History
The following history was compiled by Don Gobbett who has produced
"Gluepot remembered: From Sheep paddock to Conservation Reserve", a fascinating new book, beautifully illustrated - click here for a sneak preview and how to order
TEN YEARS OF CONSERVATION
Since Birds Australia acquired the property on 30th July 1997 there have
been many changes from what was established in the previous 120 years while
it was a pastoral lease.
Visitors arriving today notice a specially designed information centre, a helipad, numerous rainwater tanks and that the shearing shed has been converted into an Environmental Education Centre. People familiar with the property’s past notice that new sheds and accommodation buildings have been constructed and a fenced exclusion zone built around the house dams.
Away from the main homestead area other, more controversial changes, have occurred. Dams have been filled in or closed, fences and troughs removed. Concrete tanks have been capped, bird hides built and walking trails established. One walk with a focus on the history is a Self-guided Heritage Walk around the Old Gluepot house site. It was established with the support of the South Australian Government through the History Trust of South Australia.
Details of many of these changes are described in Gluepot Remembered and the additional notes below refer to information that has come to light since the book was written.
Comments from recent visitors to the Reserve highlight their impressions and interest in the changes.
"I donated money for Gluepot’s purchase; now it is great to visit!" Ataca, California USA
"Fantastic. Staying another day and already looking forward to next visit." Coonabarabran, NSW
"Thank heavens endangered species have people like you caring for their habitat." Albany, New Zealand
"Fantastic job by all involved. This place just keeps on getting better!" Crafers West, South Australia
"So glad you are all here!" North Carolina, USA
"Far better than I ever imagined." Beenah, Queensland
"So utterly peaceful! Aldgate, South Australia
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
The achievements of Birds Australia at Gluepot Reserve have been widely acclaimed. In the first ten years 34 awards were received for scientific, environmental health, conservation, ecotourism and the built environment. These have come from South Australian, national and international agencies.
As the largest community managed reserve in Australia, Gluepot has become a model both within Australia and internationally. The continuing work of volunteers is recognised by the Management Committee and the monetary equivalent of their labour and travel is regularly acknowledged. Bookings for the role of Volunteer Rangers are usually made two years in advance.
PASTORAL LEASE HISTORY
Gluepot Reserve was a Pastoral Lease for the 120 years before Birds Australia acquired the property on 30th July 1997.
The initial lease from 1/7/1877 was to James White of Kapunda and was under regulations governing ‘Waste Lands of the Crown for Pastoral Purposes’. There is evidence of Aboriginal use of the area and the leases made provision for the access of Aborigines to the area.
Over the decades various portions of the present Reserve were leased to the following: (in alphabetical order)
Birdseye, Alfred of Kooringa, farmer
Broad Bros Pty Ltd, (Colin and Harold) of Booborowie
Daw, John Wickham of Kapunda, butcher
Finch, Walter of Kooringa, grazier
Hatherly, Herbert Ledden of east Kooringa, sheepfarmer
Heard, John Reginald Foreman of Unley Park, grazier
Kellock, Alexander George of Thistlebeds, grazier
Kelly, John Duncan of Hallett, grazier/farmer
Mackay, William of Kooringa, stationhand
Mattner, Reginald Frederick of Strathalbyn, farmer
Mattner, Wesley Maitland of Waikerie, grazier
Millington, Paul of Spalding, dealer
Mules, John Hawkes of Mount Mary, sheep farmer
Schwier, Cyril Martin of Kooringa, sheep farmer
Scott, Thomas of Truro, grazier and farmer
Shattock, George William Dowden of Hallett, grazier
Shaw, James of Canegrass via Koomooloo, Kooringa, contractor
Simmons, Charles Evan of Yarcowie, farmer
Taylor, Frederick George of Boggy Flat, farmer and grazier
Taylor, Neville Joseph of Waikerie
Taylor, Robert Edward of Taylorville
Tiver, James George of Hallett, grazier
Ward, Albert of Kooringa, grazier
Warnes, Charles Back of Woolgangi via Kooringa, grazier
Warnes, George of' White River Station, Port Lincoln, pastoralist
Warnes, Reginald and his wife Winifred Brockis Warnes
Leslie Charles Warnes, Peter Thomas Warnes, Charley Cater Warnes,
John Robert Warnes and William Bruce Warnes
White, James of Kapunda, land agent and stockholder
White, James Wharton of Kapunda
White, William St Clare Wharton of Kapunda
We have reminders of three of them in names used on Gluepot today in Woollacott, Birdseye and Kelly dams. Reg Warnes and his family held the leases for the longest period - from 1934 to 1961.
GETTING THERE
Access to the area was initially from the west and north-west, particularly from Burra and Woolgangi, which the Warnes also leased. A telephone line into the area, initially a private party line in the 1930s, came from Burra. Today Gluepot is still connected via the Braemar Extended Zone telephone exchange north of Burra.
Access from the south was also possible. Friends of Gert and Horrie Truscott, who lived at Old Gluepot from 1934 to 1940, came out from Waikerie for weekends. They enjoyed playing tennis on an improvised court. The Broads, Mattners and Taylors also came from the south via Taylorville and occasionally the Broads travelled from Booborowie in the north-west.
TRANSPORT
Early transport was by horse. The Finch brothers, Reg and Ken, after leaving school, stayed for a couple of years around 1930 when their father held the lease. Their work included riding around the unfenced boundaries. Ken once got lost on Birdseye but, remembering his father's instructions, took the bridle off his horse and let it bring him back to the hut.
In the mid-1930s utilities and motorbikes became the main means of transport to, from and around the area. There were not many roads and the shortest route between places, especially dams, was the favoured route.
Les Warnes recalled that in 1947 he and his father drove a flock of sheep from Woolgangi (70km away) to Gluepot by utility and pushbike. He said he "did a fair bit of walking".
Today the Reserve may be reached from the south by two wheel drive vehicles along a graded track.
DWELLINGS
There were two simple buildings on Gluepot before 1934. One was a hut near the Birdseye dam site, built by an early lessee, possibly Alfred Birdseye. The other was a hut near the Old Gluepot dams where Ken and Reg Finch stayed. Who built it and when is unclear. Ken described it as "a galvanised iron hut with a limestone chimney. It had a resident goanna that came out occasionally into the kitchen to eat the crumbs on the floor." (Some posts are still in place.) At times the brothers rarely saw each other but knew that the other had visited the hut to replenish supplies. Ken also got lost in the mallee scrub on another occasion. His work-mate had returned from boundary riding and when Ken didn't turn up after he was expected, he rang a bell at the hut, which Ken heard and followed back.
The original house at Old Gluepot consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and bedroom, built for Gert and Horrie Truscott, resident manager for Reg Warnes. In 1936 two additional rooms, a second bedroom and sitting room, were added for them. Horrie dug and built the cellar.
Isolation and loneliness were familiar to the Finch brothers and the Truscotts. Often Horrie was away all day and Gert would pack lunch for him. At mustering times and shearing (at Woolgangi) he could be away for 3 or 4 days at a time.
Near the Old Gluepot house the Warnes built a hut to stay in when they came from Woolgangi. Les Warnes recalls playing cards there with his father and/or brother in the evenings. The hut remained in use after the Truscotts left. In 1957, after the present Rangers' house was built, the hut was moved on a specially constructed trailer to its present site. At first it was part of the shearers’ quarters but today it is used by researchers working on the Reserve.
Peter and Betty Warnes lived in the newly built homestead until the lease was sold in 1961. They also felt the isolation - particularly following the murder of Neville Lord on a neighbouring station in November 1958. This led to the building of the airstrip. It was never used on a regular basis but occasionally was a landing for spotter aircraft used at shearing times when sheep had to be rounded up in the mallee vegetation.
The homestead was not used as a permanent residence again until Birds Australia acquired the property and it became the home of the Volunteer Rangers. The Broads and Mattners, and sometimes their friends, stayed there while working on the lease or for weekends or school.
WATER
Providing water for people and sheep required considerable and constant effort for lessees. The average annual rainfall measured at the homestead is about 250mm but it is very irregular. Unofficial records since 1968 vary from 100mm to 575mm. Offical records of annual rainfall since 1999 vary from148mm to 380mm.
The first dams were constructed at Old Gluepot. They were shown on an 1890s map including 'Gluepot Paddock' but the majority of the dams were sunk during the early years of Reg Warnes’ lease. The Truscotts used the Old Gluepot dams to water a vegetable garden and occasionally to supplement the rainwater collected from the house.
Several bores were put down on Gluepot but unfortunately the water was too salty even for animal consumption. Harold Broad tested the bore at Old Gluepot in September 1965 and found it was 435 ft deep with very salty water at 135 ft. He sunk several other bores and found the same water quality. One of his employees, Bob Leaney, described the water from a bore near Sandy Dam as 'drinkable if mixed with cider'!
In late 1965 and 1966 Harold Broad built the 20,000-gallon concrete tanks now known as Grasswren, Whistler, Emu and Froggy's tanks. Pumps and pipelines were installed to fill them from nearby dams and drinking troughs were provided for the sheep. Today the tanks provide water for elevated troughs near the bird hides as well as for fighting fires.
The irregular rainfall meant that occasionally water had to be carted. Harold Broad recalls carting it from the Old Gluepot dams to Froggy's tank and Gypsum dam. Wes Mattner carted water for 6 weeks in the first year after acquiring the lease. Later another drought was so severe that all the sheep had to be sold. Neville Taylor used a 3,300-gallon water tank to cart water.
Dams had to be maintained constantly by deepening them and clearing the drains leading into them. Sometimes this led to equipment becoming bogged. At other times vehicles became bogged after heavy rainfall. Wes Mattner recalls a caterpillar tractor becoming bogged while clearing a dam. It remained there for 8 months.
The dams and tanks with the additional supplies of water led to increases in the number of goats and kangaroos in the area. These animals competed with the sheep for food and broke through fences so considerable energy was put into culling them. Walter Finch recalls goats breaking through the netting fence on the northern boundary. He and his brother also shot many and ate the younger ones. Horrie Truscott shot goats for dog meat and when they visited Gluepot, Harold Broad's children used to round them up. Wes Mattner remembers one shearing time when 3,000 goats were shot. The Taylors sent many goats to markets in Peterborough and Broken Hill.
STOCK
Originally the holders of Pastoral Leases were required to stock with a minimum number of sheep per square mile. The first lessee in 1877 had to have 10 sheep per square mile. By 1936 the minimum stocking rate was 5 sheep per square mile with maximum rates of stocking established by the Pastoral Board for particular holdings. These limits varied from year to year and in the late 1970's were set at 4,000 sheep for Gluepot, but they were seldom, if ever, reached.
Wes Mattner maintained that “Gluepot was one of the best wool blocks in Australia”. It was mainly valuable for wethers.
FIRE
Fire has had some impact on Gluepot but major fires have been rare in the past 50 years. Controlled burning was sometimes used, particularly in late summer, to enable more stock to be grazed on the regrowth that occurred after rains but permission for this has not been available since the 1980s. Pastoralists appreciated lightning strikes that caused fires. A major bushfire, in 1950, was accidentally started by timber cutters and burnt about 80% of Gluepot and then eastwards into New South Wales. The lack of fire in the old growth mallee now makes the area a significant habitat for birds.
The current Management Plan for the Reserve has fire management as a prominent feature. Fires in the area late in 2006 were started by lightning and mainly burnt the southern section of the Birdseye (restricted access) Block. It was a slow burn covering about 7,000 hectares (or 13%) of the Reserve. It had only a small impact on visitor areas.
BIRDS AND BIODIVERSITY
Some of the pastoralists were not very interested in the bird-life of their leases. But over time they became very aware of "the nature part of it". Wes Mattner's observation was that when mallee fowl began building mounds significant rain would fall within a month or six weeks. In wet years there were "lakes of water" around the dams and huge populations of wood ducks with up to 15 young. Neville Taylor felt that bird numbers increased over the years.
Scientific research on the Reserve in the last decade has been carried out by students and experts on a variety of topics. Over 190 species of birds have been seen on the Reserve. The number of nationally threatened species that attracted the original interest of Birds Australia was six. To date 18 such species have been identified. Regular banding has been carried out and surveys for The New Atlas of Australia Birds made Gluepot “The most atlassed site away from major cities in Australia.” Volunteers and visitors continue these surveys as well as the monitoring of Malleefowl activity.
Other research into the vegetation, mammals, reptiles, bats and archaeology has added significantly to knowledge of the biodiversity of the area.
In 2006 Marian McDuie produced a 16 min. DVD, Gluepot – a world leader in conservation and land management, highlighting the achievements of Birds Australia. click here for info on how to order
ADDITIONAL NOTES (including information obtained since the publication of Gluepot Remembered.)
Links with Loveday Internment Camp
During the Second World War the Loveday Internment Camp was established to house German, Italian and Japanese people in Australia. Some of these prisoners were taken out to work as timber-cutters. Gluepot was one area where they worked.
Visits of Cubs
In the mid 1960s, during the Broads occupation of the lease, cub scout packs from Waikerie visited Gluepot on at least two occasions. Their leaders, Audrey Morley, Pat Crabb and Anne Rix, were assisted on these camps by John Morley and Tony Rix. The 24 boys, aged 8 to 12 years, and their leaders, camped in tents. The leaders also had access to the unoccupied homestead.
Joe Mack came to talk to the boys and led them on walks which deepened their awareness of the mallee environment. His appreciation of the natural history of the area and his passion for conservation inspired members of the group.
Fox Control
At Woolacott, Old Gluepot and Birdseye dam sites there are metal structures erected in the early years of Birds Australia’s ownership of the area. They are just under two metres high and consist of four legs holding pieces of metal mesh about the size of a table.
The structures were installed in order to catch foxes. Goats, which were still plentiful, were shot and placed on the tables to attract foxes that in turn could be shot.
John English worked with Mick Punturero, a goat shooter and fox baiter, on this project.
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Don Gobbett would be pleased to hear of other early experiences of Gluepot and may be contacted through the Rangers.
