Longitude 131°
Australian Pioneers and Explorers
'Nobody owns the land. You are only a caretaker.'
Ian and Lyn Conway
Little more than twenty years ago the Conways began to carve a cattle station out of the virgin red wilderness of Kings Creek. They threw together scrap metal to start a home and rounded up wild camels to start a business. They ran safari tours on camelback into Kings Canyon. They were determined, resourceful and efficient.
'My mother was an Arunta woman, my father a Kidman boss drover,' says Ian. 'I am an Australian.'
Ian Conway grew up on nearby Angas Downs station. His mother died when he was just two and he was raised by his traditional Aboriginal grandmother. It helped him to pick up many skills, one of which was working with camels. He learned to catch them, to ride them and to eat them.
'Chasing camels was a bit of a game back then,' he says. 'Then we realised we could sell them.'
He tendered for some crown land and was successful with a spread set amongst desert oaks at Kings Creek. Ian loves desert oaks.
'We had no money, no machinery, only crown land and a dream.'
'I was an office worker when I met Ian,' says Lyn. 'Then he brought me out here. Where's the homestead, I asked.'
Ian built their homestead, and then the sheds, garages, even a shop ... all out of scrap gathered from wherever he could find it.
'My wife is the real pioneer. She raised three children in a tin shed.'
The tin shed was like an oven in summer and a freezer in winter. They had to wrap the children in blankets so they could sit at the table and eat their dinner.
'Everyone thought we were hillbillies, that we wouldn't make it.'
Everyone was wrong. Kings Creek Station now rounds up its vast cattle and camel herd by helicopter, puts tourists on all-terrain bikes, even plays host to regular documentary film crews. And it is the leading exporter of camels, live and meat, in Australia.
It took more than just physical sacrifices to get there.
'I missed the company of other women,' says Lyn. 'Just to sit down and talk about kids.'
Lyn now has women from all around the world as her guests, as well as the homestead she was looking for. But for Ian no mere building can compare with his precious desert oaks.
'If there was a fire I would want to save the desert oaks. I've even built firebreaks to protect them.'
Camels and desert oaks. Ian once combined both his passions by retracing the steps of the explorer, Ernest Giles. He rode his favourite camel, Atwa down towards Lake Amadeus with Giles' journal as his guide, and followed his century-old markings on the desert oaks.
Desert oaks live for hundreds of years, as will Giles' markings, part of the slow-turning cycle of life in the Red Centre.
As Ian Conway always says, 'The adventure never ends ...'
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