Beyond the front page: my visit to Wooleen Station

In mid-May, the West Weekend magazine's front page featured Frances Pollock of Wooleen Station - whom many of you may remember from episodes of the ABC's Australian Story in recent years.

If you missed the print edition of the magazine, you can now read the full article online here.

I wanted to share a little of the story behind how this front page article came about. 

Last year, I went on a road trip north to Shark Bay for a few days, then a little south and inland via Butcher’s Track and the Murchison Settlement to Wooleen Station. It was my second visit to the station, and I was delighted to be back.

This time I spoke to Frances about her own story. Wooleen’s story is well known, but as a young woman of a similar age to Frances I really wanted to know more about her as a person.

So the seed of an idea was planted to share Frances’s inspiring story with a wider audience, and a few months later I got in touch with the lovely editor of the West Weekend magazine, Julie Hosking, to see what she thought. Julie loved it and so at the beginning of May, I returned to Wooleen – this time with the journalist and photographer from the West Weekend!

We spent a wonderful two days exploring Wooleen with Frances and hearing her story. I even captured some of it on video – see below, or watch and share it on Facebook here.

I also went on long walks with Wooleen's four dogs - the three adult kelpies I knew from my last visit, but this time there was a cheeky young addition to the pack. I was of course missing my own kelpie, left behind at home - so was delighted to hang out with 4-month old Pippa!

If you've not yet visited Wooleen, I definitely recommend it!