Now this blog is Big, but maybe a more apt word to describe it is Huge!  We have had a great time at Anna Plains and I just have to record the story.........

Although we had planned to leave Eighty Mile Beach CP about 9.00am, we were all up early and on the road by just after 8.30am.  On reflection, as I think about the morning that unfolded, maybe that was the start of where things went pear shape.  But Dennis had started to be the leader and he had left, so we followed.  We were headed for Anna Plains Station, the home of Helen Campion and David Stoate and their family of two, Timothy and Joanna.  Anna Plains is approximately 146 kms from Eighty Mile and then there is 16 kms of gravel in from the highway.  David’s 88 year old father, who has only three percent vision, still lives on the station, but more of that later.

We stopped at Sandfire Roadhouse for fuel and we had hoped to be able to purchase a coffee.  But they don’t do coffees!  Why didn’t I make one before we left?  So we hit the road again, Dennis off in front once more.  John and Dorothy’s son in-law, Bruce aka Saus Jones who is married to Christine, was having six days holiday at Anna Plains, with their two children Keely and Campbell.  His break also involved a little work as Saus is Anna Plains accountant.  Christine had taken a group of students to the snow, so the timing all worked well for a visit to Anna Plains.  John and Dorothy would have a catch-up with Saus and the grandchildren and they were known to Helen and David. There is a small caravan park at the station, but these days the Stoate family do not encourage or promote caravaners, but they are happy for the friends they have made over the years to come back and stay.  And they do…..and they stay for three and four months.  Bev and Pam look after you when you arrive and handle the books for Helen.  The cost is $35.00 per night and you need cash.  There is limited mobile reception on Anna Plains.  Sometimes you are lucky enough to get one bar.  Pam has known the Stoate family for many years and she is the first person Helen and David ask to look after John, if they are going to be away for any length of time

Back to the story of getting to Anna Plains.  John Stokes had organised with Saus to come down to the front gate to meet us on the highway.  Leaving 80 mile before 9 and the fact we couldn’t get a coffee at Sandfire, meant we were early.  As it turned out only by about 5 minutes, but we were early!  Dennis was away off in front of us.  John called on the two-way when we had about 10 kilometres to go the station.  Dennis doesn’t have a two-way.   A couple of us did spot a small sign for Anna Plains which was on the right hand side of the road, but it was a little short of the 10kms, and we were going too fast to actually see the mailbox.  Dennis was kms in front and obviously hadn’t seen the sign.  So there was a bit of two-way contact and with the help of another caravaner, we established we had gone too far and needed to turn around.   We did have enough mobile coverage in the truck bay we pulled into for Dorothy to ring Saus.  But even with all this happening there was no sign of Dennis and Margaret coming back.  We waited for a bit, but were actually convinced they would continue on to Broome.  But they did end up deciding to turn around and arrived at the Station an hour and a half later.  Dennis told us that night, he had not been happy.  Guess he wasn’t, but we will say no more on the matter!  

Anna Plains is a beautiful station and every time we poked our head out of the caravan we looked across the plain to lots and lots of cattle, some free loader horses that are no longer used on the station, a donkey and a camel.  We had Daisy, the once poddy calf, visit us all day and we took a number of photos of Daisy walking over the cattle grid to come into her personal grazing ground.  Which is acres of lawn area and with such an abundance of artesian water on Anna Plains, the sprinklers are on every day.  Daisy’s personal water trough was at the back of our vans and Bev and Pam ensure it is regularly cleaned for her.  Bev had organised a fire drum for us and Scottie the ‘Project Manager’ of the station, who is actually a ‘Sound Engineer’, organised the wood for us.  Scottie is a very talented fella and we danced to his music booming from the huge speakers under the ‘Sound Structure’, that was going to be his house and maybe it will be some day.  The structure has been built by Scottie and it has been built to withstand cyclones.  He intended to build something above to live in and he was going to have a stage underneath.   Scottie has a sea container at the station with all his sound gear in it.  He has travelled all over the world preparing the sound systems for artists such as Madonna, Kylie Minogue etc etc. 

John and Peter were lucky enough to spend an hour or more with Scottie on Monday morning, travelling out to one of the latest projects, the  sub-soil irrigation of Rhodes grass, which is cut for hay.  Scottie has been at Anna Plains for about six years and he does go off from time to time and do his ‘Sound Engineer’ projects.  Certainly one of our Anna Plains highlights was ‘Dancing Under the Stars’ on Saturday evening with DJ Scottie and there were certainly some ‘Anna Stars’ amongst the dancers.  I think Joanna Stoate would have won the trophy though.  Joanna is studying the arts at university and Timothy is in his second or third year of medicine.  Helen and David came back to manage Anna Plains in 2005.  Helen is a registered nurse and was working in the theatre of a Sydney Hospital.  David was working for Rabobank in Sydney.

David’s father John first invested money in Anna Plains in the late 1980’s.  He studied for his university degree in commerce as a mature student in his early 30’s.  He worked for the Department of Agriculture in Albany as an economist and moved back to Perth when David, their third child flatly refused to go to boarding school.  We went and had a drink with John on Sunday evening.  Helen and David had gone to an engagement party at Mandora Station that afternoon and had suggested we might like to join John on the verandah of the rammed earth station stay accommodation and quiz him on his life at Anna Plains.  John sits on the verandah of this lovely little building each afternoon with his glass of wine and his many friends that call in for a station fix at this time of the year, come and chat with him. 

John retired from the Ag Department at the age of 58, I think invested in the station a few years later and a couple of years after he lost his wife, he moved to Anna Plains.  The station now runs approximately 18,500 head of cattle.  Dorothy asked John “How many cows they had on the station”?  John was quick to tell her 11,500.  His vision might be gone, but the mind is still pretty good and he listens well!  There are now 70 watering points on the station.  There was nowhere near that number when John came.  The artesian water is piped and there are many bores.  The station employs a cook and at present she is cooking for 28 people.  It is her job to order the supplies and meet the truck when it comes from Broome, 260kms away.  She starts work at 4.30am six days of the week.  Has the breakfast cooked and sandwiches made for lunches by 6.00am.  There is a staff meeting in the open sided dining area after breakfast each day.  All staff knows exactly what their job is for the day and most times they work in pairs.  Helen says “They can’t afford for someone to be stranded somewhere with flat tyres or whatever”.  

Anna Plains stretches from the Great Sandy Desert to the coastline of Eighty Mile Breach that is really a beach of 140 miles.  The station covers an area of just under 1 million acres or 400,000 hectares.  Anna Plains starts within 500 metres of Sandfire Roadhouse on one side of the highway. 

Now what did we do during our three night stay at Anna Plains?  About 4.30pm on Saturday afternoon we went to the beach with drinks and nibbles to take in the beautiful sunset.  There were a number of David’s university friends staying at the station, so there were quite a few of us on the beach.  It was here we met Helen and I was able to introduce myself as Nicole Batten’s mother in-law and then Pete followed by saying he had to be her father in-law!   Nicole went to Indonesia with Helen for a leadership study tour, a couple of years ago.  When we told Kim where we would be going next, he alerted us to the fact that Helen and Nicole had been on the trip together.  So we did sorta think we had a link to Anna Plains and weren’t complete ’Ring Ins’ of ‘Tag a Longs’!  Helen obviously thought  so too and insisted we have a photo together so she could post it on Twitter.   Not sure that she actually did do that but it was sent to Nicole.  We did pass on a ‘Big Hello’ from Nicole and Helen shared Nic’s text message with us on Sunday morning.   What a classic the video was that Helen took on Saturday night and sent to Nicole.   Helen and David look forward to Nicole and Jason’s visit one day.  We are sure they will cut up the dance floor ‘Under the Stars’ at Anna Plains.

On Sunday our orders from Helen were to be at the kitchen by 9.00am.  Most of the staff had gone to Fitzroy Crossing for a Rodeo and a chopper would be at the station early on Monday morning to start the muster at Rocky’s Cattle Yards, which were over an hour from the homestead.  Bales of the Rhodes grass hay needed to be taken to the yards.  Every available ute that a driver could be found for, was loaded with a bale of hay and Dennis drove the little truck on which four bales were loaded.  

We were all lined up for the photo shoot, before we left.  If the truck that was in the workshop was not under repair, it would have taken the hay to the yards. The maintenance on vehicles must be massive and there are vehicles everywhere!  Margaret and I were in Helen’s crew cab with Jenny, the mechanics wife.  Jenny and Craig have only been at the station for a month.  Jenny loves it and her job is to help out wherever.  Jenny told us “She has the best job ever and Anna Plains is the most beautiful place”.   We also thought Anna Plains was a very nice station.

About 4.00pm on Sunday Saus took us out to the ‘Hot Tub’.  No one visits Anna Plains without a visit to the tub and we needed to get our bathers on!  The artesian water flowing into the tub was lovely and warm, not sure about the brown we all had on us when we got out, but we enjoyed the ‘tub’ experience.  David had his 40^th birthday celebration with a surprise barbie out at the ‘tub’.

Anna Plains was severely hit by ‘Cyclone Kelvin’ on the 18^th February 2018.  There was severe damage to many of the buildings and they are still haggling with the insurance company over claims.  At the time it was estimated there was damage to the buildings of $150,000.  More than 551 mls of rain was recorded in February for Broome, the highest recording since 1896.  The plains of Anna plains were flooded and there is evidence on the fence line of the volume of water that flowed across the plains.  There were still large pools of water to be seen on our trip to Rocky’s.  

On Monday we were up early to see the chopper land to refuel and then take off for Rocky’s and the muster.  It was a huge day for John and Dorothy’s grandson Campbell.  He just loves his time at the station and he was up early to be part of the days muster.   The muster went well and they ended up with more cattle in the yards than they had anticipated.  The drafting took place on Tuesday, so Campbell was up early again.  He would probably be helping with the counting.  The  station has only sold 1,000 head of cattle for the year.  Normally they would have sold 3,000 by now, but the cyclone has put them way behind.  They have not been able to get to many areas of the station without having to travel many more kilometres.  David said they will probably get about 600 head to sell from this draft.  It will be about 16 decks and they will be going to Darwin, which is about 2,200 kms away. 

Everything about Anna Plains is big, including the logistics of every operation.  One can imagine the discussions four of us had about the immensity of the operation.

On Monday afternoon we did attempt to go to a point with supposed stunning views of the ocean as you come over the rise. We werew led to believe the road was not too bad and it was well worth the three quarter of an hour drive.  Well we didn’t find the road good.  We thought we were going to shake every bolt out of the car and it was tough on Pete dodging the bushes, so the car didn’t get scratched.  We gave up, when possibly we were nearly there, and came back to the beach that we had gone to on Saturday night.  Peter and Dennis got the rods out and had a fish.  Pete caught himself a thread fin salmon and Dennis landed himself a good size shark.  Fisherman John helped Dennis get the fish in.  The guys said the shark would be good eating, so we all have a couple of feeds in the freezer.  Catching fish does put the pressure on things when you get back to camp though.  The catch had to be filleted and Margaret had cooked silverside for us all to have together on our last night at Anna Plains.  Peter and I had made Pete’s little shark from Eighty Mile into patties and we had all enjoyed that dish on Saturday evening, before the music cranked up.  Desert became the little Lemon Poppyseed Cheesecakes that had been made whilst at Eighty Mile.  We even had table cloths and candles for our ‘Dinner Under the Stars’.

We have some really great memories of our first visit to Anna Plains.  Thank you John and Dorothy for organising our visit and thanks too, to Helen and David for their hospitality and the opportunity to experience just what life on a station is all about!  We really enjoyed our stay.