In September 1995 a shy young Norwegian girl, Ingvill Backman, came to work on the Campbell farm, “Springbank” at Corack. 

For eight months she helped Trevor and Adam with all types of agricultural activities. She drove the header during harvest and the Steiger and air seeder for cropping. 

Now, almost twenty-nine years later her elder son, Stein Sira, has paid a visit to the Campbells. 

Stein is specifically here through his Norwegian company, IKM Subsea, to operate an ROV (underwater drone) for the purpose of inspecting a new cable being laid to a gas rig which is situated sixty kilometres off shore from Perth. 

The crew lived on a barge beside the gas rig for the four weeks that it took to lay the cable. 

With the job completed, Stein was keen to see where his mother had lived during her time in Australia, hence his visit to Donald. 

While at Corack, he’s helped to prepare for cropping and has been spotlighting (shooting foxes and rabbits is a bit different to hunting deer in Norway). He has also visited Ballarat and Halls Gap and, of course, did the mandatory aerial inspection of Springbank and the district with Ingvill’s host father, Trevor.

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 19 April 2024.