Graham and Maree Morton
“A river running past your door”
Innamincka township is a popular destination on the Strezleckie Track, 1105 Kilometres from Adelaide. It’s then a short drive to Innamincka Station, a 13818 square kilometre piece of the Channel Country, characterised by open gibber plains, sand dunes and Spinifex flood plains , rocky hills, and an amazing variety of flora and fauna.
Graham and Maree Morton have lived at Innamincka Station for eighteen years, and in this part of the country for much longer. Graham sums it up, “We haven’t moved around a lot.”
Innamincka’s station complex is close to Cooper Creek, fed further North by the Barcoo and Thomson Rivers. Graham is content “A river running past your door……….. Yeah, I’m a river person.”
During a wet season, the flood waters take up to two months to reach Innamincka’s flood plains. Although cattle sometimes become trapped in the sand hill country during a flood, Graham remains optimistic. “It’s good to see that…… that flood water like that.” As the water recedes, clover and other natural grasses flourish. “That river country is a natural feedlot, that’s what it is!” Photos reveal the flood heights over the years, and at times a tinny moored to the house fence has been used to boat employees to work.
Graham was born in Alice Springs, and spent most of his childhood on the Morton family’s Pandi Pandi Station, near Birdsville. At the end of five years at boarding school in Adelaide, he “bailed out, it wasn’t doing me any good.” He then returned to Pandi Pandi for six years where pack horses were part and parcel of work life at the station “It’s all you did those days…….. good days, but I wouldn’t want to go back to those days, that’s for sure.” Following this, Graham shifted to Durham Downs, working with Johnny Ferguson.
Graham met sixteen year old Maree Bunckhorst at a race meeting dance at Betoota. She was home on holidays from a Brisbane boarding school, and the stage was set for romance. Maree was born at Augathella QLD, and her parents shifted to Brisbane before she started school. She and her older sister attended school at Boonah, close to her grandparents’ dairy farm where she spent many happy childhood hours. When her grandfather died in 1966, her parents decided to take up work as cowboy and cook on Cluny Station, near Bedourie. In spite of loud protests and tears, eleven year old Maree was enrolled at an Ipswich boarding school. It was a sad and difficult time, and for Maree the school holiday visits to Cluny, and subsequently Morney Plains and Durrie Stations meant freedom and enjoyment.
The young couple’s courtship was firmly established when rain cancelled a return flight to boarding school, and Maree was able to accept an invitation from the rather shy Graham to his sister’s twenty first birthday party.
Following Year 12, Maree’s parents relocated to Brisbane and she spent eighteen months working in a bank, separated from Graham once more. However “distance makes the heart grow fonder,” and in 1975, they were married. Graham brought his bride to Durham Downs, and Maree discovered that the reality of bush life was very different from her school holiday adventures. With Graham away working in the stock camp for weeks at a time, loneliness set in. The arrival of their baby daughter Catherine in early 1977 alleviated the loneliness, and by this time the young family were living at Orientos Station. Six months later Graham took up an opportunity to manage Karmona Station, near Durham Downs. Their arrival at the station was a shock for Maree. Graham chuckles “The white ants were holding the homestead together I think.” Rotting floorboards, cracked walls, and a leaky corregated iron roof all added to Maree’s despair. There was no hot water, no phone, (only two way radio) and barely any furniture. Vegetable crates became cupboards for their clothes – lettuce for Graham, cauliflower for Maree. In time, Graham installed a “donkey” and they had the luxury of hot running water. Oil exploration in the area meant new roads were opened up, and contact with neighbours and visitors gradually became easier and more frequent.
The Morton’s second child, Stewart was born in 1979, followed closely by the arrival of a new house. At last Maree had a real home, and her love for bush life grew slowly and surely. Working with Graham in the drafting yards in Summer heat sometimes resulted in equally heated encounters. Tempers would flare, and Maree would head back to the house in tears, usually returning once she’d “cooled down.”
Life at Karmona presented risks and possible dangers, with snakes high on the list. One particular day, Graham discovered a very large python (quite harmless) in the shower, and decided not to inform Maree. She began her shower, and Graham chuckles again. “You should have heard the cooees coming out of the shower after that!” Maree quietly yet firmly affirms that “the snake was HUGE!”
Catherine and Stewart grew up at Karmona, and Maree had constant concerns about snakes, and the nearby Cooper Creek. So, when toddler Catherine went missing one day, Maree ran, first to the outhouse, a pit toilet, and then the dam. Searching frantically, they eventually found Catherine, fast asleep behind the gas freezer. She had pushed a chair to the refrigerator to try to reach a box of chocolates, and had slipped down behind the freezer, where the gas made her sleepy. Thankfully she recovered quickly. On another occasion Stewart escaped serious injury when he went riding his bike, carrying a whip around his neck. The whip became caught in the wheel, and began to choke him. Fortunately Graham was close by, and intervened.
Home schooling presented another challenge for Maree; one which she faced with characteristic calm and determination. Combined with cooking, book keeping, housework, feeding animals and other chores (which included establishing a lovely garden with Graham’s help), there was no time for boredom! Boarding school was an inevitable reality for Catherine and Stewart‘s education, and for Graham and Maree, sending their kids away was tough.
When the Cooper Creek flooded it could mean being flood bound for up to three months. However minor flooding didn’t stop them from getting to events, like a race meeting at Eromanga. At Durham Downs, it would take a day to take motor cars across the flooded creek with tractor and trailer, and the next day, the people and gear. Maree laughingly remembers “putting all the deck chairs on the trailer, and sitting up there with the kids on our laps, with the race horses coming along behind!”
In 1989, Karmona was sold and became an outstation of Durham Downs. This was an unsettling time, and in 1993, the Mortons accepted an offer to manage Innamincka Station. They’d been at Karmona for sixteen and a half years. The effects of drought and floods represent some of the challenges faced by station managers, and when Graham and Maree first arrived at Innamincka, it had been destocked because of drought. However with a lot of “moving cattle around”, droughts can be managed, and coming out of the last drought in 2009, over 10,000 head were retained. In a good year, the station can carry up to 15,000 + head not exceeding 20,000 head. Graham reflects, “It’s a good job…….. yeah, I love it. It’s rewarding sometimes, and it’s disappointing sometimes. Drought knocks you round a bit. Then, you get rain, and it’s just like the grass growing, it dies and comes back again when it gets moisture, and you come back to life again too.”
Graham and Maree encourage a family atmosphere at the station; the kitchen and adjacent TV room are welcoming places. Graham’s quirky, teasing sense of humour is balanced by Maree’s quiet, caring nature. Graham grins. “We try to keep the happiness. A bit of fun amongst them all. We all have our days…….. have a dig, have a go! They give me as much as I give them, don’t you worry!”
Asked about any incidences in his working life, Graham admits he’s “had a couple of scares I ‘spose.” In 1990, he was a passenger in a plane that “fell out of the sky,” landing upside down in the river. “By the law of averages I shouldn’t be here, but I am!”
Nodding towards the station cattle yards Graham continues “ I was squashed down there…….. a mob of cattle run over the top of me. Rolled me for a while!” At the time, stockman Arty Degoumois checked the unconscious Graham by poking him in the eye “like they do a bullock” Arty concluded “he’s dead, that’s for sure,” and sent stockman Chook Kath running to the homestead to break the news to Maree. Meantime, the pilot realised Graham’s tongue was blocking his airway, and applied the necessary first aid. Arty yelled after Chook, “Chook! Chook! Chook! It’s all right, he’s breathing!!” By the time Chook reached the house, the message had changed to “Maree, Grahams hurt, you’d better come!” Graham spent about a week in hospital, and concludes that he “had a few bruises all over for a while.”
We (Lyle and Helen) have been visiting Innamincka Station for many years, enjoying the sometimes rough drive through dramatic countryside, as well as the hospitality extended to us. The comraderie between Graham and the staff, and Maree’s gentle welcome, guarantees an entertaining and pleasurable stay. Their commitment to , and love for Innamincka Station is admirable and inspirational. Maree’s description of Graham in his younger days as “a little wirey fella on a horse” may prompt a teasing response from some of the workers, but we know that Graham’s retaliation will equal any comments they come up with, don’t you worry!