"K.A.R.C. Scrapbook" (1967-1976) Collection

Contents

1. 1 "K.A.R.C. Scrapbook" (1967-1976) Collection
2. 2 "K.A.R.C. Scrapbook" (1967 to 1976) - Ross Barrett Collections
3. 3 Kununurra Museum News
   1. 3.1 Wirraway (A20-62) Tail Found
   2. 3.2 New One Day Record - 66,145 Photo Views

 To commemorate 50 years of the Kununurra Amateur Race Club, in August 2017 a new collection has been placed online, the "K.A.R.C. Scrapbook" (1967-1976), which is part of a larger collection donated to KHS by Ross Barrett in 2002. This collection was uploaded in stages from 1976 back to the final inaugural year, 1967 which now completes this online collection. You can view all from here as a slide-show. Use the '4 cornered' gadget at bottom right to go full screen and from there you can use 'Show Info' to toggle information for each image. Enjoy! Read on below for more Kununurra Museum News.

 

A photograph taken of the remains of tail-plane from WWII RAAF 12 Squadron CAC Wirraway A20-62 as found in the bush at Ningbing station, East Kimberley (about 20km from the WA-NT border) in 2016. KHS Archive No. KHS-2017-59-a-P-BD

 Wonder if anyone out there might recall other details about the Wirraway tail-plane or other remains, which would be most welcome.

It would appear that the remains of the tail-plane must have been removed from the site of the March 20th 1942 forced landing on coastal saltmarsh just five kilometres inside WA from the WA-NT border, at least as far back as the 1980s, as it is not in photographs of the site in the mid to late 1980s. Undoubtedly the salvage by persons unknown, back some time between 1942 and the 1980s, then subsequent abandonment in the bush has saved the tail-plane remnants from the ravages of the coastal saltmarsh.

Embedded below is the 8 Part DV about Wirraway A20-62 for those interested to know more.

[Unfortunately no resize so you will need to view on YouTube to go full screen]

 A post to social media (fb) on June 16th on an interview with Vanessa Mills of ABC Kimberley, about Operation Ord Noah and the Henry Hall collection, had a link to the web page that ABC made using some of the Operation Ord Noah photographs which linked back to the collections (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-16/wildlife-rescue-photos-from-lake-argyle-ord-river-dam-emerge/8621802), was automatically shared to other social media. Several retweets and shares later gave us our largest ever one day tally for KHS collection photo views on the Flickr platform, with 66,145 views which took us over 2.25 million views and tripled the previous one day total, set the month before on May 15th 2017 with 21,099 image view, a boost after the same Ord Noah Henry Hall collection was first placed online.  We normally average around 1000 views per day of KHS photographs on Flickr, so this is many times more than normal. 

 The great thing is that this collection came about by actively collecting, triggered after Bert Lee visited the Kununurra Museum in 2013 (Operation Ord Noah - Bert Lee collection KHS online).  By then making contact with Henry Hall, who Bert talked of as the leader of Ord Noah, Henry posted up his album with good documentation, which was digitised and documented as a new collection. It was a great pleasure meeting Henry and his family when returning the album on a visit to Perth.  A collection of local, State and National significance to the history of the National Development of the Ord River Irrigation Project, which is now accessible to all, from anywhere in the world! (as proved by the link at end of this KHS News post :^)

 

...and here’s the link to the audio of the Ord Noah ABC Kimberley interview (edited - not full interview)

https://soundcloud.com/abcwa/as-the-new-argyle-dam-flooded-an-animal-rescue-mission-was-underway

 The Ord Noah publicity led a journalist writing it up for the Daily Mail UK and posting the following article online, which makes use (with permissions) of quite a number of the photographs. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4612514/Native-Australian-animal-rescue-Ord-River-Lake-Argyle.html

 

 On Saint Patrick's Day - March 17th 2017, which was the day of the 1963 Royal Tour to Kununurra, I decided to post on the Royal Family's Facebook Page, which got a Royal response from a possible future Queen. [I was impressed! Thank you Kate (and family! :^) from the KHS.]

1963 Royal Tour - Royal LIKE!

 

Our friends at the Northern Territory Police Museum & Historical Society (NTPMHS), who first suggested using Google Sites, the base from which I have tweaked and hacked more functionality out of, for this Google Hosted (Apps for non-profits) kununurra.org.au website, ever since we started in late 2010. Thanks John! - I found on the NTPMHS cool YouTube Channel, that they had footage of the Royal Yacht Brittania arriving in Port Darwin in March 1963 as well as the Royal Party arriving at the RAAF 'drome Darwin. An 8mm home film from the NTPMHS Mannion Collection.

(Courtesy of the NTPMHS YouTube Channel, embedded here to view now! :^) Hope you enjoy this great bit of #PortDarwinHistory

Wirraway-Challenge Week - March 20-26 2017 - 75 Years

Some Kununurra Museum News of new research web pages and information on coming events to commemorate 75 years!

Kununurra Museum on Social Networking

KHS has been active in the lead up, posting day by day snippets to our social media and sharing these posts. 

John Gould (1804-1881) - The Birds of Australia (1848) - FREE!

New KHS Website Pages

The Miles of Wyndham

1930-ca - Extending the Wyndham Aerodrome

8m 24s - Marriage and Children - Edwin James [Liljengvist] known as, 'Sam Lilly' was born at Derby [CHECK year?]

Sam Lilly - Went to Wyndham in 1924

        Sam helped build the airstrip in Wyndham.

[KHS Note]

A photograph found at the State Library of New South Wales (online).

1930-ca Extending aerodrome Wyndham - ex SLNSW bcp_05819h

1930-ca - Extending the aerodrome at Wyndham - DL'd for KHS from the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) bcp_05819h

The State Library of NSW has some great digital archives, I found out talking to staff there a few years ago, that they had a very progressive and dynamic directive, thanks to an attitude of, no hesitatation just digitise it and ask questions later! This image for example is freely available as follows.

http://acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemDetailPaged.cgi?itemID=393858 [Opens in a new Tab]

Title Extending aerodrome - Wyndham, WA

Call Number At Work and Play - 05819

Digital Order No. bcp_05819

This image may be used freely without requesting permission. Please acknowledge that the image is from the collections of the State Library of NSW. (OK - Thanks SLNSW! :^)

The Wyulda - Scaly Tailed Possum & Violet Valley

 Here some old information in the form of a 1922 news article about the 'Wyulda' found circa 1919 by Mr Rademy (pictured below), who at that time was at Violet Valley, as well as some more recent information as the Wyulda was recently discovered in other Kimberley locations for the first time. Read more about The Wyulda with photographs of Violet Valley thanks to SLWA

[Image links to the Wyulda Page]

 1920 ca Ambrose and Nance Durack Young Ambrosine Durack, with Mr Rademy and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Webster) at Argyle Downs - Elizabeth Durack personal photographic collection courtesy of the Clancy and Durack families. KHS Archive Number KHS-2011-11-PD-20.

History of Thompson's Spring

A History of Thompson's Spring - Named in 1886 by Tom Kilfoyle is presented on this page - September 1886 - Charly found a spring I called it Tomsons spring." Also has some history about the masonry dam added at a much later date!

Wirraway-Challenge Week (March 20th to 26th) - Kununurra Museum

 It is 75 Years on March 20th 2017, since RAAF 12 Squadron Pilot Sergeants, Lew Dwyer and Warwick Carmody, had engine failure over the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, while on a mission to Drysdale River Mission, fling their first leg between Batchelor and Wyndham. They had to turn south and 'head for Australia' in Lew's words. They only just made it to the widest part of the Ningbing saltmarsh, with a textbook wheels-up landing, as it was too wet to land on the coastal saltmarsh, just 5 km inside Western Australia, adjacent to the WA-NT border (Longitude 129 degrees East of Greenwich). Read more and see 8 x Parts from a DVD about the forced landing of CAC Wirraway A20-62, for a story of Survival & Rescue by Aboriginal stockmen from Carlton Hill station, organised by pedal radio from Wyndham. Go to the Kununurra Museum's - Wirraway-Challenge Display - Page (Wirraway means Challenge! :^) All of the YouTube digital videos (DVs) are embedded lower down on that page or go straight to the...

Kununurra Museum's YouTube Channel  [Opens in a new tab]

Also see the Kununurra Museum Events Page.

1971-72 - KHS - Bert Lee Operation Ord Noah Collection

[Image below opens the collection in a new tab or window]

 

1971-72 - Operation Ord Noah - L-R Graeme Bell - Chopper Pilot - Henry Hall - KHS-2013-31-b-P-BD-14

 This great collection was placed online in the past month and shows some interesting wildlife rescue scenes when the Main Ord River ("Top") Dam first started holding water and Lake Argyle filled for the first time. Bert visited the Kununurra Museum some years ago and his visit led to this collection and thanks to meeting Bert and his late wife Belle, this led to KHS contacting the leader of Operation Ord Noah, Neville Hall, a wonderfully alert Nonogenarian (94 IIRC) in 2014 when I contacted him. Neville also sent his collection which was digitised and documented, then had the pleasure of visiting and meeting Neville and his family in 2015 at his home in Perth, where, in ensuing years after Ord Noah, he had a great deal to do pioneering the Sea Rescue group at Hillarys. The Neville Hall Ord Noah Collection is much more extensive than the Bert Lee collection and will be going online soon. I contacted Bert Lee, who has moved to Townsville (from Safety Bay) to be near his daughter. As Neville Hall has since passed away, his son Ian and Bert may be the last left of the Ord Noah crew - Others now passed away - Harry Butler, Malcolm Douglas, Neville Beeck were part of Ord Noah in 1971-72. 

See the KHS - Bert Lee - Operation Ord Noah Collection (on Flickr) [Opens in a new tab]

KHS - Bert Lee Operation Ord Noah Collection is now online!

Great New Searchable Database

KHS on Flickr Our 2nd Millionth View

 In December we had our 2nd Millionth view of our archival photographic collections on Flickr!  KHS has over 2,000 images online which can be viewed in various ways. Our first Million came in August 2014 which took 3 years and six months from when we started on Flickr in 2011. Our 2nd million views took 2 years and four months from August 2014 (1st Million).

 If these photographs had not been digitised and placed online, they would have still been in the archive and virtually nobody would have seen them. KHS - Making archives accessible to show the significance of this Kimberley History to anyone, anywhere in the world! Enjoy!

State History Conference - Armadale WA

Kununurra is a remote and isolated location but this does not deter the Society. Despite, or as a result of this remoteness, the Society has made a push to develop its digital resources which have been uploaded onto a very informative website. The website includes a wealth of information about Kununurra, including photographs, local events and news. This year three volunteers recorded 3,330 hours on a variety of tasks, including digitisation of the collection, transcription activities and working on the archives. In dollar terms this work is worth some $116,550. The Museum, which in 2015 was open five days a week, increasing to seven days a week in 2016, attracts a large number of visitors. Over the past year 2,009 people have visited. This year Kununurra celebrates its 30th year in operation. Well done!

Unfortunately it does not have the year of each award on the RWAHS page [The years above in square brackets are educated guesses] - If KHS was awarded the 2016 award, then perhaps the RWAHS Merit Award only started in 2010?

Museums Are ******* Awesome!

 The engaging three day Museums Australia WA (MAWA) conference - Engaging Communities - New Times, New Strategies, 12-14 October 2016 was attended by the KHS President, with a full three day program of tours and interesting speakers, we were kept up to speed on what's happening at the cutting edge of other collecting institutions and museums in WA, as well as in the UK and the USA - from where we learned about "Museum Hack" tours at "the Met' " museum in New York and much other useful museum related information. The conference had much of interest on offer and was very useful for networking with other conference-goers in many and varied museum and other collecting institution situations, well worth attending.

 Being as remote as we are (>3000 km from Perth by road) it would have been unlikely to attend without these bursaries, which are greatly appreciated by KHS and we thank all involved from MAWA who assisted in organising the conference,  these travel bursaries and for the funding from LotteryWest to attend the MAWA conference.