Making contact with Outback Stations

I live in Broken hill and often go to a mate property out of town and i will if he is not at the homestead call him up on channel 40 UHF

no garentee but many have uhf radios

Hi Bill,

I've asked myself the same question.
Here are some contacts for WA:



Cheers
Alan

Bill, now this may sound funny but if you're actually doing some trip planning at home or with web access, I've always found an internet search on a station name handy. Quite often the stations you are looking at have been absorbed by larger pastoral holdings and are now either disused or outstations. You'll generally turn up station info including contact numbers through any number of government, industry and association websites that will link to a google search.

Cheers Mick

It can be hard Bill as often you don't know just what is what , and you can't invest to much into finding out if the suns going down and you need to setup camp.

My approach is to first make your camp have as little impact as possible so that if someone comes across you then then have no real axe to grind.

From the other point of view as a property onwer I have found that a simple sign that has nothing but a name and a phone number on it has been really useful to others.
We regularly get calls from people asking us things because we make it so easy and have ended up with both some new friends from this approach and having to rescue the odd car which I find a lot of fun.

All the stations listed on maps are loaded as Places on ExplorOz. Some may or may not have phone numbers listed - depends what's been added by the users of this site. Some stations deliberately contact us to add their details - those that welcome tourists and wish to promote their camping facilities that is. Maybe someone with a bit of time to spare could grab that list of Equinox's and enter the numbers into Places ? nudge nudge wink wink.... would be very much appreciated by many I'm sure, as any search of a station name on the internet will find the ExplorOz Place listing.

Bill,

The Yellow Pages have listings under "Graziers", that gives all.........well, most of the stations/properties in that phone area. Maybe a visit to a post office would give you a start in some areas.

But when you're travelling, not everything goes to plan, and it doesn't take too many "kodak moments" to make you late, or not arriving where you'd originally planned. Agree with Robin that when the sun's falling out of the sky, at a rapid rate, you'll camp anywhere.

When we lived down the Diamantina, we had about 60kms of public road through the place, and it wasn't unusual to see people camped in off the road(it wasn't fenced), or see the remains of their camps. Didn't worry me(probably envious that they were camping, and not me!) as long as they didn't leave any rubbish, or get up to some mischief. In over 20 years that we were there, would have averaged about 1 call on UHF, or visitor per year, advising of their presence, or asking to camp.

On most bigger places, I doubt if it would worry the managers too much, as long as camp was left clean, and there was no interference with stock, or infrastructure.

I know on the Birdsville Track they promote camping at the designated camps, rather than "anywhere", but we camped one night at Moongarra Channels with no dramas, and left nothing but a few tracks the next morning.

Bob.

Hi Bill

When we are travelling, often there is little indication that we are into a new station other than perhaps a heavier duty fence at the grid. Some show the station name at the boundary, and just a few add their UHF channel. We would be unlikely to get mobile phone reception even if we knew the station and the phone number. Often it is not clear which of many tracks leads to the homestead. While as farmers we would be pleased to meet and talk with station owners, I feel this would be an intrusion on their time.

As aforesaid, several stations are likely to be under the one ownership, with no indication which is the 'master station'.

We have seen one or two with a No Camping sign at the boundary and would respect that. Otherwise, well out of sight and sound of a homestead, we have on a few occasions pulled a little way off the road late in the day, and the only sign of our presence would be the tyre tracks after we have left in the morning. We will not drive after dark in pastoral areas after dark.

Thanks to those station who do not know they have let us sleep on their station.

If wanting to tour on or drive through a station on a private road, finding out how to contact the station and gaining permission (if granted) is part of trip planning. Driving through on public access roads and pulling off a safe distance for the night is something different.

Motherhen

A big thanks to all who took the time to contribute to this Post. Some excellent suggestions have been made and it is good to see that other travellers have the same concerns as to where they are actually camping on a nightly basis. This practice of leaving our camp clean and how we found it can only somehow compensate landowners for the others who don't.
As I am planning my trip from home and trying to make contact with property owners before hand, I do not know if they have the UHF channel posted beside their entrance gate, but have used the UHF in the past when needed.


The Explorer. Greg. I have looked at your suggestion " contact Agricultural Department/Pastoral Land Dept in state of interest for up to date list.." But have found the site difficult to navigate around and finding a specific property details next to impossible. However perhaps I should try that avenue again as I am sure the info is there.


equinox, Alan, thanks for the Excel spreadsheet of WA. Pity you did not have other states but I have put it aside, as I imagine others have also, for when we are over there next.

ExploxOz Team. Michelle, I now have downloaded the mobile app and will go out for a drive in the country and give the app a workout and see what information it gives.
Hopefully it may have the digital information I require.

Bob Y. Yellow Pages, how good is that. Did not give that a thought and it does give a good but not complete information that is required. Another tool to use and it comes in digital format as well.

Hopefully this is not the end of this Post and more good ideas and comments will still be contributed.

Bill