle station for $200 a bale but sells it to other stations for $270 a bale. 

 In October there was very little water left to run the sprinklers. The last pivot was completed early November but they still had the one leased over the HWY  which was done early December.  The station has a piece of land they call the Freehold; it is out on the flood plains. Around December they plant it out in the hope that it gets flooded just enough to start and grow a crop ready for the beginning of the next year. It is a gamble whether or not to do it because they could lose the lot if they have a big flood. Last year it worked well for them and they got a good crop of hay to start the year off.

So that is how the cropping side of things work here.





Living and working in the Kimberley Part 3

PART 3

THE Old Liveringa homestead

Today’s Liveringa Station is very different to the original one which started in1884.  It has seen many changes due to floods, droughts, fires and the general change of managers.  The original homestead is now heritage listed and on its own title so if the current owner ever sells Liveringa Station the homestead will not be part of it.  The homestead is about 25 km’s away from what we now call Liveringa Station, which is where all the staff live and work.  



This is the Old Liveringa Homestead today. Looma is about 2km to the left, Camballin about 10km away behind the hill and then about another 10km on from Camballin is the stations main hub.



Here is closer view. The main house is up on the hill with the closest building to it being the old kitchen. The very large shed on the left is the shearers quarters the one in front of that the work shop shed. Then the roof closest to you on the right is the shearers shed. The small shed in the middle was once the blacksmiths shop. The little roof on the right in the trees is a horse stable. 



  There is a book/ folder which covers much of the history of Liveringa so I am going to summerise from it and try and explain the history of the station.

The land was first purchased in 1881 by a so called corrupt committee of the Kimberley Pastoral Company who rigged a ballot to purchase land leases in the Kimberley. The station was under the management of Mr John McLarty who got it up and going. It was sheep that was first farmed on this land; the sheep were brought up by boat from Fremantle. The ships could only then dock in the King Sound near Beagle Bay and from there they were walked down to the station. On November 30, 1881 a ship named AMUR arrived in the King Sound after a few navigational areas and landed half of the sheep and all of the horses and dogs for Liveringa. The remainder of the livestock and plant equipment went ashore the next day. Mr John McLarty and his brother were also on this ship.

  The first stone building was built around 1888 in a prime position high on a hill above a billabong on the Uralla Creek. Many local Aborigines worked on stations in the Kimberley learning skills such as fencing, shearing, construction, cooking and cleaning. Unfortunately they also learnt to steal and many ended up in prisons for this.

Willie Mc Larty took over the very successful business from his brother in 1890, expanding the farming even further using more Aboriginal workers.  Due to Willie’s eyesight failing him in 1901 Percy Rose took on the management position.  He further improved the stations position with farming and infrastructure.

 In 1904 a large stone kitchen and storeroom was constructed then four years on in 1908 the homestead was rebuilt in the stonework we see today.  




This is the old  kitchen building. It is missing a coldroom which was added
on under the verandah, they hope to rebuild it oneday.
The main house is to the left. The cook/ maid had to walk up
steep stairs to get to the main house each time a meal was served.






This is looking down from the main house to the kitchen, just to give you an idea how high
up the house is from the kitchen. The view is wonderful looking out over the land. The billabong
is amongst the trees you see on the flat. The wide verandah's and iron railing around the house wasn't added until after the 1940's or 1950's.





 In 1911 Liveringa was one of Australia’s largest sheep stations with a flock of 98,000 head, unfortunately three years later floods killed up to 30,000 sheep and alot of the feed was dwindling so tough times were ahead, but they still managed to be one of the most productive sheep stations in the Kimberley. 


This is what is left of an out station called Paradise. It is on  Liveringa land and was a
mini version of the main station.  They had sheep yards, a shearing shed and quite a few
houses here. I am not sure of its full history  it may have been leased as a seperate sheep station.



The old stove.



One of the old fibro houses.

 In the 1920’s they started introducing cattle and they had around 40,000 sheep and 10,000 cattle on their 1,000,000 acres.   In 1930 Kim and Pat Rose took over and stayed until 1961 seeing many changes happen to Liveringa. 



Here is a photo of the station in the 1940's you can see many of the same buildings as I mentioned in the first photo.  In this photo you can see the billabong very clearly.



 The document I am using has a great description of what buildings were around the homestead in 1956; swimming pool, tennis court, visitors quarters, overseer’s and jackeroos quarters, store, kitchen, man’s quarters, motor shed, three married men’s houses, shearing shed, shearing quarters and a building which is divided and used for workshop, petrol room and storage of materials used on the station. The native’s camp (the aboriginal workers) which was next to the homestead had what they called a Nissan Hut ( you can see this in the photo  above), and shade houses with water connected to wash basins, showers and a septic tank. Then the stations acreage was 1,000,000, it was fenced into 40 paddocks and there were 65 bores with windmills and 6 dams.   



This is looking down from the main house verandah the building is the pool room and you can just make out the inground pool infront of it. The pool is empty now but it used to be filled with bore water so it wasn't the clearest water. Further on you can see the billabong.



In the 1950’s Kim Rose had started experimenting with fodder for his sheep and cattle. Apparently Rose asked Kim Durack to come to the property and help set up irrigation for fodder/ crops because Durack had been doing irrigation on the Ord River for some years already and Rose wanted his help. Finally in 1952 Kim Durack came and started an experiment with growing rice on the Uralla Creek in the Camballin area of Liveringa;  hence the construction of the Camballin Homestead and better conditions for the town of Camballin.  In 1955 Liveringa leased 2,000 acres of their land out to Northern Developments Ltd to grow rice, this lead to many changes.  

 By 1957 the WA Government had passed the Northern Developments Pty. Limited Agreement act. Under this act, Northern Developments gained 20,000 acres of leasehold land in the heart of Liveringa Station. It also required the government to establish and keep in repair the township of Camballin, access roads and bridges, a weir across the Uralla Creek (now called 17 mile dam), associated irrigation channels, and a barrage across the Fitzroy River.  This changed many things about the station over the next decade with the increase of traffic and the water flow being altered by weirs and most importantly the heart of the station was being used for cropping.  Northern Developments left in 1966 with the crop not being very viable. With the retirement of the Roses an era finished at Liveringa, no longer was there a share holder of the Kimberley Pastoral Company involved in the station. Short term managers followed; Henry Gooch, Anthony Male and John Fisher with no real huge benefit to the stations operations. They just kept the stock side going so the station wasn’t at a total loss.



The plaque at the barage on the Fitzroy River. The date it opened was 4th December 1961.



What is left of the barage built by the government on the Fitzroy River to help with the irrigation of the land on Liveringa Station. The Urella Creek comes into the Fitzroy on the left, so when they wanted more water flowing into it the would raise the gates and force the water into the creek. 



What is left of the mechanics to open and close the gates of the barage.





This is where the Urella creek meets the fitzroy. Tom and Charlie are having a go at turning the very rusty gates which used to control the flow of water into the creek. The building up on the right is the pump house. In the dry there would be big engines pumping water into the Urella creek when the Fitzroy was to low to feed into it. But in the wet and floods the engines would be moved up the tracks into the pump house so it wouldn't get damaged in the floods. We have seen a video of the floods in 1986 which were the highest they have on record and the water was up to the bottom of that pump house, so much water. Below is a photo showing you how high up that house is.   




The pump house.
As you can see this area is a very popular spot for locals to come camping and fishing.







This is what is left of the wier at 17 mile dam which is on the Urella Creek. The damage you see is from the many floods it has had to endure.In the 1986 floods you could only see the walkway across the top! There is no support under the concrete it has all been washed away.  




 

The very green stagnant water in the dam just waiting to dry up totally if it doesn't rain.



1969 the Australian Land and Cattle Company (ALCCO) purchased Liveringa, Camballin and other Kimberley properties as part of a business project that aimed to create a feedlot for cattle on the Liveringa/ Camballin land. I believe it was in this era that Jack Fletcher got involved working for the ALCCO and he lived in the Camballin Homestead for 18 years trying to make the irrigation systems work. 1972 was when the last of the Liveringa sheep were sold.  

By 1977 the relevance of the Liveringa Homestead really  had very little to do with the daily running of the station, only a caretaker was in the residence so the homestead was in need of much repair.

1982 A receiver was appointed to manage the then Camballin Farms and ALCCO was asked to vacate the Homestead. There was a station manager, Wayne Thompson, who lived out at Paradise Homestead, which was a smaller homestead on Liveringa land; it was set up in its prime time to help with the running of the sheep. He was working on fencing for the cattle which was needed after many floods.

1984- The Liveringa Homestead was classified to the National Trust of WA.

After this many caretakers lived in the homestead and slowly it is being worked on and returned to its original state, or as close to it as viable. As I said at the beginning it no longer has anything to do with the operation of the station but it is now a piece of history which should be looked after.

This is the homestead from the back, the grass and gravel  is where the tennis court used to be. Mandy and Brad
are the current caretakers and have done alot of work on the gardens and up keep of the place.

A better picture showing the stone work. Frank Rodriguez who built Camballin Homestead also did work on this house. This is looking at the verandah that overlooks the pool and billabong. The stone homestead only has three rooms in it and the rooms are not connected internally. There is a detatched kitchen, bathroom and laundry built out of fibro cement sheets behind where I am standing to take the photo. 




This is the 17stand shearing and wool sorting shed.



A closer view of the shearers stand, the wood on the floor is the original wood still.



Looking into the Shearers quarters. This is where the shearers lived. They slept on wired single beds with a thin matress to the right  and ate at long tables on the left of the shed. There is a kitchen at the front on the left.
Check out the hand basins.





I am not totally sure when this photo was taken but it would only have been in about the last four years. A fire caused damage to the original  work sheds but it has all been repaired now.



And just to finish off with a great arial shot taken in 2011....



An amazing transformation that takes place in the wet.....