History of Pardoo
Pardoo was originally established as an outstation of De Grey Station, when Padbury took stock north to De Grey in the 1860’s. He later abandoned the area and it was then taken up by A.E. Anderson, Harper and Grant in 1869. Later Harper was replaced by Edgar.Another change was to come about when the Pardoo section was sold off in 1902 to frank Snellgrove Thompson, Medcalf and Rounsville. They were all bought out by Thompson in 1904.In 1912 Thompson left the station in the hands of managers until his son returned from the war in 1919. He then took over the running of Pardoo. Frank Finlayson Thompson married in 1925 and Pardoo was to stay in the family until it was sold in 1963.The Schubert family bought Pardoo on the 7 May 1963, and then later sold to Karl Stein on 7 March 1967. Russell and Gillian Peake bought Pardoo in 1973 and then later sold to the Brown Family in 1986. In December 1991 John and Pam Leeds bought Pardoo and later sold to Graeme and Judy Rogers in 2005. Graeme and Judy Rogers are still the current owners.In 1902 Pardoo consisted of 414,750 acres, and now with additional land acquired, it measures 500,000 acres or 199,000 hectares. Pardoo stretches approximately 80 km along the coastline and includes tidal creeks and small islands off the coast.Pardoo Homestead, as with De Grey homestead, was close to the Port of Condon, which flourished from 1872 to the early 1900’s when Port Hedland was established as the main port for the Pilbara. Condon is now abandoned.The Pardoo Homestead was extended by the Thompson Family in 1936. The site for the building is significant as one of the early stations to develop from the De Grey run.Of the collection of buildings, the homestead and the shearing shed are the most significant. The homestead is typical of a Pilbara plan type. It has a central “core” containing small numbers of large rooms, no passages and no formal entry or entry hall. It is completely surrounded by verandas and all under a steeply pitched hip room. The kitchen block is separate.The homestead walls are made of concrete and stone and are approximately 450mm thick. The verandas have t-section posts; the steel of which bears the trademark, “Frodingham England”; into the sections fitted to the top hung cyclone shutters. The ceiling height is 3670mm (12 feet) and comes down to 2140mm (7 feet) at the edge of the verandas.Adjacent to the kitchen block is a store saddle room structure which is made of corrugated galvanized iron walls, with framing of lightweight railway lines from the Port Hedland to Marble Bar Railway. The roof is a clear span corrugated galvanized iron vault of some 3m.Pardoo consists of mostly very flat, grassy plains and numerous species of Spinifex. Soft Spinifex being looked upon as the best drought-resistant feed for stock. Pardoo in early times ran sheep, plus a small mob of breeding mares. Camels were used in the running of the station. Now Pardoo is a cattle station running mainly Santa Gertrudis cattle. There are approximately 6,000 cattle on the station at the present time.The rabbit-proof fence was completed in 1907, and ended on Pardoo at Cape Keraudren, where a stone wall was built out to the sea to stop the rabbits coming around the fence. Cape Keraudren was taken out of the Pardoo lease in 1983 to give the public access to the coast.Pardoo has a substantial water supply with the Canning Artesian Basin situated below the lease. There are a number of artesian bores which were established by Wapet in 1955. The most significant being the homestead water supply. It is 90m deep and water is constantly supplied to the homestead and homestead gardens.
23rd May, Friday
We left for Pardoo at about 9 this morning.  A pretty uneventful trip.  We stopped off in Port Hedland to do some grocery top ups. We by passed South Hedland and drove onto Port Hedland to find the shops.  Busy town, nowhere to park a caravan so Ralphie found a spot in a park quite away from the visitor centre where I went to find out where Coles and a camping shop could be found.  Not a bad spot where he parked.  It was a lovely park overlooking the port where they were loading the iron ore ships that were in port.  Really interesting seeing as Ralphie has worked on this project.  Anyways!  I walk all the way to the visitors centre only to be told that we have to go all the way back to South Hedland because that is where the shops are.  Poor Ralphie, it’s not easy manoeuvering a big caravan on small streets. We eventually got there, Ralphie stays with the van (for obvious reasons in this part of the world 😉 ).   I go off to Coles and get all my goodies and walk the trolley all over South Hedland to get back to the car (because, that’s the only place we can find a spot for a van).  Ralphie doesn’t drink much alcohol  but he likes the odd bit of Campari with Soda or Pims (which we bought duty free and is nearly running out), so! I go into Liquor baron (by the way, I also wanted a couple of 2 litre casks because that is the easy way of carrying your plonk). LIquor Baron….. no casks, no campari, no Pimms, no nothing ?, so I leave the shop with nothing :-).  We need to stock up because licensing laws from here on are very strict.  We arrived at Pardoo station at about 3’sh.  This place is awesome.  It’s a working cattle station but they have all the facilities in place.  The toilet blocks are like dongas but all clean and in good working order.  We can fill up with drinking water at the office and they have a sort of restaurant.  You have to book and order and pay for your meal before 5 in the afternoon.  We can sit outside with Hugo, so we might give this a go tomorrow for dinner.  We can drive on the beach to go fishing.  Only problem though is that the creeks have crocs. We have eventually reached this far North were there are Crocs.  A big one was spotted yesterday so poor Hugos swimming days are over for a little while. :-(.  Ralphie cooked our fish for dinner.  An awesome day and the Kimberley sunsets are so beautifull.  Will try and take some pictures tomorrow.  Love you all……… Night xxxxxxxxx

24th May, Saturday
Another glorious day in the Kimberley.  We took a drive to the beach and a couple of the creeks.  It’s all through the station and there is cattle everywhere, grills across the roads and a couple of gates to go through which have to be opened and closed as you go. The tide was out and here it goes way, way out as the land is so flat and you can just make out the sea in the distance. We got bogged in the sand and had to let the tyres down.  Should have done that from the beginning but we are slow learners.  The first creek was called ‘Bake bean creek’, don’t know why, as I would have called it ‘mud creek’. Because the tide was out  and there wasn’t much water and the mud really is clay. There were some people there with dogs and kids and the kids were covered from head to toe in mud.  They were having a good time catching mud skippies.  Poor Hugo was so hot and bothered and he tried to get to the little bit of water that was left.  The poor bugger sank in the mud up to his belly and he was so distressed that Ralph had to jump in and save him. What a sight they both were, both covered in mud.  Hugo decided that he wasn’t impressed with it all and jumped into the car.  Clay mud everywhere :-(.  My camera bag, my seat, the back, the middle console, the lot.  There was no way he was coming out.  We then drove to Banningarra creek where there were quite a few indigenous people fishing for Salmon.  There was a little girl there (2 years old) and she was so gorgeous. I was told to take some pictures of her because she liked the camera.  I was quite lucky really to be able to do that. Got back to the camp site, washed Hugo, washed the car, washed the camera bag, washed the console and back seat………. EISH. We have booked for dinner tonight and were told not to eat lunch because the portions are so huge.  You have to book and order and pay for it all before 5 in the afternoon.  We can sit outside with Hugo, which is great.  We ordered T-Bone steaks, why would you order anything else when staying on a cattle station.  The meat though is probably not from here and comes from Perth.  We learned that at another station we stayed at in the KImberleys 5 years ago.  They don’t slaughter their cattle as they are mainly for export.
25th May Sunday
Today was mostly spent doing nothing.  Ralph went fishing in the morning and we had chicken again for dinner. 🙂  It rained lighly for about 4 hours so we just vegged and read our books.  We had drinks with the people across the way, as you do in these places.  It amazes me though as how people from NSW will single out people from NSW and Victorians do the same etc. etc.  We like to meet people from all over the place and wouldn’t want to single out Western Australians.  Quite bizarre.  We leave in the morning for Broome.  We didn’t want to stop there but we have some business to do with banks etc.  which was unexpected and it’s the last big town before Kununurra. We will do a stopover at Goldwire to break the trip. It’s a 24 hour freebie camping spot.  We will continue to Broome then on Tuesday.
26th May, Monday
We left Pardoo station  before 9.  Had a stop over at Sandfire roadhouse for something to eat and toilet and stretch legs stop.  The last time we were here (about 5 years ago), the roadhouse had a selection of sandwiches (Ham and cheese, Ham, Ham and tomato, that was it).  You were buggered if you didn’t eat ham.  The roadhouse has improved heaps since then and offer all sorts of things now at the price.  We stopped at Goldwire around 1 o’clock and there were quite a few people here already.  We will leave for Broome at sparrows tomorrow.
PS.  I stated that I wouldn’t supply you all with so much history.  I take that all back because the history has been requested. xxxxxx