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Carlton Reach Pump Engine

posted 20 Jan 2012 12:35 by Kununurra Historical Society Inc. Archive and Museum   [ updated 22 Jan 2012 01:48 ]

The 1st Industrial Pump Engine on the Ord

Kununurra Historical Society Inc. - Archive & Museum (In Text) A 2010 view looking up-river from the high east bank over the Ord River with a majectic boab to the right. There is a rusted looking industrial pump engine on a concrete pad surrounded by grass. The pump engine, is a Petter's "Atomic" Diesel Engine used at Carlton Reach by Kimberley Michael Durack in 1941 for the first) Added a new page about the pump engine used at Carlton Reach, Ord River Experimental Station, by Kimberley Michael Durack and his brother William Aiden Durack. It was in use from installation late in 1941 through to 1946, when the station was moved, lock, stock and barrell, to the new blacksoil site at Dillon's Bottle Tree, to become the Kimberley Research Station.

Have a read at the...

Carlton Reach Pump Engine page.

There are plans to have this pump engine placed near the entrance gate of the Kununurra Museum, to make this more accessible to all, and to help show the local, State, and National significance of tropical agriculture to the history of the region.

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Ninbing Boab in Early Morning Twilight

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

12days until
KHS Meeting 1st Tuesday of the Month (March 5th 2013) at 7pm - All Welcome!

67days since
KHS Open Day - On Sunday, March 17th 2013, when it was 50 Years since the Royal Tour visited Kununurra on March 17th 1963.

58days 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.

64days 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)

843days since
This site was started on January 31st 2011

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