Dunbar route


The Dunbar pastoral property is the earliest in the region. It was established in about 1883 and over time it became the main communication centre for a huge area of the Gulf Country and western Cape York Peninsula with a telegraph station and then all-weather airfield services. Wet season flooding precludes any access to the property by road vehicle for between four and six months in any year.

With its location at the Koolatah crossing of the Mitchell River, Dunbar was regarded as a 'bridgehead' in strategic thinking during the wartime years. There was a prevailing fear at the time of an overland invasion by Japanese forces through Cape York Peninsula. The Mitchell River may have then become Australia's 'front line'. The Australian Inland Mission (AIM) had established a service centre there in 1930. This provided health and education services to the region (mainly to Aboriginal people) up until the later 1960s.

Dunbar is situated in Kunjen country and it supported a 'village' of up to 100 Kunjen people until it was closed and its residents dispersed in the later 1960s. Most of the adult residents had worked either as domestic or stock workers on the station. Following the closure of the 'village' most Kunjen residents moved to the nearby Mitchell River Mission (present-day Kowanyama).

The Koolatah crossing allows access to Koolatah Station and to Olkola country on the northern bank of the Mitchell River. The yards at the crossing are an important collection point for cattle from north of the river, and then for their transhipment south by truck. Another track goes westward through Kokoberra country to Rutland Plains Station and then to Kowanyama.


Colin Lawrence has told me about 'village' life at Dunbar when he was a boy

"I was born on Dunbar Station in the year 1941, where my parents worked on this property for so many years so as I can imagine they must have worked on this property during the first world war or the second world war in toughest time of their life. So, during these years my eldest brothers and sisters also born on Dunbar station where a lot of old people worked there. Also I can still remember when I was a little boy when I was about four years old. My uncle Brassie Dunbar and his wife old Brasu was the eldest brother of my dad. Probably my grandfather and my grandmother worked there also. Then somewhere between 1935 and 1936 or maybe 1937 my elders were in school at Mitchell River Mission so that left George and I at the station with mum and dad. So as George and I were growing up dada taught us how to bridle a horse and saddle them up and he take us out mustering not very far just around about the station frontage."

Colin eventually went to school at the Mission and then on to boarding school in Charters Towers. He then worked as a drover in teh Gulf country and Cape York Peninsula through the later 1960s and the 1970s.


The Burke Development Road turns southwards from Koolatah crossing and crosses the Staaten River on to Van Rook Station and then the Gilbert River and on to Miranda Station, and then on to Normanton by way of Maggie Vale and Mutton Hole.

This route has fewer yards or bores or waterholes along its course than the coastal Rutland Plains route. It sits above the coastal Grass Plains and thus has less flooding and is more trafficable in the early and late dry seasons when other tracks and routes are flooded and impassable. Fewer watering points are not an issue when cattle are being transported by truck. The removal of station gates and their replacement by cattle grids, and the laying of concrete foundations at many creek crossings has meant that Dunbar to Normanton is now a drive of less than five hours when road conditions are good.