The landscape around Dandaragan is changing daily with wind towers popping up and large walls of yellow sand dominating the skyline and road verges within the triangle of Cataby Regan’s ford and Dandaragan. Even slightly further south near Wannamal Rd there is a humongous pile of sand that virtually appeared overnight next to the other long yellow sand stretch of their new mineral sands mine.
Is this good or bad for Dandaragan? The environment? Tourism? Local business etc.. well that all depends on who you are and what you do for a living.
Personally its happy days for Redgum as we have battled to keep the Village open over the 20 years of existence. Even more so since 2010 when we departed our ways from the shearing industry.
If we didn’t think Iluka mineral sands and The Yandin windfarm were going to ever eventuate we may have pulled the plug many years ago.
Mind you once the go ahead for both those projects got the green light it wasn’t exactly crimson and roses. When Iluka had the option to use the old Tronox camp while they built the new camps good ole Redgum was simply left completely out of the picture.
Many sleepless nights of why and what the f.. is happening here why isn’t local business being supported rah rah rah. Eventually we just got over it and looked for other opportunities and sure enough they presented themselves.
The windfarm contractors, sub-contractors and other workers did use our facilities early on then they too found other options. Ones that included houses, beaches, pubs with restaurants and a bit of extra travel. Can’t knock that as the towns enjoyed the extra business and if I had a choice of travelling from Lancelin by the beach or staying in Dandaragan at a working persons camp …..
Then again if you cook my food and it’s a 5min drive to work ….
Comes down to company costings and in some cases personal preference. It’s quite cheap to put 4 guys in a house and give them a food and travel allowance per day. Plus 30 to 40 mins travel isn’t overboard these days.
The many thousands of dollars upgrading the older rooms of Redgum to en-suite started to appeal to some companies and so far this year we have been quite busy.
Funny enough Redgum is allowed to have 99 people on site and with communal rooms we could do this. Now as we have virtually eliminated all shared rooms, we have decreased our capacity to our actual room numbers of 62. And honestly, that is enough.
Also, with current govt social distance guidelines in place, one person per room gives them plenty social separation. Even the outdoor entertaining areas are spread out with limited seating. More places to chill out but less seating per area. A reduction in total persons on site at Redgum has been very beneficial. I would not like to think if this pandemic was back in the day when we had 90 backpackers on site, fuuurk the powers that be would have shut us down for sure, that’s if we didn’t close voluntarily. Trying to police social distancing would’ve been a logistical nightmare.
Lots going on in Dandaragan at the moment, lots of new Roadworks too which is all very beneficial long term for the Dandaragan Shire.
