A New View of the Internet

The other day I traveled to Pernatty Station, an isolated and vast sheep and cattle grazing property in outback South Australia.

Old telephone in the disused Pernatty Station office.

Port Augusta and Pimba are 173km apart on the Stuart Highway. Between is miles of lonely arid region country with the odd turnoff to a station or mining or exploration interest. There are salt lakes, mostly dry or muddy in the middle.

The Pernatty turnoff is about half way between the two centres. It’s 56km in a northerly direction to Pernatty Homestead, along a dirt, station road.

Much of the trip, traveling through two or three other stations, is over sand ridge country. Low sand ridges divide extensive sandy swales sparcely covered in myall trees and various accacia scrub along with salt bush and some tufty grass.

But as the road enters Pernatty, the country opens out to gibber plain with less trees and more salt bush.

The buildings of the homestead date back to 1927 when the current dynasty took on ownership of Pernatty.

The station owner was away. His son was working towards the northern extremity of Pernatty Station. Two other workmen were fixing fences somewhere.

One of two 32 volt wind generators that once powered Pernatty Homestead.

But at Pernatty Homestead I met the cook and the station hand’s wife.

There were some school age children and by coincidence the lady from the school of the air was there. She comes periodacally and stays two days.

So this picture of timelessnes, vastness and isolation is the setting for the main thrust of this story.

For many years the school of the air has been conducted over the radio. In the old times it was the peddle radio and in recent times battery powered radios were in use.

However, about five years ago the radio gave way to more modern technology. These days the school of the air uses the internet.

Well, they’ve got a monitor as big as a TV, a satellite dish on the roof and high speed broardband. Twice the speed as I have at home and at the same price that I’d pay for that level of service. And reliability? They very seldom loose the satellite.

The cook brought up Pernatty Station on Google Earth. She had all the named places on the station labled and was very knolledgable about the country.

So after looking over Google Earth and my maps and getting some good local knolledge, I’m in a good position for my trip, entering from the northern boundary of Pernatty, in a few days.