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.
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 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.
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 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.