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Kimberley military base, hospital and cinema among old dreams abandoned to the bush

Decaying 17 Mile Dam structure at Camballin on Uralla Creek. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

In 1950s Australia, anything seemed possible in the outback — provided you could throw enough concrete and steel at it.

A hospital in the desert 2,000 kilometres north of Perth? Let's build one.

A 23,000-hectare rice farm on a flood plain? Of course, we can.

A town where there is nothing? Sure.

With the endless optimism that seemed to come with the 1950s and '60s society, big things were built using plenty of money, government backing, and immigrant or Aboriginal labour.

But many dreams were short-lived and what was abandoned has since slipped back into the Kimberley region's bush.

Steps once led to offices at Camballin's irrigation scheme but now they go nowhere. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

A grandiose cropping scheme

The flood plains of the Fitzroy River south-east of Derby once hosted sheep on Liveringa Station.

Workers build the Camballin barrage across Uralla Creek during 1961. (Supplied: State Library of Western Australia)

In 1952, the former Western Australian department of agriculture, and private company Northern Developments, embarked on experimental crop trials on land excised from the station. 

Dam infrastructure, irrigation channels and pumping stations were built by the former public works department along Uralla Creek, an offshoot of the Fitzroy River.  

The first rice harvest at Camballin in 1957. (Supplied: State Library of Western Australia, Roy Butcher collection)

Rice, sorghum, wheat, oats, linseed, cotton and legumes were planted over the next 30 years.

A bustling township — Camballin — was built to house the farm's workforce with a school, shop, outdoor cinema, mechanics and caravan park.

This corrugated iron projection box once beamed films onto an outdoor screen. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

The crops failed — plagued by birds, insects, weeds, management and money issues.

After successive floods from the Fitzroy River, which could spread 32km wide, a 17-km-long levee was built in 1980.

The 17-Mile Dam, pictured in 1961, was constructed as part of the irrigation scheme. (Supplied: State Library of Western Australia)

The levee failed spectacularly in the floods of 1983 and wiped out a $20-million sorghum operation.

This large water pipe was part of the now defunct irrigation scheme. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

The remains of the irrigation scheme litter the bush for hectares along Uralla Creek, including large pumping engines, water tanks, concrete channels, neatly paved embankments and broken levees overgrown with trees.

On the edge of the desert

Talgarno was a military base on the coast south of Broome created in 1958 to monitor experimental British Blue Streak rockets fired from South Australia.

The hospital, now surrounded by bush, was built in 1960 to cater for soldiers. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

The base, excised out of Anna Plains pastoral station, had all the mod-cons a 1950s society might need for 1,000 soldiers and scientists, including single and married quarters, air conditioning, a cinema, swimming pool and hospital.

A grand opening was held on July 4, 1959, when caviar, wine and what was labelled a "glut of delicacies" were flown in by then federal supply minister Sir Alan Hulme.

The walls of the hospital remain as the wilderness creeps closer. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

But just one year later it was all but defunct, as defence policy changed and British taxpayers baulked at the millions being spent in the Australian desert.

The state heritage-listed ruins mostly include the old hospital and mundane infrastructure still embedded with local sand and shell.

Builders of the Talgarno hospital left their mark in the concrete. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)

The Commonwealth auctioned off all of Talgarno in 1964, and pastoralists, builders and hoteliers carted away everything from filing cabinets to roofs.

The old military base is now only home to the desert wind and cattle.

The military base is being slowly overrun by wildflowers. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)
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