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a half years later, her breathing restored and some of her disabilities overcome, Pat was able to return to Central
Mount Wedge in a wheel chair.
In January 1961, the homestead on the station was burnt to the ground through a faulty kerosene refrigerator.
Pat and young Bob were holidaying with Pat’s mother in Adelaide at the time, and Bill and young Jim were out
mustering when they saw what they thought was a willy wind then realised the line of smoke was the homestead.
The family lost everything and although the homestead was later rebuilt, with Pat needing extra care, Bill bought
a house in Alice Springs for the family to live in. Then as time went by and Pat needed more care, as her breathing
and movement had deteriorated again, she moved into town full-time and eventually back to Adelaide where she
died on 8 May 1994.
About 1954 the Governor General, Sir William Slim, commissioned William Johnson Waudby a Justice of
the Peace. The same year Waudby became a foundation member and Vice President of the MacDonnell Range
Amateur Picnic Race Meeting and was later made a Life Member.
In 1962, Bill Waudby, with two partners, undertook one of the last major droving treks in the Centre when they
walked a big mob of cattle from Billiluna Station in the East Kimberleys across the North West stock route down
into Alice Springs. It came about when Billiluna had a big mob of cattle they could not walk to the Wyndham
Meatworks because of their susceptibility to tick fever en route, and Bill Wilson, owner of Billiluna and one of the
partners, decided to try getting them to Alice Springs.
Waudby, with Milton Willick and stock inspector Joe Mahood set out across country in three vehicles to
pick up the cattle. It was April and they struck big rains. (Luckily for Waudby a freak storm had also brought
279 millimetres of rain to Central Mount Wedge. In a time of drought, the station was under water!) From just
north of the Granites that Bill describes as: ‘Wicked country! Couldn’t support a goanna’, they came to ‘all this
beautiful country—it was unreal’. Partly surveyed, the three men decided to take up a section in partnership,
which they called Mongrel Downs. Continuing west into the Great Sandy Desert, they reached the Balgo Catholic
Mission and finally, Billiluna.
The cattle were still boxed up at Billiluna and it was put to the men that if they could get a stock route put down
to get the cattle through, they could call it the Billiluna Extension Stock Route to the North West Stock Route.
They accepted the challenge and Bill arranged for a driller, took on the contract himself to erect windmills and
tanks, and they finally got it through. As Bill says: ‘It didn’t take five minutes, it went on for about two years’.
So the Billiluna Stock Route was formed and altogether they brought in 9 000 head of cattle in good order.
In 1963 Bill Waudby instigated an annual cricket match at Central Mount Wedge Station when, at the time of
the big drought people were not keen on getting their horses together for race meetings because of a lack of feed
while they were being paddocked. Bill suggested a cricket match and formed the North West Cricket Club. First of
all they challenged teams from Yuendumu and Papunya then later a town side, donating proceeds to the Royal
Flying Doctor Service, Alice Springs Stirrers Club, Spastic Council and School of the Air. The station has since
become renowned for these annual cricket matches and in 1991, Waudby was made a Life Member of the cricket
club he founded.
A big, quietly spoken man with an easygoing disposition, Bill ‘Wallaby’ Waudby was a foundation member
and President of the Centralian Beef Breeders Association from 1970 to 1988 and was then made a Life member.
From 1970 to 1986, he was a member of the Bush Fire Council then rejoined as Chairman in 1989 until 1993 when
he was made a permanent Warden.
He joined the Northern Territory State Committee of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation (CSIRO) for four years from 1983, was President of the Central Australian Pastoral Association
(now the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association), and was on the Northern Territory Cattle Consultative
Committee. In 1984, Waudby took part in a bronco-branding exhibition. The same year he became a member and
President of the Stockman’s Hall of Fame (Northern Territory Branch) and in 1988 was made a Life Member.
A member of the Alice Springs Show Society from 1985 to 1988 Bill Waudby served as Councillor and President
before being made a Life member. In 1993, he was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the Commonwealth
Meteorological Bureau for 43 years as Rainfall Observer at Central Mount Wedge. He also became chairman of an
interim committee for the National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame, and was also made a Life member.
During the Bi-Centenary year of 1988, William Johnson Waudby was selected to join 200 famous Territorians
whose names are commemorated on tiles laid in Darwin’s Esplanade Park. In the Australia Day Honours in
January 1996, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the community.
Centralian Advocate, Station History Series No 24; information from L Kittle and P Morey; Northern Territory Archives, oral history interview,
1991; Northern Territory News 26 January 1996; W J Waudby, interview, 1994.
SHIRLEY BROWN, Vol 3.
WEABER, WILLIAM BROWN (BILL) (c1877–1940), stockman, pastoralist and mine owner, was born at
Logan River, south of Brisbane, about 1877. At age 15 or so, he went to the Kimberleys and earned his first money
helping the mailman across the flooded Diamantina on the way. He spent some years droving in the Kimberleys
and was a noted horseman. By 1908, he was managing Carlton Station. In 1910, in partnership with J Prior,
he took up Ningbing Station, about 70 kilometres northeast of Wyndham. He bought out his partner in 1915 and
was sole owner until 1922 when he went into partnership with Arthur Haley, a stock inspector. Haley died in 1932
and the property was sold to Bovril Estates in 1933. (The station later became part of Carlton and the homestead
abandoned). Weaber was described as a bushman ‘of the old type’; he was a ‘thick-set ruggedly tough man’.