The Chicken Run

One of the great pleasures of being employed here at Fraser Range is driving the quad bike around this beautiful place. Riding solo or having your chick sitting behind you on a bike while she is clamping on is one of the joys of life. Feeling that wind blow through my semi-grey hair - it is the taste of pure freedom.




Amazing Fraser Range

Other than evoking feelings of freedom we are using the bike to do our work. Jules and I have dubbed this job here at Fraser Range station as the “chicken run”. At 8am I hook a trailer to the quad and start the "garbo" round at the kitchen where a large bin full of food scraps is collected. After visiting the horse pens to check if the overnight visiting horses and owners have left any rubbish in the bins, I cruise with the airstream through my locks to the chicken pen. As soon as the bike stops in front of the gate, 30 odd chickens scramble excitedly to the entrance. At this stage I am not allowed to let the chickens become free-range. I push my way cautiously through the "great wall of chicken" into the large enclosure, closing the door carefully behind me so as not to cause any "chicken snitzel". I throw the contents into the pen as far away as possible, but cannot help it if one or two of the excitable chickens get covered in a left-over stray strand of spaghetti. A real frenzy for all these yummy snippets occurs. It is chicken pandemonium in the coop.  Before I have time to fill the bucket with the pellets from the disconnected freezer that serves as storage box or for chickens to roost on, the hens are back on my trail ready to party some more. After emptying the pellets in these cone-shaped feeding containers I am a free man, no longer haunted by the "crazy clucking crowd" (try say that fast a few times).







A safe enclosure with a freezer box

Having never being interested in any episode of “talk to the animals”, I suddenly realise that I have been chatting gibberish to the feathered creatures all the way through. “Good morning ladies, how are we all today?  My, my aren’t we in a hurry today. Oops, so sorry. Here chooky, chooks. Oh, no, that is dirty, and leave her alone you bully”.

At around 2pm the chicken run has a second phase. Again I am required to wildly blow-dry the toupee on the bike and dodge the headless herd. This time I encourage the ladies to escape their mundane surrounds and live it up in the big world by throwing some of the pallets over the fence and  opening the two gates of the enclosure. In my mind this should be an easy task but chickens do not appear to be putting as much value in freedom as us humans. They are more likely to demonstrate against liberation. I can see the banners at the rally already - “freedom sucks” or “our cage, our home”.  

A sit down protest at the gate

If you are looking for reasons why the chicken or "Gallus Gallus Domesticus" does not roam far from the pen it is not too difficult to find. The ladies have their warm cosy sheds, a safe enclosure and plenty of spots to perch on. Most of the “chickens” in the literal meaning of the word only venture a mere five metres over to the lawn across the road. The lawn does offer an undercover area and may act as a protecting shield from falcons or the family of wedge-tail eagles spotted gliding high above the surrounding hills. Maybe those chooks are not that silly after all.





The wedgies on top of the hill

After the girls have tentatively flown the coop it is time to collect the eggs. Some days there are three dozen of these "poop and allsorts" covered chook embryos of breakfast bliss. I dutifully check all the roosting spots and gather the unhatched offspring in the empty bucket even if I have to, like a thief, gently push an overzealous chook off her treasured googies. Every day the eggs are washed by hand, dried and placed in a box ready for sale or to be used in the kitchen. They are big yellow-yoked and so fresh that they are hard to peel after boiling them, but they taste great.  Some days there are kids in the park and I invite them over with a parent to help collect the eggs, wash them and in the end see them walk off proud as punch with a dozen in their little hands.





Another happy customer (photo courtesy of  the Fraser Range Facebook page)

On one occasion, the chickens  have been seen huddling up together underneath a parked ute waiting to be run over. Why cross the road if you can birdfully die in a driveway?

This chicken is strutting across the dirt road

The last phase of the chicken run occurs at dusk. A brief walk to the pen shows that all the chickens are back inside the pen and in essence know where they belong? Their movements are slow and their “pooohks” sound  relaxed. The chickens appear to unwind and crowd together on top of the freezer box and other favourite spots to keep warm from the sharp wind. I walk out, close the gates and through the safety mesh fence wish them ”goodnight”.  Let’s hope the foxes won’t bite.

 

Night falls over Fraser Range

 

Grey Bits

 
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Julie has taken to driving the quad bike. Now I get to hold on to her. We were explained by a bikie couple that stayed at Fraser Range that a guy sitting behind a girl on a bike is called “bitching”.

 

 
 


Julie on the quad waiting to give me a ride

 

The chook compound at Fraser Range is big enough to build a three bedroom house on. When I open the small gate to the adjacent paddock there is enough room for a retirement village but don't tell the chickens. 

A dozen eggs will cost you $4.50. The chickens at this time of the year can barely put up with the demands of the grey nomads and the cook for their produce.

I am using the hand held, CB or walkie-talkie to involve the chickens in the daily running of Fraser Range. This is when all the staff and some customers will hear. “Copy chicken", the chicken answers with a "cluuuuck". Roger that!

Wikepedia states that there are more than 19 billion chickens on earth. More than any other domesticated animal.

The facebook page of Fraser Range is https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=fraser%20range%20station

100 km East of Norseman. You can't miss it

 

The Norseman to Hyden road. A hidden gem.

 

If you are in the Goldfields or traveling across the Nullarbor make sure you get on the Norseman to Hyden road. We started our trip just outside Norseman where we left our caravan in the care of Ron and Ziggy (see the Ron and Ziggy blog at http://semigreynomad.blogspot.com/2016/05/ron-and-ziggy.html) and drove the amazing road from Norseman to Hyden. The dirt road is of such high quality I found the car wondering off in the 90 to 100km per hour range and still feeling quite safe.

 



The smooth ride from Norseman to Hyden

The first 150 km of this road is set amidst the most unbelievable display of gum trees I have ever seen. We saw Black Butts, Gimlets and the famous Salmon Gums that light up at dawn and dusk. This area is certainly an underrated hidden gem and photography here is pure pleasure.







Colourful camouflaged dragon lizards were everywhere on these rocks

 

 



After cruising for about 80km you will see Disappointment Rock appear on the left of the track. There is a great walk marked with quirky interpretive signs indicating sites like “natural bridge” or “gnomes picnics area”. The size of those formations has to be, sorry, disappointing but the landscape and wildlife are certainly not.




Water on Disappointment Rock


Adding to the pleasure of driving through these woodlands are three remarkable spots to free camp. The first campsite area we came across was at Lake Johnson. Nestled at the shore of the massive, at the time, dry pan you are treated with the vast open views from the shelter of old Gimlet trees. 

The view over Lake Johnson after the fog had lifted


We drove in and out of the McDermid rock campsite, which would have been a perfect place to camp underneath the gum trees. We would have loved to have stayed the night here watching the sun set from the top of this huge boulder. Stuck on the back of this granite mass is a large pebble (balancing rock) insecurely, but spectacularly teetering on a steep slope and well worth the clamber up the almost vertical start of the walk.

 

  



The area around the Breakaways at dusk

The friendly lady behind the counter of the Norseman visitors centre rightly recommended the Breakaways as her preferred place to camp out. All eight spacious sites snuggle up to a large limestone wall that gives shelter against the wind and give you the feeling of living in a cave. In the evening you can sit and watch the colors of these change at dawn and dusk or cast your own funny shadows at night.

 

Camping next to the limestone wall

At the end of this road, just before you get to Hyden, lays one of the most popular tourist attractions in Australia - "Wave Rock". I recommend going early in the morning to view the granite breaker as to avoid the ripples of tourists surfing this motionless swell of stone. By the time you finish riding the wave of excitement, dodging your way through the crowd as if you are starting in a triathlon, you would be ready to return to the quiet woodlands of the Hyden to Norseman track.

 

When the crowd ebbed I managed to take this photo

 

 Grey Bits

 

 

Don't miss Hippos Yawn at Wave Rock

Check out the road conditions before you go as it can change in an instant. There are signs at the beginning telling you which part of the road is open or you can call Main Roads WA, “Road Conditions” at 1800 013 314.

 

Check road conditions as things can change

You can collect a free map of the Hyden-Norseman road called the Granite and Woodlands Trail at the Norseman or Wave Rock visitors centre for updates. It contains a lot more information about this area and I have used it as a reference in my story.

 

The view from Disappointment rock

We met a local photographer called Lynn Webb in Norseman who’s photographs I rate highly. Have a look at his stunning artwork at www.lynnwebb.com.au or visit his gallery at the roundabout with the tin camels in Norseman. Sorry Lynn - we could not fit any of your work in our caravan!

 

Before the landing

 

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The bush around McDermid Rock

 

Ron and Ziggy

Ziggy and Ron.

For Geoff

The offending piece of equipment

The first we heard from Ron was his generator. We arrived at Canebrake Pool, non-generator campsite, as camp hosts with the hummm of this noisy apparatus as welcoming serenade in this otherwise tranquil bush camp. We decided to ava’ yarn. During our advance to camp Ron we heard Ziggy's feisty yap for the first time. Ziggy the dog is a Shiatsu, Maltese cross and a red hot little guard dog. Nothing gets near Ron’s trailer without being profusely barked at by the little star man. Over the next couple of weeks we heard the word “Ziggy” yelled out in all sorts of different ways. There was a gruff “Ziggy” if someone walked by or a despairing “Ziggy” when his hunting instinct took over and started chasing a bungarra. “He will tear up a goanna if it gets close” Ron pronounced. “That’s why Ziggy is always on the lead”.

Ziggy sniffing out a possible intruder

Ron soon turned out to be always up for a chat and being of true semi grey nomad ilk, we are allowing ourselves more time for other humans of any kind. Over the next three weeks we got to know Ron quite well. Ron is the person who talks the most of anyone I know that has claimed “I don’t talk much”. Ron can chew the leg off a chair but his stories were always fascinating and loved listening to them.

 

 

Ron in the middle of a story

 

 

 

We found out how his home built trailer was set up with the generator, how he stayed at free camp-sites where they allowed dogs, how he had travelled like this for the last 12 years and and how he was living without fixed abode. Ron has three kids he spoke of with some feeling, but was divorced when, in his words,“she found another fellah”. Ziggy had walked into Rons campsite three years ago and they have taken good care of each other ever since. Julie spent hours talking to Ron about grooming, worming, defleaing, what to feed Ziggy and you could see the pair go for “walkies” at least twice a day.



Ziggy just walked into Rons camp

Three weeks after saying goodbye to the pair at Cranebrake we pulled over to investigate a free camping spot called Bromus Dam close to Norseman. “Hey look Jules - it looks like another Ron” I said, pointing at a campsite in the distance. Promptly, from afar the unmistaking yap of Ziggy followed by a gruff “Ziggy". Ziggy excitedly ran to us like we were long lost friends and jumped all over us. We were all very surprised to find each other in this spot. Ron left Canebrake the same day as us and was on his way to a secret locatation around Kalgoorlie to go prospecting. He said with a cheeky grin that a 36 million dollar nugget, like the one someone found recently, would be a great supplement to his pension. In the same breath he said he would not change his lifestyle one bit but maybe emphasise “style” just a little.

Over a few coldies during what's known as the grey nomad's happy hour, Ron passionately talked about the Vietnam war. As a Corporal in the army, he was teaching his fellow soldiers specialising in the art of dropping in behind enemy lines. The troops were just about to be sent in, including young Corporal Ron, when Whitlam pulled the Aussies out of Vietnam. Ron said he felt very frustrated that he and his men could not go to Vietnam and use the skills they had trained so hard for and to do his bit for this country. An interesting discussion developed whether  Ron, in this case, was plain unlucky or if he had dodged a bullet.



We mentioned to Ron our plans to drive the excuisite Norseman to Hyden road and the rugged Holland track on the way back and asked if Ron and Ziggy would mind guarding our van. In my mind, leaving our van with Ron and Ziggy was always a safe option even though we only knew him for less than a month. Ziggy would raise mary hell if anyone came near our caravan. Ron said they were not going anywhere soon and accepted the job and the carton that would come his way.  When we checked in over the phone from Kalgoorlie he mischievously said the van was ok but he had a couple of offers on it.





Ziggy guarding our property

 

When we returned from our Holland track adventure, we sat down for a cuppa with Ron and Ziggy. In the shade of his tarpaulin Ron said, with a glint in his eye, he was chasing “real freedom”. No one bugging him, out in the wilderness and living out his life.



Ron's camp at Bromus Dam

Crucial to living free out bush, he said you needed to have a fresh water source, good enough to wash clothes and do the dishes as he pointed at a 20 litre white container with greenish water and a tadpole swimming around in it.

Ron always had his fly squat handy as the marsh flies were prolific biters. When one such horrid horse fly creature bit Ron on the leg, Ziggy was immediately at hand to lick the bite gently. We were witnessing a close and loving relationship between dog and man.

Ziggy showing affection

If you find a good place to camp next to a billabong and see Ron’s camp and his fiery grey ball of energy go over and say G’day. We wish Ron and Ziggy the best  of luck on the road and we will call his phone number every once in a while to see if they are both ok or just in case he does find that massive nugget.

 

Grey Bits

 
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Some of the carton we paid Ron with for services rendered