Ishrub

Australian born 1960 in Papua New Guinea before 1972 independence from Australia. Travelled around world when parents in Diplomatic service before spending 23 years in the tropical and desert landscapes of the Northern Territory (NT).
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Northern+Territory/@-18.4822661,133.5008379,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x2b5172c2e6f3190f:0x2775!8m2!3d-19.4914108!4d132.5509603
I worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics managing mainly Population Surveys and Census Operations with a focus on remote area and Indigenous Aboriginal communities. Years of 4WD and light aircraft charter trips was a ball. NT is 1100 miles North - South and 300 miles East West then with open unlimited speed limits on h'ways, now only a few hundred Km open speed. Small truck stops about 60 - 150 miles apart with only 3 major towns/cities and total pop of about 160,000 now- think of a tropical and desert Alaska with 35% indigenous population.

Back to Canberra in 2004 (the capital of Oz) and worked with Customs Drug Detector Dog Training Centre before 11 years 24/7/265 shift work with Office of Transport Security at National Crisis Coordination Centre.

I still have a 250 acre bush block near Litchfield National Park in the NT which I ran a herd of 50 Asian water buffalo on.
I'll be going back to live at my NT block bush camp 2800 miles North when my 93 and 92 year old parents die .

Sounds terrible but I can't wait to go home after nearly 20 years down here!
90Km due South of Darwin Where the Red dots are.

Find Tolmer Falls in Litchfield Park, now scan due East to edge of green park boundary, continue East to the 1st of 3 identical 100 hectare block boundaries. That is mine 1600metres North South and 600metres East West.

The new development Glamping camps in Litchfield Park are about half way between Tolmer Falls and my block. Litchfield park is full of amazing Waterfalls

it is freehold land and I am thinking of givng it back to the remnants of the traditional Kungarakan tribe owners from the surrounding 100 miles or so in my will ( I have no kids, or relatives I want to leave it to aa they have no attachment to it at all and live 2500 miles away thank fully).

Most of the indigenous survivors of our colonial past still live in the region and Darwin. They have a continuing cultural relationship to the land and sacred sites and the tribe have received a 2000 acre or so land claim of vacant Crown Land, after the Australian high court finally accepted that Indigenous people lived in Australia before the Europeans arrived and many further decades of hearings. Unfortunately their land is held in Trust and cannot be used as asset for a bank loan to develop it, where as my Freehold title would be.

I have masses of historical data etc and old maps from the 1860's, early 1900's and WW2. in the 1880's through to the early decades of last century they and related tribes were massacred and given poisoned flour in the region.
Nothing to be proud of and my block is the exact center of their original lands but they only got back that small portion about 15 miles NE from my place.
We didn't even give our indigenous population citizenship until 1966 and they were and are still largely poverty stricken.

The whole area is a major mineral prospect and Australia's first uranium mine with Gold, Uranium, Nickel and Cobalt mined for years nearby at Batchelor from the 1950's about 12 miles away. I have and have read all the various Govt and private exploration company geological and test drilling details and results for 1000's of test drilling holes over the years. Results for the region including my place and a mile or two away where another major Uranium prospect has been test drilled to about 600 feet with a significant Uranium deposit about 20 years ago. Many major drilling progams and air magnetometer by grid flying fixed wing and helicopters have been undertaken over the past 70 year and I have all them too.

Unlike the USA, under British law and subsequently ours landowners DO NOT get mineral rights which remain the asset of the Crown even with freehold title.

An early settler family had a massive pastoral lease from Adelaide River to the coast and the original bush track was hand cut with axes from Adelaide River Township about 15 miles East of my block and the track forms my Southern boundary now. They cut it to transport a 2nd hand tin structure they bought and dismantled and packed on a wagon pulled by a 36 horse team around 1905 to their family run, manually worked tin mine they established at Bamboo Ck in now Lichfield Park. They found a way through the 100 foot high cliffs about 2 mile East of me to the Plateau that the waterfalls run off to the East.
They cut the track about 30 miles from Adelaide River to just near Tolmer Falls where they established a tin mine run by the graziers family. The families' young boys and girls lived in a bush camp there for months at a time by themselves cut off fromthe rest of the world by the Wet season where we get about 60 inches of rain annually in 3-4 months. Amazingly it still exists.
The track from my place to the tin mine was last used and mapped around WW2 and was suitable for horse an pack horse only most of the year due to the Wet Season.

BAMBOO CREEK TIN MINE​

Established around 1906, the Bamboo Creek Tin Mine provides an insight into the small scale mining activities of the era, and its ruins are a reminder of the park’s varied past.
northernterritory.com
I have used Google to relocate the overgrown track to Tolmer Falls and the last half has already been re-made to build and access the Glamping tourist camps established in the past few years.

I'm thinking of putting together a Tourism Development Plan project for the Indigenous to get a grant or funding, so they can cater to the serious bush walkers etc and access the Park and falls from my place.



So when are you coming?