Melangata Station WA with Alison Huth, Editor-at-Large
Think East of Carnarvon and that’s the best way of finding Melangata. We arrived there and set up easily. There is plenty of room so we spread out around a camp fire pit which was still smoldering from the previous night and got it going again very quickly.
Host Jo takes you around the homestead which was designed by a very famous architect and priest John Hawes. You can finish off the tour with morning tea of fresh baked scones jam and cream.
Each evening the campfires at the meeting place are lit, sometimes there are camp ovens cooking away there. We were lucky to hit a meal that Jo cooked, and I can tell you that Red Roo tail stew via the camp oven was mouthwatering. Jo Clews is an excellent camp oven cook and I have a well thumbed copy of her 2nd edition cook book.
Jo takes tag-along-tours around the property. They hav
e 125,000 acres, but currently only use about 20,000 acres for their dorper sheep. The land has been over grazed and will take quite some time to recover. This is a 4 wheel drive tour only and some of the ‘road’ surfaces we drove over were new to us. It’s a great tour and Jo shares her love of nature and the discoveries she has made over the years they have been there. The gorge is surprising and beautiful.
On our last night there we headed for the Cook House which is the camp kitchen. It’s been slightly repurposed but not much. We fired up the old Aga and put the camp oven on it to do our roast goat. It was cold outside and rather windy so this was a great place to be, even with the original holes in the walls that let the wind through.
This is a super station to stay at. Friendly people, lots of space, no need to rush at all. We didn’t move off the station until we left because it was just so nice to be relaxing around a never ending campfire.
