in between and the flood plains of the coastline. As a cattle station it supported some 8000 head of cattle at the time Defence purchased it, which were removed over several years by the station owner. The cattle were generally confined to the river valleys, leaving the mesas almost completely untrodden by European feet. This was quite telling for us, when dropped off by a helicopter to recon a communication site. As the chopper would fly off into the distance, the isolation of history would drop over you like a blanket and you immediately hoped that the pilot would not forget where he dropped you off. Defence, as a responsible land owner, removed the 1000s of donkeys, goats and pigs that roamed freely. Those who say that Defence should not own such magnificent country should look at Shoalwater Bay, which has recovered to World Heritage status. It is the same for Bradshaw. The ‘eaten out’ plains of the river valleys have recovered to genuine ‘treed’ grasslands with river banks no longer being broken down by hoofed animals. The occasional battle tank or exploding piece of artillery ordnance does far less damage than a herd of cattle. I was part of PSMC, a small company of ex Army and Air Force people, providing consulting services to Defence for 20 years or so from the early 2000s. One of the products we developed and delivered was STARSN, the Standard TA Range Safety Net. We were tasked with providing STARSN at Bradshaw, which the techos in our company worked at. Ian Biggs, ex 108 and 16AD, was one of the installation managers of the work. However I, along with Susan Hickey, an environmental scientist and ex-Army Major, worked closely with Defence to help guide the Environmental Management Plan of Bradshaw. The last thing that Defence wanted was to have an EMP completely out of step with the training requirement. Thus we spent many years working hand in hand with the environmental companies doing the EMP to ensure they understood the fire and manoeuvre requirements and not to put in unreasonable and impractical restrictions before Defence even put a foot on the ground. Then, during the latter part of the process, I presided over the Range Siting Board that was signed off by Gen David Hurley as VCDF at the time, to create the TA as it is today. I had been to Bradshaw by heli a number of times, but not by road. With great anticipation I looked forward to my first road trip. Lo my wife was with me. We gave her the job of being the station cook! The Vic River bridge was not even on the drawing board then, and we had to cross the river using a reef upstream from Timber Creek. Only ever used by station hands, the reef crossing requires the driver to line up a star picket on the far shore of the river (which was at least 100m wide at this point). Entering the river, the driver must keep an eye on the opposite bank at about half right. Around mid-river, another star picket would be sighted, and this second picket is strategically placed so that the moment it becomes visible, the driver must turn and aim for that second picket. A moment’s hesitation would result in your 4WD floating off into deep water… with the knowledge that several dozen crocodiles would most certainly be waiting in anticipation! And all this whilst water splashes up over the bonnet, even at low tide. Once on the Bradshaw side, we drove through beautiful tropical bushland until we came across the Angalarri River. This is a tributary of the Victoria which runs more or less up the centre of the primary manoeuvre corridor. The Angalarri, like the Victoria River, can only be crossed at low tide, and on this first crossing we came upon a small, one metre long shark, freshly dead, stranded in mid crossing, obviously caught out by the tide. A few years later, as I was flying over that part of the Angalarri in a helicopter, we chanced upon a ‘pack’ of saltwater crocodiles which had herded and trapped a school of Barramundi into a large water hole on the river. The sight of swirling and boiling water caused by dozens of crocodiles snapping away at random fish all around them was sobering to say the least. This is wild country!
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