We meet in the airport of a small charter service, seven people, at six in the morning on a cold Adelaide
We arrived at Birdsville airport at 11am, and walked off the plane into thirty nine degree heat and no less than a million flies all finding their way into our faces and mouths, we certainly did the Australian Salute that day and for the next ten days thereafter. Our new boss met and welcomed us, then drove the group to our new home, about twelve kilometers along the Birdsville Track; this is where we would live for the following ten days.
We were given lunch, fresh salmon, ham, corned beef, green and crisp salad and bread rolls; we met our cooks for the journey, three men who are normally the caterers for McLeod’s Daughters. Their food was to be nothing short of brilliant, tasty and something we would discuss on a daily basis, you would often hear the familiar catch cry “I wonder what is for dinner tonight”.
We sat quietly having lunch and looked over the landscape and saw nothing, the outback is a big land of nothing, only sand, dust and flies. Later we were to discover the outback is so much more, the feel, the warmth, the hidden secrets, such as, at camp two we drove into the station and went over a slight hill and into the most beautiful landscape, green trees, sand and a ninety meter wide river that just went on and on. We saw horses and cows feeding in open paddocks on stations of over 1.5 million acres. One day we were coming back to base camp and crossing the road was a seven-meter python, just going for a stroll, needless to say he got right of way. We saw eagles that had wind spans that took your breath away.
But on the first day I was contemplating what I had done or why was I there. With lunch finished our new boss said, “Right you, you, you and you can please build me that 24 x 20 marquee so that we have somewhere to eat tonight”. I was one of the “you”, I wanted to cry, I thought “Oh my god I am stuck here; no where to run and no where to hide and what was worse I had applied and then begged for the job”. So I cowboy’d up, thought well you better just get into it girl and get to work. After all I wanted desperately to be involved in any way with the 2005 Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive .
The funny thing is this was to be the beginning of the most wonderful, rewarding and significant three weeks of my life. Having grown up on a farm in NSW and remembering the grandparents talk about droving and herding stock I wanted to see for myself was it as romantic and wonderful as the impressions that were left on my mind.
Whilst I am positive the clients, the staff and myself completed the trip in relative comfort compared to the drovers of 100 years ago, we still had a major taste of adventure, by the time that our contract was up, we had moved the stock, which consisted of 600 head of cattle and 130 horses, over 350 kilometers down the Birdsville track towards Maree, with our section of the trip finishing at Clifton Hills Station.
Each camp also had its own toilets and shower facilities, with HOT water; these facilities were built on the back of trucks and were second to none, including – ready - hairdryers!!!!! At the first camp we started to build and had to work around the goannas who were sunning themselves just where we decided to build base camp.
My job was with the team which made from the ground up each camp, we would in our time, set up this in four separate camps, we had to build per camp an average of seventy tents, the 20 x 24 marquee, we filled each tent with beds, dividers, chairs, lamps, bins and a side table, then we made the beds fully up, sheets, pillows and doona’s and placed towels on them. BUT most funny of all was that in each client tent we would lay carpet. So I would suggest we had it softer than the original drovers who just swaged it out, be it rain or shine. Our job also consisted of so much more, we set up the inside of the marquee and the tables and chairs, we handled any job or task that was assigned to us that was needed to make the camp work and be comfortable. We all worked an average of ten or eleven hours per day and worked the country way, hard and physical and sooo rewarding.
We started at camp one, then every five or six days, when that particular set of clients left, we would close down that camp, pack it up and shift it a further 100 kilometers or so down the track, sometimes still operating in back camp, base camp or beginning to make our forward camp. The logistics of making the event a success were enormous, yet every time we moved it was so much easier and streamlined. On moving days everyone from the event manager to the toilet cleaners would shift and work together, we did work hard but all I can remember is the constant laughter, chatter and fun that surrounded the day. I also took these removals as a learning experience in event management and came away with some valuable hands on knowledge.
I heard wonderful stories about Tom Kruse, the original mailman along the Birdsville track and the Leitchfield family and many other families, drovers, women and workman from that district, who before radio, cars and some of today’s items we take for granted made the track there home. Through floods, droughts and hard times, they built businesses, had families and lived life as a community, they remember those times with smiles still on their faces, and they are in my mind the true heroes.
Night at the camp was well:- work hard, play hard, this is after all the country way, we had a camp fire and a bar, after a few drinks the stories from the drovers and station hands, would just be a little bit more stretched, for example, “If you see a goanna lying on its back with its hands up, well it is just praying for rain” so leave it be. Some of the best stories were from the aborigines, two blokes, were in our team and flew up with us in the plane and four others were in the camp, they won many a heart on this trip. They would stand at night with us in the flats and show us stories about the stars, where we read the stars to make a picture such as the Southern Cross, they see the picture in the darkness, and if you look you can really see eels, emus and people. We would sit spellbound for ages listening to some story about the time long gone and at the end of it, someone would say, “oh wow really?” and on occasions one of the aboriginal men would say, “no just kidding”. Much laughter later we would go off to bed and sometimes after all was quite the dingoes would come to camp just to say hello.
Tom Curtain, who presently has the number three and number nine songs on the Australian County Music Charts, he was a drover on the drive and he would come into the camp and sing every few nights, he had a way or making you feel and live the Northern Territory and the Outback through his songs, and ladies let me tell you he also won a few hearts if you know what I mean. He was with out a doubt a gentle soul who knew how to work a horse, often referred to as a horse whisperer by clients.
After about ten days I was asked to work as a client hostess, the management liked the rapport I was building with each client group, so this side of the job afforded me more involvement with the whole cattle drive itself and as such I was able to get even more out of the whole experience. There were many fantastic memories from this trip some I will remember and laugh, such as one day we were riding the horses (there were no clients at this time as clients could not gallop), falling back one day when we were horse riding and having to gallop to catch up to the group, and I was wearing the wrong bra, so my breasts kept popping out. Imagine holding the reins with one hand and popping boobs back in with the other, only to have them fall out again on the next gallop, one drover who was with me laughed so much she nearly fell off her horse. On mothers day we had a church service in the outback, a very surreal day with crew and clients, all holding their horses and listening intently to the priest, communion for the priest was harrowing to say the least, I was lucky enough to be asked to read a passage from the bible during this service, not normally a church goer, but this touched me. There were many stories and memories that came from this experience, something happened almost on a daily basis. Not only to me as a individual but as the group itself. I remember everyday laughing, what was great was the laughing from the belly.
What I want to say is that life is to short, times are going to fast and opportunities that present themselves only often do so once. So grab what is on offer. I wanted to give up on day one, and yet I would have missed so much. I knew what I could achieve and what I could do, but often when we are surrounded by people we know so we either let them do for us or we think we don’t want to fail in front of people we know, so we may not try to leave our comfort zone. I always thought I could do these things, but now I know for sure, because I DID pitch the marquee, I DID build those hundreds of tents, I DID drive a 4WD over dry creek beds and over miles of very sharp stones (the gibbers), and through the bush ON MY OWN for over two hours, (I was coming back from taking a client to the horses). I laughed, told stories, had fun and lived an adventure. I faced challenges and not only met them I exceed in them. I made friendships and contacts with people that I may never meet again, but who will always be special to me, I rode fast and well, I held my OWN with men who were country fellas, who told me at the end of the trip that “you can certainly ride that horse and work that cattle” or “you worked hard and laughed often a very nice combination” comments of respect from men who are not used to giving compliments as much as their city counterparts are, so in my mind mean more to me.
Think outside the circle, take a chance, have an adventure and realize when you are about to take that gamble at work or in your business life, or even in your personal life, and you have second thoughts, think hang on I CAN DO THIS, I have gone outside my comfort zone and not only did I DO IT but LOVED it. For me in the scheme of the outback, where you can travel for days and see nothing or no-one only then do we realize that we are only a speck on the world of our OWN existence and in the end it is how we feel about ourselves, what we have done for ourselves and how we have faced our own challenges that is how we should measure ourselves.
SO JUST take a big breath and GO FOR IT, for me I will be applying again for a job at the 2007 Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive !
No comments:
Post a Comment