FRONTIER NEWS FEATURE
RHETT Walker has raised three sons on Lorella Springs Station. It’s home — the family has owned and run the million-acre NT property, bordering Limmen National Park and the Gulf of Carpentaria, for more than 30 years.
“Kids are so adaptable,” Rhett said. “When you’re out bush or travelling with them they learn to be capable and, if you trust them, it takes away some of the worry.”
Rhett is an authority on the matter — as kids, he and his sisters Lara, Shanie and Rachael spent five years on the yacht Stormbreaker travelling to remote corners of the Pacific as their parents, Pete and Nance Walker, filmed an ocean adventure documentary.
Rhett and his sons — Indiana, 22, Tristan, 20 and Alaska, 8 — are building on the legacy Pete and Nance began when they bought Nathan River Station, which they lost to the bank after Cyclone Sandy devastated the property in 1985.
Rhett was 14 and dropped out of school to help the family get back on its feet. They ended up owning neighbouring Lorella Springs, which remains a working cattle station.
About 17 years ago they began to establish a wilderness park tourism operation to lure in adventurous travellers, hauling water and mixing cement by hand to build the first flushing toilet block.
It was reminiscent of when the family first arrived at Lorella, with just a tarp for shelter, no electricity or running water, and just a few vehicles passing each year — one of which was the police to make sure they were still alive.
Rhett said word had now spread about the bush destination among campers — nudists welcome — bird watchers, 4WD enthusiasts, bush walkers and fishos.
“Ten years ago I would have been surprised if someone had pulled up here with a baby, but we get a lot of families now,” he said, holding fivemonth-old Alby on his knee.
to Lorella Springs is half the fun — and the challenge. We left Darwin during the build-up expecting a dry run, but the tropical downpours began early.
We had 50L of drinking water, a 20L jerry can of diesel and a tent that proved delightfully waterproof when we were caught in torrential rain during our first camp at Doug- las Hot Springs. That was about five days before heading to Lorella, at which point I declared the situation a “f--king disaster”.
It wasn’t, but tell that to a woman being eaten by mosquitoes in the dark while attempting to breastfeed a screaming baby. In a car.
We slid down the rutted Roper Highway and camped near the river at Roper Bar, about 600km by road south east of Darwin (camping permits available from the general store), before heading into Limmen National Park.
Having had a mildly terrifying automotive misdemeanour in the crocodile-infested Finniss River when I was seven months pregnant, Trav and I were a touch edgy at the idea of driving through water. I studied the map, counting the number of rivers and creeks we needed to cross as we turned onto Nathan River Rd, on the Savannah Way. A tip: the map doesn’t show them all.
Most creek beds were dry, with a few unexpected narrow but deep crossings. Dead reeds high in the trees showed the size of the floods that could come in the Wet, while parts of the dirt road were under water from a storm two days earlier.
The knee-deep Towns River was our first test — we passed, and rolled out the awning (without pegging it down) to eat lunch in its shade on the hot, still bank. Suddenly a freak gust of wind picked up the canvas and poles, then sent it flying back towards us. Trav caught it without dropping his cheese and cucumber sanga.
not to be impaled, we carried on through Limmen, Australia’s second-largest national park at 10,000sq km, and relatively new, having been declared in 2012.
Not having phone range to check the weather and, given the Territory’s charming unpredictability, we decided to leave camping in Limmen for the Dry and made a beeline for Lorella in case the monsoon came and cut off the road.
We learnt that with an average speed of 50km on the corrugated and sometimes boggy track, along with boob stops, toilet stops and please-stop-crying-Alby stops, driving 265km may take an entire day.
Animal-shaped tin signs promised hot springs and cold beer as we approached Lorella, and with Alby screaming in protest at the marathon drive we finally bumped through the gate to the homestead just before sunset — and two weeks before the station closed for the Wet.
“You’ve come at the wrong time of year to see Lorella at its best,” Rhett warned us. We knew, but we still wanted to explore. We weren’t disappointed.