Balgo, previously Balgo Hills and Balgo Mission, is a community in Western Australia that is linked with both the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami Desert. The community is in the Shire of Halls Creek , off the Tanami Road , and was established by German missionaries in 1939.

Old Balgo 1942-1965 Three years after their departure from Rockhole, in 1942, they settled at Balgo (now Old Balgo), a site for large corroborees and initiation ceremonies. Walmadjiri and Gugadja traversed the country in their hundreds.

First, Mark told us about the history of Balgo Mission. In 1928, the Pallotines, represented by Father Droste (who built the famous Beagle Bay Church) and Fr Raible, took over the Kimberley Vicariate from the Trappists who had established Beagle Bay and Lombadina. operated in the Cameroon before being displaced by the French. Fathers Droste.

Balgo, previously Balgo Hills and Balgo Mission, is a small community in Western Australia that is linked with both the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami Desert. The community is in the Shire of Halls Creek, off the Tanami Road (formerly known as the Tanami Track).

Celebrating Balgo and old Balgo. While I was here a local man explained that Balgo was named aaftr the grass in kukatja palkurr which grew on the slopes around this settlement now called 'old Balgo' (Palkurr Hills).

Nov 18, 2014 · The present settlement at Balgo Hills began in 1964-65 as a Catholic Mission Station for the nomadic people, mainly Kukatja speakers, from the remote areas south and south-east of Sturt Creek. The previous mission at “Old Balgo, was begun in the 1940’s and was approx 20kms west of the present site. Due to a lack of reliable water old Balgo ...

Old Balgo Mission ruins,founded in late 1940s, a lack of water forced the community to move 15 km west to the present Balgo in early 1960s; this old site is slowly being reclaimed by the spinifex... Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images.

Balgo (1940-1965) Old Balgo was settled in 1942 after a group of Pallottines spent years wandering in the desert seeking to fulfill Bishop Raible’s vision for a Pallottine Kimberley.They found the site selected by the Bishop unsuitable and …

Mark Moora (dec) describes his early life growing up at Old Balgo Mission. Archival photos courtesy of the Sisters of St John of God.

The desert people who came to settle at Balgo were not merely captured by rations; they were held in an ever diminishing orbit of the mission by the gravity of family. At old Balgo, in return for rations, parents were expected to leave their children in the care of the