Vision, commitment and a strong sense of purpose are a potent combination on the Pilbara’s Warrawagine station.
Story By Mark Muller
A soft wind stirs the gum trees along the banks of Carawine Gorge – a natural wonder on the Oakover River nestled within the borders of the 401,000-hectare Warrawagine Station in Western Australia’s northern Pilbara.
Healthy looking Droughtmaster bulls are lying in their dustholes in the shade. Further along the bank Robin Mills and Rob Jowett are sitting on a grassy rise talking quietly, laughing occasionally and working their way through a packed lunch that’d probably be enough to happily fill the stomachs of at least four blokes. They are down this end of their property to have a look at the site of a new venture – centre pivot irrigation utilising the runoff water from the nearby Woodie Woodie manganese mine. They plan to plant sorghum, cut it and convert the biomass to methane, then to compressed natural gas. It’s another in a long list of improvements and innovations that have been wrought on Warrawagine over the past two decades.
This story excerpt is from Issue #100
Outback Magazine: Apr/May 2015
