WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

The drove began near Goulburn in 1883, with 500 cattle, two teams of bullocks and
50 horses. It would be the longest droving trip across the continent, covering a
distance of around 5,600 kilometres. The journey was beset by difficulties. Before
they left New South Wales the party had to cross the Barwon River while it was in
full flood. When they reached southern Queensland, they found it in the grip of severe
drought, one of the worst in that region's history. Their progress was delayed and the
condition of the cattle deteriorated; many of the original party withdrew (MacKenzie
1985). Those who continued waited out the drought near Winton, and after three
months watching their cattle die, when the rains broke, they resumed their journey. At
Bourketown the leading mobs came down with pleural pneumonia, caused by feeding
on the plentiful young spring grass brought by the rains. Sickness also struck the
human members of the party: two people were so ill from malarial fever they had to
leave the drove. The Chinese cook was killed when Aboriginal people attacked their
camp one night. Two years into the trip, Charles MacDonald, the expedition leader,
became so sick with malaria that he had to leave. His brother Dan travelled out from
New South Wales and took over until Charles was well enough to return.
On 3 June 1886, having travelled more than 5,600 kilometres, what was left of the
party finally arrived, with around half the original head of cattle, and 13 of the
original 60 horses, at the junction of the Victoria and Margaret rivers. They stopped
near a tree which Alexander Forrest had marked F136 (MacKenzie 1985). The trip
had taken them three years. They renamed the land Fossil Downs Station after the
many fossilised shells they found there (remnants of earlier higher sea levels). In the
years to come it would become the largest privately-owned cattle station in Australia,
at over a million acres (404,685 hectares) (ADB 1974).
While these initial droving ventures are prominent in recorded history, for many
years, long droves were made as a matter of course to get cattle from stations to
market. Major Kimberley stock routes follow defined tracks along water sources and
associated Aboriginal sites from pastoral stations to ports. Kimberley pastoral owners
relied on small numbers of highly skilled Aboriginal stockmen who worked extremely
long hours but took pride in mustering and safely delivering all their stock to port
(Munro 1996). Droving sometimes provided Aboriginal stockmen with opportunities
to fulfil custodial duties on their own country and interact with others outside the
annual wet season holidays. Long droves to ports have now been replaced by
motorised transport, but stock work is still associated with the custodial
responsibilities of looking after and keeping country healthy (Harry Lennard, pers.
comm. 25-26 May 2010).
Gold
It was not just the chance of good pasture that drew Europeans inland in the
Kimberley. In 1882 the Western Australian Government had offered a reward of
£5000 for the discovery of gold in the colony. In 1883 and 1884, the government
temporarily employed a geologist to participate in two survey expeditions to the
north-west of the colony (unlike the eastern states, the colony couldn't afford its own
permanent geologist). During the course of these expeditions, Edward Townley
Hardman, who came directly from working with the Geological Survey of Ireland,
found the fossilised remains of a diprotodon in a cave at Windjana gorge, and named
'Geikie Canyon' after famous British geologist Sir Archibald Geikie. After his second
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