The next day I had the day to myself mooching around geraldton. We stayed in a caravan park that evening and I went for a walk along to the lighthouse and watched another beautiful sunset. The western sky over the ocean was yellow and orange, but when I glanced behind me, the colour of the sky in the other direction was equally as beautiful - pinks, purples and blues.
The next day Dave had lots of bits to get in geraldton before we headed back to the cattle station and we got to Wooleen at about 4ish. I met frances, daves partner, the 2 guys from Durham who were also doing their visa work out there, the 4 kelpie dogs and cactus the Burmese cat :)
The homestead was massive - a lovely building built in 1918. It was originally in3 seperate buildings, the homestead (with the family bedrooms, dining room and sitting room), the workers quarters (sewing room, office etc) and the kitchen. The kitchen was always built seperate from the house as it was the building that most frequently burnt down.
There's about a 10 metre distance between the homestead and the kitchen, and the Sharp family (who built it) put a domed tin roof over the gap 4 years after it was built in 1922 to make the house one big building.
The Sharp family owned the property and the lease for the land for 99 years and 6 months but had to give it up after a series of deaths in the family, one being dave's dad's best friend. Daves dad, Brett, bought Wooleen 5 years later and it's now run by Dave.
The dogs who live on the station are great - it was so nice having pets around again. There are 4 of them, maggie, the old lady who's 17, Wilson who is about 5 and who is deaf after being run over by the mail truck :( - Wilson was bought by dave when he moved up to wooleen. He's named after Wilson from the film castaway as he was moving up by himself:) jimmy is a red cloud kelpie (a lovely reddy brown colour) and is lovely, and poppy is a 6 month old puppy who loves chasing golf balls :) i'd never heard of the breed kelpie before but they are a cross between a border collie and a new Zealand sheepdog (I think - or do they have a bit of dingo in them...)The cattle station itself is around 400,000 acres - so pretty sizeable - about the size of London :) it used to run sheep but Dave de-stocked for 4 years to give the over-grazed soil a chance to recouperate. Now he runs cattle. A pasturalist is different from a
farmer in that the land is left natural - no ploughing or sewing crops - and the cows live off the natural food the land gives. Cattle are better for the land. After so many years of sheep being over grazed (due to the government - they told that a minimum number of sheep needed to be run on the station and that number was far too high for it to be a longterm solution), cows are better for the plants as when cows eat, they wrap their Tongue around the grass and pull, always leaving a fair amount of green on the plant. But when sheep or horses or goats are grazing, they use their front teeth and so eat much more of the plant, making it harder for the plant to survive. Daves destocking has given the bushes and grasses time to get a good hold back on the land.
Daves all about perennial grass - the stuff that lasts all year - even during drought. That's what he needs so that the cows always have feed. It was hard for me to imagine what the land looks like in a drought as the lake was full (all 5,500 acres of it) and everywhere was so green, but amazingly there are grasses that survive the drought and crazy high temperatures that the area of the country gets (highest recorded was 52degrees C in the shade).So there's the lowdown on the station, it's history and what it's all about... What I got up to while I was there comes in the next post :) you can look more about wooleen on their website: www.wooleen.com.au
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