The PR Blog

Beneath the still waters of Lake Argyle lies the ghost of a homestead — Argyle Downs — once the beating heart of the Durack cattle empire.

This is the story of how the Duracks rose from famine to fortune, and how the land they conquered finally claimed them back.

In the heart of Australia’s wild Kimberley, where the sun scorches the red earth and rivers carve ancient paths through rugged landscapes, one family’s name looms large—Durack. They weren’t born to riches, nor did they inherit vast estates, but through sheer grit, ambition, and an audacious cattle drive across thousands of kilometres, the Duracks carved out an empire. Yet, for all their triumphs, they knew their castles were built on fragile ground, vulnerable to nature's whims and the shifting tides of fortune. This is the epic tale of the Duracks, the cattle kings who ruled the outback—until their grass castles, like so many before, were swept away.

This is not a defence of sin -  it’s a lament for how our culture has traded mercy for spectacle. It asks: can a man be both flawed and honourable? And can we hold both truths at once?

And here is where the teddy bears come in......

I’ve started and restarted this article, pondered how to avoid hurting anyone’s sensitivities, and in the end have decided to accept Admiral Farragut’s advice at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864: Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!

I have an intellectual and emotional stake in this matter of the Charge of Beersheba (Be’er-Sheva). My maternal grandfather, 2788 Trooper John Joseph McGrath, was a horse breaker who served in the 2^nd Remount Unit for more than three years under Major A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson in Egypt and Palestine.

My father, QX 17611  S/Sgt James Hammill served in the 2/ 14^th LHR between the wars, then in Tobruk and the Middle East, including Palestine, with the 2/9 Bn. The subject of the Charge of Beersheba was not an infrequent topic at home and in places that I visited.

Forecast: Confused With a Chance of Bureaucracy - Microbursts, bureaucratic panic, and a wallaby with titanium knees - Dusty Gulch shows the city how it’s done.

From our Dusty Gulch Bureau of Unofficial Meteorology
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble - Senior Correspondent & Climate Analyst

When Technology Goes Walkabout

When the Bureau of Meteorology rolled out its brand-new, $4.1 million website on October 22 - promising “modern, user-friendly” weather forecasting - Dusty Gulch residents did what they always do in moments of national confusion: they looked out the window.

The Bureau’s overhaul, part of a whopping $866 million “Robust Modernisation Initiative,” was meant to drag Australians into a sleek digital future. Instead, it left half the country lost in a maze of buttons, colours, and drop-down menus that even a kangaroo with a PhD couldn’t decode.

Beersheba is a name that should resonate with every Australian with the same ease and reverence as Gallipoli.

Sadly it does not.

Because the charge on the desert city of Beersheba on 31^st October, 1917 is the most outstanding piece of military daring and execution ever undertaken in the military history of the World.

On that day 800 members of the Australian 4^th Light Horse Brigade of the Imperial Mounted Division brought a stunning victory from the jaws of defeat and started the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire.

The attack began in the late afternoon by this unique breed of men riding a unique breed of horse. It is widely described as the last great cavalry assault yet the participants were not cavalry; they were mounted infantry.

How have we come to this mess in the Middle East?

The strange thing is that my mind immediately went to that figure of historical notoriety, Lawrence of Arabia.

It is probably accepted that most kids today wouldn't have a clue who he was, but most of us from the era who actually got taught things other than gender fluidity in school , have heard of this imposing figure.

The British gentleman who rode around the desert with his blue eyes and, today, would have had more fans on social media than Taylor Swift.

So who was he?