Borroloola

This picture of old mate Ivan Weise, he and Ian Lovegrove owned northern transport out of Alice springs, built up quite a big outfit with a couple of small planes for station work as they were both pilots, they bought the first peterbilt onto the territory I believe, Ivan (spooks) went to Sydney to get it off the ship and there was a wharfies strike on for a week, drove him nuts!! I visited with them and Peter Watts in Alice in the '80;s and they were telling me they were going to start a fishing camp at Borroloola for tourists, also with Alan Alright, they had all got out of the transport game at this stage, Ian did his apprenticeship at the Works and Jerks in Alice where he was raised, his father was the police sergent, very straight arrow guy, Spooks was the wild card, always wanting to buy new trucks and then one of their pilots dobbed them in to the authorities for some minor infraction so all went downhill a bit, Spooks ended up shooting himself when he lost a large barramundi and Ian ended up as a caretaker at a station near Alice, fortunes made and lost sadly, anyway, Ian gave me this account by a drover named ted Gaunt which he wrote in the early '30's about the birth of Borroloola which may be of interest to some on the forum, be warned it is not PC

Great story about the early days of Borroloola, Ron.

As usual Ron, Totally Captivating..........

Please Don't Stop...............

I enjoyed reading that Ron and for me, it is rather ironical. My wife and I spent a couple of days in Boroloola just after Christmas. The old police station has been restored and is now a small museum. We spent quite a while in there, reading about the history of Boroloola, it would take a week to read it all, a lot of old photographs as well. It is still predominately an aboriginal town, with a store, pub, motel and quite a few government services, as well as a few businesses involved with the McArthur River mine. Fishing is the other major attraction, with a small settlement at King Ash Bay, about 24 kilometers, north east of Boroloola.

RnR.

...thanks Ron for another great part of our early days.....

...there is a book called ''Outback Policeman-Vic Hall'' which in amongst other things tells the tale of white/black relationships when he was a copper up that neck of the woods just after WW1....

...he went into a bit of detail of how their ''bush telegraph'' would bring some amazing outcomes....

give the google a shot Ron as its definitely a good read....cheers

R&R, Wonderful that they have preserved the history of the town, must have been an interesting visit for you, good choice.

Detective, Thanks so much for referring me to Google for the Outback Policeman by Vic Hall, I love to read stories (apart from old truckers stories!) about the exploits of these men that are really amazing, the book no longer available but plenty of info on the internet, (what would we do without it) and local libraries.
We were fortune enough to be colonized by the British as against some other European power, Spain, or God forbid, France, these men that came from the green green grass of home to explore and work in these hash conditions are the true hero's of the development of the country, the incredible feats that these men endured as well as the home grown ones. A man I knew well, Tim O'Shea, who owned Katherine, Laramah and Borroloola hotels, managed by his 3 daughters and their husbands. I took Tim out bush from Katherine for a week prospecting for tin, not serious but his daughters wanted him to enjoy being out in the bush, so interesting sitting around the campfire listening to his stories, he was a wild Irishman (aren't they all!) His son in law, Jack Mahony, who ran Laramah hotel I got to know very well as I used to spend 4 days there waiting for the mail to come back down from Darwin, He also was a Policeman out bush in the NT, showed me a scar alongside of his head where a spear had grazed him in a fight with blacks, if we could only get all these stories written by their own hand what wonderful knowledge we would learn, didn't think of the internet, have to explore some more, thanks again, Ron.