Roebourne District High School visit Karratha Station
Last week, the students of Room 1 at Roebourne District High School swapped the classroom for the paddock, heading out to Karratha Station for a hands-on On-Country learning experience. Here's what they had to say:
On Wednesday last week, Room 1 embarked on an On-Country adventure to Karratha Station. Connected to our in-class learning about Station Life and as an extension from the Mingullatharndo (5-mile) excursion earlier this term.
Room 1 has been learning how to locate significant places on local, regional and state maps. As the Stations are such large pastoral properties, we learnt to use a regional map to find the significant Stations around the Pilbara.
Room 1 discussed some of the important jobs that are required around the Station such as building fences and looking after the animals. There were so many questions we had for our trip — Who are the workers today? Did Aboriginal people shear the sheep? And what animals would be on the Station?
During our visit we met Mr Jeffery, the Station Master, and Mrs Amanda and Mrs Jodi, who help manage Karratha Station through Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation.
We saw some of the old buildings, the old shearing shed, the Workers' maya, the workshop, and the cattle ramp. We also learnt about the solar panel that now helps the station generate power from the yurra (sun).
The students were especially excited to see the animals, some wild and some being reared up. First, we met the bulugu (cows) — the children really liked the way they nuzzled with their heads. While filling up the water trough, the children were very curious to see the little frogs jumping and swimming around in the tank.
Last we got to meet the wild yawada (horses) that had been gathered into the paddock. These yawada are very young and are yet to be broken in — that means no one has ridden them yet.
Some of our mangularra were brave enough to offer their help to break the horses in. Unfortunately, our trip had come to an end, and we started making our way back to the homestead.
We thanked the lovely Station staff for our visit and got back on the bus to Roebourne.
A huge thank you to Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation for your support in facilitating this wonderful experience for our class. It was very special to see what families and local people are doing in our community.
Thank you to
Woodside North West and its joint venture partners for funding the transportation to Karratha Station. This initiative provided valuable support for our On-Country experience.