Millstream Homestead.

No.25.   in my series of short stories.

Millstream Homestead in the Pilbara WA

No.618. Millstream Homestead. Sold.

One of the many really early watercolour paintings I did of Millstream Homestead in the Western Australian outback. The homestead was abandoned when we first came across it back in the 1970's.

The Kennedy brothers who owned the station had moved on to purchase and run Roy Hill Cattle Station. That will be another story.

Years later Millstream homestead became a Tavern, we had heaps of fun on the long weekends with lots of partying. If we could get away from long days on a construction site to one of our favourite camping, swimming, and skiing water holes located in the Chichester Ranges, and part of the Fortescue River which meanders through and is Millstream.

We would make our way often traveling down the Hamersley Iron access road full of pindan dust and pot holes, stopping off at Horseshoe Gorge for a cool down in the fresh water swimming pools and waterfall.

On other occasions we would go through Roebourne and Pyramid Station and on to Python Pool, if a cyclone had been through and dumped a load of water higher inland and up stream then there was always a stunning waterfall for us to sit under.

Moving onto Deep Reach at Millstream, this was where we camped swam and skied. Fern Pool was the next pool and it was an oasis in a harsh land, ferns, Millstream palms and tropical plants surrounded the water hole.

In the 1970's Millstream was not part of the Karijini National Park so we could take our speed boat and we would meet up with a heap of friends from Karratha, Port Hedland and some of the camp hands from the surrounding cattle stations.

Drawing and painting the white gums the Millstream palms the homestead and thousands of spinifex bushes. While I painted my husband would keep the children amused by tying a rope to the lovely old white gums that hung so gracefully over the fresh water stream, the kids would hold onto that rope and he would swing them as high and as far out as he could, then they would jump into the cold clear deep dark water.

It was great times so much fun, dragging an old inner tube behind the speedboat with the kids on it. Fishing for cat fish and no crocs no worries just good times.

We would camp beside the water for days and at night fall as it was always so hot, out came the cold beer the drinks the food and the guitar and oh what a night around that camp fire.

We always stayed as long as we could, never leaving till dusk and we would all be so worn out for that long dusty drive home, arriving late into the night and up early the next morning to do what most families have to do, get back to work and life in a mining town.