Camborn

As I have learnt from Kerry McGinnis, "if you want to start writing, find something that you most enjoy and write about that". Her words have stuck with me which is why I have decided to write about Camborn.

Camborn Station is located 70Kms on the High Darling Road between Wentworth and Pooncarie, it was originally owned by the Walker family. Back many years ago, Graham Wilkinson’s Grandfather married Mr Walkers daughter. They had two boys, together they brought Camborn.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson ran sheep and planted a variety of crops on the land. They used horses to plant and harvest their crops. They would then cart their produce back to the old barn and make chaff out of it. This produce was sold and taken back to town via paddle steamers. To get the chaff onto the boat, there was a big belt driven augar which would shift the chaff from the barn onto the paddle steamers and barges. Their wool was also taken to town by paddle steamers and barges to be sold. They would load the wool by rolling the bales out of the woolshed doors, over the river banks and onto the boats (don’t know how many ended up at the bottom of the river).

One of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson's boys, Arthur Edward Wilkinson married Mary Nichols, they went onto buy the property from his father and pay out his brother. The two of them went on to raise six children on the property. Aileen, Stella, Olga, Nola, Valeria, and Graham the only boy in the family. The children did most of their schooling through correspondents with governesses, then the girls went to Adelaide for their high school years and Graham went to boarding school in Wentworth.

This property stretched over 35000 acres of land, runs 8 miles along the banks of the darling river. Arthur was able to maintain 3000-4000 sheep and a hand full of cattle during the good years. This station had 9 main paddocks, which are called; Sandhouse, Billabong, Scrub, 3 Mile, Trangrah, Netting Tank, Top, Horse, and Pine Paddock. Arthur was very well set in his times, as he did not believe that the women could go down to the sheds with the men, they were to stay in the house and cook.

The six children had many good times growing up as they were in the time of dances. They would get together with all of their friends and either go to the Pooncarie town dances or even sometimes into Mildura and go dancing at many places which included, the old Mill or Murray Moon. Amongst this young group of friends Graham found the love of his life, who just happened to be up the road at Minda Point Station. The story goes that Graham often liked to go to Pooncarie to catch up for a beer with the boys but never seemed to make it all the way to the local pub. Instead he seem to find his way into Minda Point, where a lovely young lady lived, Shirley. As they say, when Graham left he would leave a hat behind so that he had an excuse to return the following weekend. This went on for many weeks until they got married in 1957 (the boys around the area said that Graham was a man of many hats).

For two years Graham and Shirley Wilkinson lived with their in-laws whilst the kitchen in the shearers quarters was getting fixed. Once it was fixed they moved in, they lived here whilst the builders got to work on their new house. During this time, Graham would work for his father on a minimal wage, he also made money by shooting rabbits, kangaroos and goats to sell their meat in Mildura and Shirley would cook for the builders as well as other workers on the property. Once they finally moved into their new house (the pink house) they settle down to have three children, Sheral, Irene and Roger the only boy. The girls started their schooling with their mother doing correspondents and then went to the new local primary school with their little brother at Cavan Primary School, to get to school they had to cross the darling river by boat Each day. From there the girls did high school in Mildura, boarding with Shirley’s mother and Roger went to boarding school at Wentworth.

In 1969 Graham and Shirley decided to buy Jamesville Station, which was located next door to Camborn (just over the river). This property covered over 5000 acres of land, there were orange trees located on it, which Graham and Shirley picked for a few years until Graham decided to bulldoze them out and plant Lucerne in its place. Graham also ran around 1000 sheep on this property as well as still working for his father at Camborn and killing rabbits, roos and goats to sell for meat.

Due to living on one side of the river and working on the other side Graham and one of his mates decided to build a bridge that went from Jamesville to Tunnellney Point Station. This bridge was made by putting large logs across facing along the river bed and two large logs running from one side of the river to the other side and that was it. Graham use to say, “you just had to line it up exactly right otherwise, in you went”.

Graham’s mother fell ill with Alzheimer’s and his father could no longer run the property, as he was to care and look after his wife. During this time, Graham and Shirley moved back to Camborn to work and look after the property whilst Arthur cared for Mary at their daughter Nola’s house, in 1972 Mary past away at the age of 70. Arthur then moved in with his other daughter Aileen, he would travel occasionally up to Camborn to have a look around, but eventually decided to sell the property. Graham and Shirley decided that they would sell Jamesville with enough hope to have the money to buy Camborn. They brought the property in the name G. A and S. W Wilkinson and the agreement that they were to pay the money off. When Arthur died in 1981 of Parkinson’s disease, he forgave Graham of his debt that he put the farm into but never forgave Shirley of hers.

In 1976, the Darling river was flooded and due to the bottle neck shape of the hills it meant that the Camborn homestead was going to get hit badly. Graham had done all that he could to make dam banks and stop the water from flooding the sheds and houses. As one of the banks began to break Graham decided to try and push up another bank closer to the house. With the water swirling around and hitting the side of the bank where Graham was driving it cause to bank to give way and down went the tractor and Graham with it, all that you could see was the exhaust pipe from the tractor. Roger ran into the house where Shirley was and said “Mum! The tractors in a whole and I can’t find Dad”. Little did Roger know, Graham had run out the other side to go and get a bigger tractor to try and pull the little one out.

In 1979 Graham and Shirley were waiting for the power to be put on at Camborn and whilst they waited, they had to get water out and around the property, so Graham would start the old pump, which had to be started by hand and then a belt had to be slipped on as the wheels were running, one time Graham judged it wrongly and on went the belt and off went his thumb. Graham had another accident about two years later he and the local school teacher were on their way up to the dance at Pooncarie (where Shirley and the children were) and the boys decided to go chasing a fox, as they were driving through the long grass they hit a hole, which caused the axe in the back of the ute to come flying at Grahams head (he had scalped himself). The teacher took him to hospital and them meet Shirley and the kids at the dance, Shirley wasn’t too worried at the doctors said to her “he will be fine, he is just going to be sleeping as we have dosed him up, you and the kids stay and have fun at the dance and come in, in the morning”

During the 80’s Graham and the neighbouring property owners built a bridge at Camborn so that they could cross the river, instead of using the old flying fox to cart food, people and parts across the river. It was a flash bridge in its time, it was made of wooded planks which where bolted down to long planks that ran across the distance of the river. Also, whilst the children were all still at school Graham and Shirley put in a pipeline that ran from the river all the way out to the furthest set of cattle yards on the property, this was to help with drought and yarding of cattle. In 1981, due to drought Graham was forced to send sheep on agistment at Wycheproof, VIC. They went through numerus droughts and floods, but each time Graham and Shirley where able to work through it.

Once Roger finished school, he went to Camborn to live and work for his father. Roger would buy cattle from the meatworks in town, his mother would say “he had some of the roughest head of cattle ever seen, they were all different colours and breeds.” Roger also brought sheep over the years and he would sell the lambs at the market. Roger would also go shooting rabbits and mustering goats for extra money, which he used to buy his ute and horses. Roger married Maxine Watkin and was handed the property in 1999, the two of them had brought horses and play in the local polo teams (it was more of a party back then). Once they had their children Mark and Clare, they both gave up playing polo.

Roger work alongside his father as they developed their White Suffolk Rams Stud, and sell them at a sale which he shared with another local seller. They also decided that he would plant around 45 acres of wine grapes (shiraz). Roger and Graham had also experienced many tough times, through experiencing many harsh droughts, during these times he would send sheep and cattle on agistment at Tilpa NSW, Menindee NSW and Monash SA. During the droughts, Graham made a homemade grain feeder which he would tow around to feed grain to the sheep out in the paddocks.

Roger and Maxine had also decided to divorce, which was a struggle as Maxine moved into town taking the children and leaving Roger on the property along. In 2006 Mark and Clare told the courts that they wish to live with their father at Camborn. Both children caught the bus at from across the river at Cavan and went to Coomealla High School, they would travel 3 hours by bus every day. For at least twelve months of their schooling they would have to use the boat to get across the river to get onto the school bus, this was because the river had been in flood, due to poor management by the government.

In 2008 Mark left school to do an apprenticeship at GBC Motors as a diesel mechanic for 4 long years, once he finished that he moved back to Camborn to work alongside of his father. Clare finished high school and travelled around Australia with her partner John Barnfield, she then in 2014 went to university in Mildura to study a Bachelor of Education.

In 2011 Roger purchased Bannon Station with one of his cousins Ian Wakefield. During September 2012 Graham died of a stroke at the top of the bank of the Darling River as he was fixing the pump. This was a hard time for everyone. Shirley moved into their house in town and Mark moved into Graham and Shirley’s house at Camborn.

Today, Clare is currently in her fourth year at university, has moved into her second home with her partner John Barnfield (who works on his father property, Tapio Station). Mark still lives and works for his father, Roger, on Camborn. Mark also has his own mob of ewes which he breeds with every year. Roger has a new partner, Lyn Symes, and he has also developed his White Suffolk Stud further and has also created a new stud with Dorset Rams.  

Camborn has been in the Wilkinson name for five generations now and have had one boy in each family for the past three generations.

All photos have been taken or supplied by Clare Wilkinson.