Panna Hill

So we started going all around town to source the best location for our BMX track. There were two problems we came across in getting a good site. One of them was the fact that due to Panna (the name we used to give to Pannawonica) was so small, there weren’t many spots to choose from. The next major problem was that the almost all the areas we found were rocky. The desert terrain around Panna was mostly rock – there was almost no sand or soil. This meant that it didn’t matter how hard we tried we couldn’t move large amounts of base for our track without a lot of effort. Ideally what we needed was lots of sand and gravel which we could then move by wheelbarrow to where we wanted it. To make a BMX track you need to build a start ramp with different sorts of jumps and every corner has to be a ‘berm’ so you can get around the corner at speed (as in the picture opposite). As we had no way of accessing enough dirt we had to find a place that had a natural start ramp.

We finally came across the spot near the entrance to the town behind an area called the ‘old single men’s quarters’. When the town was first built the initial group of workers came and lived in donger’s which are transportable housing that can be placed on the back of a semi-trailer. The donger’s had been long gone and what was left was a flat area of sand and rock which had been cleared out in the side of hill. There was a section from the top of the hill to the cleared flat area at the bottom that was about 3 meters high. Perfect. I can remember our joy when we found this spotJ

First we built up the start ramp as the way we found it was too steep to ride down. After a day of two working on it we had a really high start ramp that was great. We tried it on the bikes and we were satisfied that the ramp produced enough speed to power through the track. Then we started on the some jumps – knowing in the back of my mind that we were going to struggle to build the first left hand berm big enough to handle the speed that we were generating from the ramp. We built some awesome jumps but by the time we needed to build our first left hand berm we had used all the dirt around the area on our jumps. I remember thinking that it was really unfair that we weren’t able to finish the track and my disappointment was huge! I wanted to speak to someone from the mine and get them to use one of the big front end loaders to shift a whole pile of earth for us but as a kid I didn’t know how to make that happen – Andrew and Dion both thought that their dads wouldn’t help with that and my step dad was a welder so didn’t actually work on the mine. Our dream of a BMX track of our own was over; we knew this challenge was out of our league.

Experiences like these helped me identify the sort of Dad I wanted to be when I grew up. I made a promise to myself that when I was a Dad that I would help my kids with their adventures and try to make things possible for them that they couldn’t accomplish on their own.

By this time I can’t remember how but I scored another bike and this one was a BMX. Now that I was able to we started exploring the country around the town. Andrew and Dion wanted to take me to a place called Pannawonica Hill. They explained that it was an aboriginal sacred site and you could climb right to the top of the hill. It was by the robe river and was one of the few places that had water in a river most of the year round. It was about 5 kms away through the desert and the boys said that we could take some sausages and bread out and cook our lunch over the fire. This was so exciting for me!! I had never even been camping in a tent before let alone trek out over desert to a waterhole at a sacred aboriginal site and cook lunch over a fire!!

 

To get to Panna hill we had to ride down a gravel road for about 2kms. Then the we cut over a dried out mud pan. All the mud for hundreds of meters had cracked as it had dried. I can recall the feeling and sound of the dried mud crunching under the BMX tyres as we crossed the mud flat. Then we needed to cross the mine railway which we did through a massive stormwater pipe under the tracks. Once on the other side we stopped for a drink at a well which Andrew said had been there for 50 years - I couldn’t help imagining all the different people and animals that have drunk water at that well over the years.

After riding for another 2 kms and dodging a few nasty looking bulls who didn’t like that we were moving through their land, we finally came to the waterhole (all around the town there were cattle just roaming freely – the cattle stations in the Pilbara are too big for fences so they roam around in the wild). We were so hot at this stage we washed off in the water and then set about building a fire. Once the fire was lit we cooked our sausages by impaling a stick through them and grilling them over the open fire.

After lunch we started climbing Panna hill. As you can see from the picture the last part of the hill is almost like a cliff and the whole time I was thinking about how we were going to climb that part as the boys had said they had been to the top before. Once we got to the really steep section Andrew led me into a tunnel which led upwards. At the base of the tunnel were steps made of stone and this tunnel led us up the side of the cliff. Andrew explained that the aborigines in this area has built this tunnel so when were attacked by the neighbouring tribes they could run up the hill and then defend themselves at this tunnel. I can recall thinking how amazing it was that aborigines were doing this so many thousands ago and that I was now lucky enough to be standing in those same spots. This day was my most memorable whilst I lived in Pannawonica and I will be forever thankful to Andrew and Dion for taking me to Panna hill.