Like so much of the Western Australian coastline the area around Carnarvon was known to Dutch sailors in the early seventeenth century. It was the Dutch sailor Henderik Brouwer who, in 1610, discovered that the best route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia was via the Roaring Forties. The idea was head east for a few thousand kilometres then turn left. Brouwer achieved the crossing of the Indian Ocean and turned left before reaching Western Australia. Six years later Dirk Hartog sailed too far and arrived at Cape Inscription on 26 October 1616. It was here that he placed his famous pewter plate.
After 1616 the area of the coast which includes modern day Carnarvon became known as Eendrachsland after Hartog's boat Eendracht.
The usual litany of explorers and adventurers passed through the area - Tasman, de Vlamingh, Dampier, Pelsaert, Phillip Parker King, and the Frenchmen Freycinet, Hamelin and Baudin.
No one showed any huge interest in the Eendrachsland because of the unreliability of the rainfall, the apparent non-existence of permanent water supplies, and the harsh desert vegetation which characterised the area.
The first serious exploration of the area was that undertaken by Lieutenant George Grey in 1839. By any conventional measure the journey was a disaster. In February 1839 Grey and ten men were landed on Bernier Island with three whale boats. The plan was to explore the coast north of Bernier Island. They quickly established that there was no water on the island and decided to head for the mainland. During the crossing one boat was smashed on rocks and most of the provisions for the expedition were destroyed. The trip to North West Cape was abandoned and the party attempted to return to Perth. At Gantheaume Bay the other boats were wrecked and the men (one of whom died) were forced to walk the 500 km back to Perth. Perhaps the only contribution Grey made to the area was when he named the Gascoyne River after a naval friend, Captain Gascoyne.
The area was regarded as so inhospitable that although F. T. Gregory explored it in 1858 (an epic journey which covered 2000 miles in 107 days) it wasn't until the late 1870s that settlers began to arrive. In 1876 the region's founding fathers, Aubrey Brown, John Monger and C.S. Brockman, overlanded 4000 sheep from York and established themselves in the district. Brown settled on Boolathana station and Brockman established Brickhouse station.
By 1934 (the peak period) the Gascoyne was supporting 1.4 million head of sheep. Numbers have reduced since then as an awareness of the fragile ecology of the area has forced pastoralists to appreciate the risks of overgrazing. The Western Australian Department of Agriculture describes the area as 'mulga scrubland' and that does not suggest endless paddocks of rich pasture.
The town of Carnarvon, named after Lord Carnarvon, the British Secretary of State (1866-74), was gazetted in 1883 and for most of its early life it served as a port and supply depot for the surrounding pastoral industry.
Carnarvon became the centre of an efficient wool producing area. Life on the stations was hard and brutal and the treatment of the local Aborigines was appalling. Those Aborigines who were not massacred were forced into virtual slavery by the local property owners. Camel teams, driven by Afghan camel drivers, brought the wool from the stations to the port.
The camel teams account for the extraordinary width of Robinson Street which may well (with the possible exception of the main street in Coolgardie which was formed for the same reason) be the widest street in Australia. You almost need a taxi to get from one side to the other.
The novelist Nene Gare explained the origins of the street in her novel Green Gold when she wrote: 'The wide main streets were made to take a double team of camels pulling twelve-foot-high drays shod with big iron wheels. There had to be room for the Afghan drivers to take a round turn, with the result that modern traffic finds itself with parking space in the middle of the road as well as at both sides.'
It was a man named Jack Buzolic who changed the economic nature of the town. In 1928 he wrote of the town: 'At present Carnarvon is a small place with four hotels, six stores (four held by white people and two by Chinamen), three drapery shops and one boarding house, and consists of about six hundred people...Now the whole of Carnarvon and surrounds make their living by the sheep stations in the district...My opinion is that, of the tropical fruits bananas would grow to perfection if cultivated properly.' He acted upon his opinion, planted banana suckers in 1928 and by 1930 had picked his first saleable crop. Although there had been interest in tropical agriculture since 1922 no one had really bothered until Buzolic decided to develop bananas thus broadening the economic base of the town.
People who drive over the Gascoyne River in the dry season when it is nothing more than a dry river bed will be surprised to know that it is central to the irrigation of the whole region. It does, on average, flow for 120 days each year. For the rest of the time the river literally flows upside down. Carnarvon is located at the only point on the Australian coastline where the desert reaches out into the sea. This means that the mouth of the Gascoyne River is a 300 km tongue of sand which acts as a huge water storage system. The water table (known more accurately as the river's 'aquifers') lies below the sands and the local banana plantation owners tap into it and pump the water to the surface. Currently 80 per cent of the bananas from Carnarvon are consumed in Western Australia. Crops are usually good although the area has experienced 14 cyclones, 6 floods and 7 droughts in the last 50 years.
Tours of Munro's Banana Plantation take place twice daily and bookings can be made by contacting 08 99 41 8104.
The town also is the centre of an area which grows avocados, coconuts, dates, jojoba, macadamia nuts, mangoes, pawpaws, pecans, tomatoes, pineapples, melons and various varieties of beans.
It is widely recognised that the biggest event in recent Carnarvon history was the establishment of the NASA tracking station in 1964. Its importance was based on the fact that it was the base which gave the command for the Trans Lunar Insertion (TLI) which actually sent the Apollo missions in to land on the moon.
Perhaps its greatest moment came on 20 July 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped out of Apollo 11. His famous words 'One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind' were relayed to the world via the tracking station at Carnarvon. It was finally closed down in 1974 because it became outmoded.
Anyone needing more information on the town should read Merrill Findlay's outstanding book Carnarvon: Reflections of a Country Town. Findlay was Artist-in-Residence in Carnarvon in 1983 and, as a professional photojournalist, she captured the spirit of the town in a way that few local histories do. Her book is sold at the Carnarvon Tourist Bureau in Robinson Street - (08) 9941 1146
Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter
Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.