From Strength to Strength

by Sara Henderson

  During these explorations, I found out that although there were water pipes, there was no running water; in fact, there was no water, period. And there were light switches, but no electricity. I was yet to learn of the world of generators.

  After finishing my inspection there was nothing else to do but sit and wait for Charles. He had left Darwin four days before us, supposedly in time to meet the plane. At about eight o’clock we saw headlights in the distance. I hoped it was Charles and not some landing from Mars. It was Charles, with our necessary living requirements under a few tons of bulldust.

  The truck had bogged, otherwise, he said, he would have been there to meet the plane. He had some sandwiches, bought at a roadside store two hundred miles back, and we washed them down with hot beer. After this unbelievable meal, Charles invited me to ‘make myself at home’.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we went to the house now, so I can put the children to bed? They’re very tired.’

  ‘This is the house,’ said Charles in a very quiet voice.

  ‘What . . . this is an open shed!’

  ‘This is home until we build a house.’

  I sagged to my suitcase and cried. That night, hot, hungry and covered in bulldust, we went to bed on a bare mattress (Charles had thought of the mattress, but not of sheets and pillows) on a cement floor. At least we were not cold.

  The months that followed were a nightmare. I cried a lot, sulked all the time, was terrified most of the time, and didn’t speak to Charles any of the time. But after the first shock wave had passed over me, I started to accept the challenge that Charles had cleverly planted in my mind—to turn this horrible tin shed into a liveable house

  This was the only choice open to me, short of leaving Charles. He had lost all our money trying to save the shipping company and now the station was the only asset we had left. I pleaded with him to sell and move to civilisation but to no avail. He was caught in the dream of carving a ‘Charlie Kingdom’ out of this hostile wilderness and, like it or not, I was to be part of it, or leave.

  Leaving your husband in those days was far more difficult than today, and besides, there was one other fact which I could not ignore—I was still in love.

  So I willed myself out of depression and attacked the problem.

  I didn’t have much to work with—apart from the dreaded tin shed, there was a caravan which the previous owner had left, and that was it.

  The first and major step was to clean the place up. The shed was surrounded by empty bottles, cans, papers, tools and anything else you can imagine for a distance of about one hundred yards. This unusual landscaping had been created by the various staff over the years.

  They had certainly left their mark, if not in work, then in a few thousand empty beer cans, wine flagons, and of course empty bottles which had contained that backbone of the North, rum. I spent years trying to think of a use for the above-mentioned empties, but to this day, apart from forming mountains at the rubbish dump, they have not been recycled. Just removing a few mountains of these from our potential house to the rubbish dump did wonders.

  In between all this cleaning, I had to tackle the task of feeding the family, a chore which up to this point I had never had to handle. I must admit I wasn’t the best in the kitchen area, but in this so-called kitchen, I was a disaster.

  Its main feature was a black greasy monster, also known as a wood stove. After six weeks of scrubbing, I finally reached the enamel. It was actually cream and green, and it informed me that it was the de luxe model. I would hate to see the standard type. This fire-breathing monster sat in a black hole in one corner with a twelve-inch space around it. I have no idea what the space was for, but I do know that I lost many a meal over the side in the months to come before I had my hand in. Behind it was a most unusual rippled tin wall coated with a combination of soot and grease splashings that must have taken years to perfect.

  About the only thing that looked like anything you would find in a normal kitchen was a stainless steel sink. This was suspended in mid-air, or so it seemed, on the same wall as the stove. Most sinks are surrounded by cupboards and work surfaces. Not this one. There it sat, I mean hung, on the tin wall.

  That ended the first wall. The second wall, well, that was the feature wall, completely blank, unpainted, rippled tin. The third and fourth sides were the breeze-ways.

  Apart from the stove and sink, the only other fixture was yours truly. Not a cupboard, shelf, table or chair could be found. Oh, I forgot the cooking utensils. They hung around the stove area on seven-inch nails and consisted of one tin frying pan with a hole dead centre (not for hanging purposes), a saucepan with half a handle, a tin cup, very chipped but whole, and one tin plate with a hole in the rim (for hanging purposes). There was also a set of knife, fork and spoon, all with holes in the handles, tied together with a dirty, greasy strip of leather. No matter how you manipulated them, there was no way you could use them for eating, except one at a time.

  Somehow I managed to feed the family. It was quite a feat to make an omelette in a frying pan with a hole in the middle but after losing eighty per cent through the hole during the first week or so, I could finally gauge the heat and make a very good one without losing a drop.

  I also had a brilliant teacher, a delightful bush Aborigine named Mary. She was my lifesaver. She taught me how to master the stove, tried to teach me how to bake bread, and generally how to survive in that godforsaken wilderness. The children loved ‘Old Mary’, as did I. She would take them tracking and hunting and it was not long before they were very good bush girls. She was our one spark of brightness in those terrible first years.

  We were slowly getting some semblance of order around the place. I had installed forty-four gallon drums everywhere in place of running water. We found a hose long enough, after many joining and patching jobs, to reach from the well to the house. With this ingenious setup, we could fill all the drums when the pump was going, thus eliminating the back-breaking process of carting water all day by bucket. I had twelve forty-four gallon drums along the feature wall in the kitchen.

  Of course before we arrived, this problem hadn’t existed. The manager would take a weekly bath in the horse trough and wouldn’t be caught dead drinking water. I installed lots of drums because it took hours to get the water pump going and when it was, we used the water up almost as fast as it was pumped. The pump would be started after breakfast, by the mechanic, and he would then disappear down to the workshop, and often we filled drums, buckets, saucepans and sometimes the house. Most times he would return at lunchtime to find us three inches under water, but it was preferable to dust.

  As the months passed, the shed became cleaner, we had installed a water system of sorts, and I was actually producing meals that we could eat, except the bread. Even though we were enjoying this primitive way of life, it was apparent that we must progress. The first step was running water. When the shed was built, all the plumbing had been installed, so all we needed was a water supply. And for this we needed a tank. So we ordered one.

  It took all of seven weeks to reach us but finally the big day arrived. The truck drove up and I fully expected to see one big shiny tank sitting on the back. Just quietly, so did Charles. But, no tank. My heart hit bottom.

  ‘Oh no, not another two months?’ That was how long we would have to wait for the next delivery.

  ‘Now, Darling, I’m sure it’s there, just stop worrying.’

  It was there alright, in unassembled form. Pieces of curved, rippled tin and one big circle for the base.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Well, it has to be soldered together.’

  Soldered. I knew Charles couldn’t solder, I couldn’t, the mechanic wouldn’t, said he had too much work, and I didn’t think we had a strong bet in Mary. Charles informed me he would take care of the situation, so I left it to him. We continued with our drums.

  Mary knew how much I wanted my running water, so taking matters into her own hands, she fou
nd Willie and Willie assured Charles he could solder. Charles calculated how much solder would be needed to put the tank together, and ordered it to be sent on the next plane. However, in a very short space of time, it became evident that Willie could not solder.

  Skilled tradesmen were hard to find and if there happened to be any, they were all employed by big established stations. And, let’s face it, why would they leave good accommodation, good food, and good wages, for the privilege of working for next to nothing, living in an open tin shed, and eating food cooked in a frying pan with a hole in the middle?

  To say that on our station, in the year 1965, we had not a single soul skilled in any of the trades required to operate a station, would have been one hundred per cent correct. Except of course for the ‘current’ mechanic. But of the mechanics we had had, a lot would fall into the non-skilled category. Charles excelled in many fields, but none of these talents was shining at this particular time. And my electronic accounting skills couldn’t even be plugged in.

  The mustering season was moving to a close and the wet season was approaching. Various people continued to solder the water tank, and the supply of solder regularly arrived. It was now December and the heat was becoming unbearable. The thermometer registered a steady top of the dial. I thought it was broken, but in one rainstorm it dropped to eighty-nine degrees, revealing that most of December had been one hundred and ten degrees, and it was getting hotter.

  I had acquired a new look. I was covered with little red spots. I had the most complete case of prickly heat you could imagine. I spent the entire time a pretty crusty pink, permanently embalmed with calamine lotion.

  During the approach of the ‘wet’, we also had the dust storm period of the North’s delightful weather cycle. These storms have a habit of suddenly being there and everything changes to dark brown. You can’t see, breathe or speak, for fear of being blinded, asphyxiated or choked. Apart from being most unpleasant, it is rather dangerous for little children. Not being able to see, they can wander into barbed-wire fences, fall down holes, walk into stock—and that’s just a few possibilities.

  The dust storms were not nearly as bad in the following years because I planted grass which became a reasonable lawn. But for the first year or so, the tin shed was surrounded by six inches of fine, super grade bulldust. During most of these frequent dust storms, I could be found down on all fours, with a scarf tied over my mouth and nose and welding goggles over my eyes, crawling to rescue my children from the swimming pool.

  The children thought it a terrific game and would clap their hands with glee when Mummy appeared out of the murk to save them from the dust monster. I hesitate to print what went through Mother’s mind during these little daily distractions from the endless routine.

  We were now well into the wet season, although the heavy rains had not yet hit. The dust storms were still around and would continue to be until we had at least five inches of rain to settle the bulldust. At this stage we were getting just enough to turn the dust into a muddy coating over everything. The heavy rains would wash everything clean.

  The first heavy rain in the North is like magic. Overnight, every blade of grass and every leaf seems to turn green. In fact, all the little storms in the months before lay the groundwork, and then the first big hit puts the whole show over the hill.

  With the first heavy rains, the ‘wet’ was officially here. It was early January and with weeks of endless rain ahead, the men departed for town to pass the time talking over some bar till it was finished. The river came up, the roads were washed out and Charles, the children and I settled down for our very first ‘wet’.

  Before private planes and helicopters, the entire ‘top end’ gradually came to a halt as one by one, each road (there weren’t many) became impassable. It had changed a bit by our first wet in 1965, but not much. Visitors were very few during those months and the only way they could get in was by chartered or mail plane.

  The mail could sometimes be eight weeks between each delivery. Rather than risk getting bogged down on some remote airstrip, the milk run would only land on sealed strips during the wet. So, in December and January, there were very few stops between Darwin and Perth—it was almost direct.

  1965 was a lovely wet. Being new to the way of station life, we had not arranged any building supplies for the millions of things that needed to be done to transform the shed into a house. So we spent two idyllic months cut off from the world doing as we pleased. We put our caravan in the middle of the tin shed for coolness—and also so the children and I wouldn’t drown running to the toilet. With our portable bedroom in the middle of our future house, we were very cosy. We had loads of good books, and a nice friend had sent us a shipment of good wine. The rain poured for days, and sometimes weeks, on end, only stopping for a few hours daily. It was a record flood year and the creek came right up to the kitchen step.

  But regrettably it was over too soon. The skies cleared and the sun stayed out and everything in general prepared itself for the coming new season. The lower paddocks along the Victoria River were still very boggy and the horses and vehicles could not go everywhere, but as each week passed, they ventured further and further afield. It was not long before the whole station was declared fit for mustering.

  The new stockmen arrived, mostly very quiet types, along with the most entertaining half-caste I have ever met. His name was Bob. The long line of stockmen blur in my memory, but the Aborigines are easy to remember, they were such unusual personalities. Bob was extremely talkative and very inquisitive. He was particularly interested in the fact that we were new at the station management game. Thinking I was a softy, he decided to appoint himself my chief adviser, hoping for his rewards in alcohol.

  This upset Willie, who was our ‘in house’ character, especially when Bob offered to help with the tank. Willie would have none of it. The tank, which Willie had now spent close to eight months working on, was nearing completion. I did not dare upset the applecart, just in case Bob couldn’t solder and Willie wouldn’t. So for old Bob the tank was off limits. Fortunately he wasn’t the least bit upset by this slight—he busied himself in the preparation of gear for the first muster of the season.

  We now faced our first whole season. Would we make it? I was already wishing for the wet again.

  Around this time there arrived another colourful character on the mail plane. Bill turned out to be a film director and was looking for the appropriate setting for a documentary he was planning to make. He had been in Darwin for a few weeks and had visited some of the established stations just down the track but they didn’t suit him—he wanted something totally different. He had met one of our ex-employees in a bar in Darwin who had told him that if he wanted something weird and wonderful, we were it. He stayed five days, but it only took him one day to decide that we were what he was looking for.

  The documentary’s aim was to tell the people of the South, civilised part of Australia, just what they could expect if they were ever brave or stupid enough to tackle the wide wonderful northern Outback of Australia.

  After discussing all the arrangements with Charles, Bill said he would return in a month with crew and equipment when the road was open. I quickly put in my two bob’s worth and told him to include a cook in his equipment. He said his secretary was a great cook. I said that was fine, as long as he was satisfied, because he had to eat the cooking. With this excitement over, we settled back to work.

  The next day was very exciting. After nine and a half months of ‘solid solder’, my water tank was ready. It only had to be hoisted up onto the tank stand. This was no easy feat as it was fourteen feet high. Using the back of the table top truck, along with an amazing formation of forty-four gallon drums, miles of ropes, tackle, a lot of swearing and a full day put in by every able man on the station, our ‘solid solder’ tank was finally put in its place. There it sat in all its glory, with a big dent outlined against the sky. It was decided that the filling ceremony would take place the next day.<
br />
  Very early the next morning, the water pump was persuaded to start, the hose was attached and the water started to fill our nine-month marvel. Eventually, after getting tired of watching water pour into a tank, everyone went about their jobs. Well, not everyone. I was watching the water progress and of course Willie was still admiring his magnificent creation.

  I waited for a few hours and then, with great ceremony, held a glass under the kitchen tap and announced the first glass of running water. I was wrong. In the four years that the water pipes had not been holding water, they had certainly collected a few other things. After a chorus of the most unusual squeaks, grunts, rattles and vibrations, my glass was filled with an explosion of dust and rust, followed by bugs of various descriptions, a putrefied lizard, and a large number of cockroaches. Staring at this concoction in horror, I was further shocked by the final touch, a spluttering coating of brown mud. Then, at long last, water. Still a horrible brown, but water nonetheless. I turned on all the taps to remove all the pipe inhabitants and dirty brown water, and finally the tin shed had its first operational water system.

  However, as the day wore on into afternoon, the poor old water pump became very noisy and extremely smelly and hot. On inspection, it was discovered that the tank was only one quarter full. The hose was too small. This was one problem. The other problem was rather more serious. By mid-afternoon the tank and stand were surrounded by a sea of water. The tank leaked. In fact, it didn’t leak, it poured! How a tank put together with so much solder could leak was impossible to comprehend, but stand under it for a few minutes and you were quickly convinced.

  Willie was visibly crestfallen. I was speechless. Charles stopped the smoking pump and the tank emptied in fifteen minutes. It leaked as fast as the poor old pump could fill it. Charles decided there and then that the tank had to be lined with cement, no more solder.