I know this is a bit off topic in terms of GOR activity and...

I know this is a bit off topic in terms of GOR activity and prices but some might be interested in the history?
I grew up on Yamarna, schooling through all my primary years by correspondence through the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) School of the Air. A few weeks ago I purchased 5,700 shares in GOR partly in an emotional response, but also think the mine is strategically located. Road, all-weather airstrip and gas pipeline will open the country to further mining possibilities.
In the late 1960s CRA or now known as Rio Tinto negotiated (over our kitchen table) the purchasing of 17 leases we had pegged across Yamarna. The million-dollar deal dissolved when CRA decided against the purchase saying it would be a shelf-project for them and any development was too long off. No drilling had taken place at that stage and was based on surface assays mainly for nickel (on the back of the huge Poseidon bubble for those old enough to remember).
Why did we leave Yamarna? After sinking Central Bore and Birthday Bore we ran about 2,000 sheep but the dingo problem was huge and a constant battle to keep them alive. We then moved to running cattle. However, as transport costs in the 70s skyrocketed the huge distance to market meant we were simply unviable. It really was subsistence living at best and as I grew older my father and I both worked away to keep the property going. In 1979 we walked away, selling the property to an American salvage diver for $25,000.
The Yamarna lease of 360,00 acres (about 140,000 hectares) was taken up by my father in 1963. Yamarna itself had no houses or buildings and there was one Government water well about a mile from where the homestead would be established. Salvation Well or the “well” as it was known to us had an old windlass to draw water and no windmill. In the late 1950s, the Lovicks had built a low lying tin shed at Minnie Creek about 25 kms (16) miles NE from Yamarna and had lived there for 3 years trying to established a sheep property. They also fenced one paddock on Yamarna using the Well as their watering point.
The first building on the Yamarna was transported on a low loader 314 kilometres (195 miles) from Leonora in 1964. The low loader or jinker trailer was built by my father and was pulled by a canvas roofed Thornycroft truck. The building which became my home was in fact the old Police station from Gwalia and one of the ‘bedrooms’ was the cell block. It had a massive timber door complete with peep hole. Transporting the house was no mean feat and was done in the heat of Summer.
The road off the Great Central Highway to Yamarna didn’t exist then. A very winding track from Mount Shenton or the longer track via Minnie Creek were the two options. The jinker wouldn’t be able to negotiate the Shenton track so Minnie was chosen. It was Christmas Day and going through the Minnie creek system an overhanging branch knocked the roof and two walls from the kitchen. Later the same day in heavy rain the truck and jinker became bogged in another old creek system, only a mile from the intended location (where the mining camp is topday). The house never moved again. It was jacked off the trailer and remained in the creek system until it was demolished by a mining company in 2011.
Interestingly, the old cork tree still stands near where the homestead was located and in which my tree house was built 50 years ago when I was 9 years old. All the timbers have rotted away, eaten by white-ants but the steps can be still be seen in the trunk.