Yinathara Station

YINETHARRA STATION

From Yinetharra Station, Walking to Mt James

1957
The day began as most days do on the weekend, with the cook bashing a pan to let everyone know breakfast was ready, Cooks were never seen to be mixing with the Shearers very often, they were individualls, i think the reason being they worked longer hours than the Shearers, seven days a week, they get up up about 4:30 to prepare the days food, and still working into the evening washing dishes and preparing food for the next day, they would get agro if you critisize there cooking, some cooks were good others were tollerated. i did just that one morning, every morning Sago Sago, (well known as frogs eggs), i said to him what's this stuff, he chased me out of the kitchen with a knife, then told the boss i said whats this shit. it must have been in his mind,

As most mornings on the weekends, looking for something to do,some times lying on my bed reading a book, usually i spent most of mine fosicking around the country looking for rocks, Yinethara Station was good for this, i was told every mineral in Australia was on Yinethara.

About mid morning a shearer called Tim was talking with me about the Mountain that could be seen in the distance, Mt James, he decided to walk to it without preparing any thing, or telling any one, without much thought i said i'd go with him, Tim was about six foot tall, me five foot five, so you can imagin me trying to keeo up with him.

The Mountain was Blue in the distance and looked to be not too far, so we head off in that direction, we walked and walked not knowing how far it was, going there wasent too bad, as the day got to mid afternoon we decided it was too far, it still looked blue in the distance, so we headed back to camp, without water, i was getting very thirsty, my legs were heavy from walking as i was not useto walking such a long distance and trying to keep up with tall Tim, on the way back he lost me as i couldent walk at his pace. The day was quite hot now, i was getting dehidrated, finally i came onto a pool of water, it looked stagnent and not clean, but it was a life saver, animal tracks were all around, insects were buzing over the top, without hesitation i got down on my knees and drank and drank, ahh that was good, not thinking what it might do to my gut, I continued on, what i thought was the general direction, not having any land marks to guide me, i felt a little lost, luckily for me i arrived back at the Station shearers quarters, exhausted and stuffed. that was a big lesson for me, and probably helpt me in many ways on my future journey.