Events

Welcome to the Kununurra Archive and Museum Events Page

2013 Events

Diversion Dam Opening - July 20 1963

In July 2013 it will be 50 Years since the official opening of Ord Stage I by Sir Robert Menzies. Stay tuned (re-visit this page :-) to find out more about events being planned for later in the year.

Open Days during the Ord Valley Muster – Saturdays May 18th & 25th

The Kununurra Museum will have two weekend open day during the Ord Valley Muster – The Museum will be open on both Saturdays (18th & 25th May) for a book fair/open day from 10am to 4pm.  The Museum has various books for sale new and used, including, A Wild History - Life and Death on the Victoria River Frontier, as well as his new book, Where is Dr. Leichhardt? – The greatest mystery in Australian History, will be available to view and will be for sale at the second open day (25th May). You can read more about these books from the KHS News page.

Graves in the Long Grass

KHS Hon. Secretary, Wendy Carter is once again running her "Graves in the Long Grass" tours for the Ord Valley Muster on Tuesday May 21st 2013. Visitors are taken to several locations on Ivanhoe station land, to see several graves that often are in the long grass,including the grave of 10th Light Horseman, Neal Durack, who drowned in the flooding Ord River, attempting to swim the river with his winnings from the Timber Creek races. He was trying to catch the ship at Wyndham, to see his wife who was about to have a child. Also included is the memorial to Aboriginal stockman, Ulysses, erected by M.P. Durack in 1950. Tickets are on sale at the Kununurra Visitor Centre.

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March 17th 2013 - Royal Tour Open Day

A Sunday open day to commemorate 50 years since Kununurra was a stop on the Royal Tour of 1963, when HRH Queen Elizabeth II addressed the crowd from the balcony of the PWD Hostel (now the Country Club Resort Hotel). On that day, March 17th 1963, the Queen also opened the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) Hospital in Kununurra, after the Royal Tour had landed, reputedly, the first (and only?) time, that the Queen has landed on an unsealed (gravel - "dirt strip") runway. Do any royal watchers know if this is true? If so please contact us. A countdown to this 50th anniversary has been added to the sidebar on the right.

It would be great to see if there are any photographs of the Royal Yacht, Brittania, alongside the Wyndham jetty, or any others you may have of the Royal Tour to the Kimberley in 1963. Please contact us if you do and tell us your story on this or any other Kimberley history. 

To commemorate this 50th anniversary of the 1963 Royal Tour, other collection images not yet online, will be uploaded and made accessible to all. KHS is also hoping to have ready, some 8mm film footage of the Royal Tour, available as our first YouTube video, before March 17th 2013.

View an embedded SlideShow of the Royal Tour in Kununurra, from various KHS archive collections, here while on this page, use the right hand cornered gadget to go full screen.

OR View the Royal Tour 1963 photographic "Set" on Flickr, (Link goes to the set on Flickr in a new tab),



2012 Events

Kununurra Museum - Spring Book Fair

Spring into history and get reading from one of a selection of great new titles:

The Story of El Questro by Meg Hornabrook
A Wild History - Life and Death on the Victoria River Frontier by Darrell Lewis
Kimberley History
Kimberley Stories
& more...
All proceeds go back into your local Museum
Come & check us out! - GRAB A BARGAIN!
Some discounted items - Big selection of second hand books & magazines - Souvenir treasures
8am   to   11am
S a t u r d a y      &      S u n d a y  - 1st   &  2nd     S e p t e m b e r   2012
Spring BOOK FAIR
Where? At the Kununurra Museum - 72 Coolibah Drive, Kununurra
For a Map and contact details - Contact KHS

Book launch/Meet the Author of The El Questro Story - Meg Hornabrook


This Friday 27th July 2012 - 4 pm at the Kununurra Museum - 72 Coolibah Dve, Kununurra. (For a map see our contact page) - Come & meet the author over a cup of tea. All welcome

The El Questro Story - Meg Hornabrook

2012 Australian Year of the Farmer

KHS Museum on the opening night of the Ord Valley Muster in 2011
KHS Museum on the opening night of the Ord Valley Muster in 2011

Open Nights 2012

The Kununurra Museum has three Open Nights planned

for May and June 2012. An Open Day/ and Evening starting on Friday,18th May as this is International Museum Day, as well as two open nights on the consecutive Friday Evenings that follow, during the 2012 Argyle Diamonds Ord Valley Muster, on Friday May 25 and Friday June 1.

Come along to the Kununurra Museum from 10am during the day or in the evening to 9 pm on the Open Night dates (May 18, 25 & June 1).

Contents (on this page)

Australian "Year of the Farmer" 2012

As 2012 is the Australian “Year of the Farmer” the Kununurra Museum, is focusing this year on “Farmers on the Ord,” being a museum for the tropical agricultural, pastoral and social histories of the Ord River Irrigation Area, and the East Kimberley Region, as well as being a “Museum in a Changing World,” which presents New challenges, and New inspirations.

Read more about the Australian “Year of the Farmer” from http://www.yearofthefarmer.com.au/

Or View their interesting video (embedded here). This may not look too "interesting" from first appearances, however KHS recommends all visitors to press the play gadget > now!

International Museum Day - May 18 2012

What is International Museum Day? - Traditionally, International Museum Day is organised around 18 May each year. It can last for a day, a weekend or a whole week as long as the objective remains focused on the motto: “Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples”. Each year, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Advisory Committee proposes a theme that can be interpreted by museums to increase their stakes at the core of society.

2012 International Museum Day Theme

Museums in a Changing World. New challenges, New inspirations

The suggested theme is Museums in a Changing World. New challenges, New inspirations. Today, the world is changing faster than ever. New technology delivers new ideas, gigabytes of information, news of an increasingly unstable climate, all shared by social media. Modern museums must compete for an audible voice against the furious pace of this background.

During International Museum Day on Friday May 18th 2012 the Kununurra Museum will be open from 10am and then for an Open Night, with "Farmers on the Ord" displays at the museum and utilising new technologies online, to share and show the significance of tropical agriculture on the Ord River.

There are displays at the museum about the Carlton Reach Experimental Farm (1941), the later established joint CSIRO / WA Dept of Agriculture facility, the Kimberley Research Station (1946), and the Ord River Pilot Farm (1961), which was operational by the end of 1960, three years before the completion of the Ord River Diversion Dam, and was started as a means of testing the commercial viability of the Ord River Irrigation Area. The Ord River Pilot Farm, was started by an Act of the WA Parliament, called the Northern Developments Act.

Also see an article online about the first pump engine used by Kim Durack in 1941 from...

http://www.kununurra.org.au/research/carlton-reach-pump-engine

Digital slideshows will be running on large screens at the museum or view over 2000 images available online, which have been made accessible to all, in documenting the significance of this National Development project for tropical agriculture, and helping to interpret life in the Kimberley, through the regions own, ever expanding archive, only possible through hard working volunteers and with thanks to all who have contributed archival material.

Date: Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm (dependent on volunteer availability) or by arrangement on weekends or any time online! On the three Fridays of the KHS Open Evenings, the opening hours will be from 10am to 9pm on these days (May 18, 25 & June 1).

Entry fee: FREE! (Donations accepted – Deductible Gift Recipient – All donations are fully tax deductible.)

Contents (on this page)  

2012 Argyle Diamonds Ord Valley Muster

"The Farming Factor - Farmers on the Ord"

2012 Argyle Diamonds Ord Valley Muster - Logo (Caricature drawing of a Boab tree as person with a guitar leaning against a fence).
[Ord Valley Muster] - Hall of Fame - Festivals and Events - WA Tourism Awards - 2011
The Kununurra Museum will host two events for the 2012 Argyle Diamonds Ord Valley Muster. The confirmed dates for KHS - Kununurra Museum Open Day/Night during the 2012 Ord Valley Muster, are:- 

Friday May 25th 2012 the Kununurra Museum will host an Open Night and will be open from 10am until 9.00 pm, on the opening day for the 2012 Ord Valley Muster.

Friday June 1st 2012 (Day before Muster close) will be the second Open Day/Night event for the 2012 Ord Valley Muster.

Both of the Ord Valley Muster events will follow in the themes of "The Farming Factor" - “Farmers on the Ord.” The Kununurra Museum, is focusing in 2012 on the Australian, “Year of the Farmer,” being a museum for the tropical agricultural, pastoral and social histories of Kununurra, the Ord River Irrigation Area, and the East Kimberley Region, as well as being a “Museum in a Changing World,” which presents New challenges, and New inspirations. See KHS Open Nights 2012 (Above).
Contents (on this page)  
On March 20th 2012 it was 70 years since Wirraway A20-62 force-landed on coastal saltmarsh near the WA/NT border, the beginning of a story of survival and rescue in war time East Kimberley. On that morning KHS phoned the pilot of the Wirraway, Lew Dwyer and wished him many happy returns. Lew said, "What for?," before realising it was me and I had reminded him that it was 70 years ago that he had force landed the aircraft, with his co-pilot, the late Warwick Carmody.

Lew laughed heartily and said he had thought about this in past days, but was happy to receive my reminder phone call.

The day before he had driven from his son's home at Charter's Towers back to his home at Taylor's Beach in Queensland, to beat flood waters that he knew were heading that way, succeeding in reaching his home, before floods did cut the roads. Lew is doing well for a ninety year old on a drive like that and still mows his own lawn. I have been receiving a yearly "Christmas Card Phonecall," as Lew calls them since we got Lew to Kununurra for the display opening in 2005. - KHS

Look for more on this in coming News, when there will be more information about this placed online in the form of a virtual museum display, to celebrate this anniversary.

Comments

Ninbing Boab in Early Morning Twilight

Site Owners

Kununurra Historical Society (KHS)
 Archive, Gallery Library, Museum & Research
Kununurra Museum - Coolibah Drive & Online

Dates & Events
Next KHS Meeting
1st Tuesday of the Month at 7pm
All Welcome

14days until
KHS Meeting 1st Tuesday of the Month (March 5th 2013) at 7pm - All Welcome!

65days since
KHS Open Day - On Sunday, March 17th 2013, when it was 50 Years since the Royal Tour visited Kununurra on March 17th 1963.

60days until
July 20th 2013, when it will be 50 years since the Ord River Diversion Dam was officially opened by Prime Minister Robert Menzies

Kununurra Museum Events

For more information on Kununurra Museum Events, for the Australian "Year of the Farmer," see the KHS Events Page

1942

March 20th 1942

Wirraway A20-62

On March 20th 2017 it will be...

75 Years...

Since the forced landing of Wirraway A20-62, on coastal saltmarsh, just inside the WA/NT border, by Pilots Lew Dwyer and Warwick Carmody. See the permanent "Wirraway - Challenge" display at the KHS Museum.

62days since
March 20th, which was the date of the forced landing of 12 Squadron Wirraway A20-62 in 1942. Broome and Derby suffered air raids on this day, March 20th 1942.

1942

1943 (Dry Season)

70 Years ago at Carlton Reach

(Ord River Experimental Station)

During the dry season of 1943 Kim and Bill Durack continued their work on the "Ord River Experimental Station," which had been set up late in 1941 at Carlton Reach using the waters of the Ord. More information is available about the 36 HP Petters "Atomic" diesel pump engine, used to raise the water for these first major experimental attempts at irrigation, at the twenty acre farm site. available from the Carlton Reach Pump Engine

ABC Kimberley Radio Interview (March 2013) - About the "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine - See http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/03/18/3718139.htm?site=kimberley

News Flash!
In April 2013 the 36 HP "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine" was donated to the Kununurra Historical Society by the Department of Agriculture and Food WA - Frank Wise Institute of Tropical Agriculture (formerly the Kimberley Research Station, where the engine was also in use until the 1950s), KHS plans to display the original pump engine by the entrance gate of the Kununurra Museum.

Events from 2011

Wyndham and Hall's Creek (aka "Kimberley") were established.

1886

125 Years Ago
(In 2011)

In May and June 2011 It was
90 Years
Since the WA and SA Government Astronomers came to the Kimberley in
1921
to determine the position of the WA/NT Border on the ground by using the new technology (in 1921), of radio time signals. This exepedition in 1921 would locate the border position and a WA Survey crew would come back in 1927 to build the Kimberley Obelisk, which still determines the border today.
Read More about the 1921 WA/NT Border Determinations

1941

1941
Carlton Reach

"Thethebeleng" or "Carlton Reach"
:-( now sadly, referred to as Lake Kununurra)
Was the largest permanent waterhole in the entire Kimberley Region, held back by a place called "Tharram," the "Rocky Falls" or "Jasper Bar" or "Bandicoot Bar," stretching all the way to "Carlton Ridge" or the head of the "Sleeping Buddha, as it is known today."

"Kim's Place"  or "Ord River Experimental Station" or "Ord River Experimental Farm" or "The Cabbage Patch" - No matter what it has been referred to in writing, this was the WA Government's precursor to the joint Federal (CSIRO) - State (WA Ag. Dept.) Kimberley Research Station (KRS).

The 1941 experimental station was set up at Carlton Reach, by Kimberley Michael Durack, for the Department of Agriculture WA, with assistance from the Public Works Department, along with his brother William A. (Bill) Durack, and other helpers along the way.

It will be 75 Years Ago
(in 2016)

Read More on the Carlton Reach Pump Engine Research Page

Top (Top of page text start - Starts below header photograph of the Diversion Dam)

841days since
This site was started on January 31st 2011

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