Moolooloo Cattle Station, Victoria River Downs District, Northern Territory

“Its not exactly human power, but it certainly beats pedalling for a change.” This was the thought that popped into my head as I climbed into the saddle of a beautiful thoroughbred gelding lent for me to help out with the day’s work: herding cattle on horseback. Jason and I had left the rest of the group at Limestone Gorge in Gregory National Park for the weekend to go and explore a typical Australian cattle station. We were now tailing some 500 head of ‘weaner’ calves 23 kilometres to a yard where they would be ‘drafted’ (sorted) and put out into a different paddock to the one they’d been born and raised in.

So, for the next 48 hours we got to sample a little of the life to be had on a Northern Territory Cattle Station; from gnawing dinosaur bones at the Saturday night BBQ to having a cardiac arrest on the toilet following the hasty exit of a large, green frog from the underside of the seat. The highpoint however had to be the following afternoon when we were lucky to experience the art of mustering cattle (gathering together) by helicopter. Dark storm clouds were already forming on the horizon as we drove the rough, 30 km track to the yard where the cattle were being mustered. Heli-mustering is quite a recent technique used for gathering cattle from huge paddocks - several hundred square kilometres in size – into holding pens for necessary maintenance/sorting. The paddock in this case had the added disadvantage - at least from the perspective of being worked by horseback – of being covered ankle deep in rocks. So mustering by helicopter often not only saves time but ultimately also money (see today’s math update ‘Ringer for a Day’).

After making contact on a UHF radio we met up with Mark Clifford, the Station Manager, who kindly allowed me to go up in one of the choppers to see how mustering was done from the air. After a quick 4-minute up and down the pilot set me down on one of the yard roofs to watch the final ‘yarding-up’ process of squeezing the mustered cattle the last few hundred yards through a funnel into the holding pens. Bear in mind these cattle are mustered only once a year, having human contact for only a few days in every 365. So for all intents and purposes they are as wild as cattle can get. All parties present were then treated in the closing stages to a truly spectacular display of acrobatics as the chopper pilot engaged in an air-to-land dogfight with a rogue mother and calf that had absolutely no interest in joining her colleagues in the pens. As the clattering machine ducked and weaved just a few feet above the ground to cut the mother from double-backing, spinning first this way then that, the mother cow likewise spun and gyrated to shake off the chopper, occasionally raising her head skyward to shake it in defiance of this airborne threat to her offspring.

Finally the mother’s efforts prevailed and she escaped behind the chopper, her calf managing to barge through the fence to freedom into a neighbouring paddock. “No worries”, said Mark as we all congregated in the pouring rain beside the pens, now filled to the brim with steaming animals. “The ringers will probably pick them up later this week during drafting”.

Half an hour later after the rain had eased we slowly made our way through the mud to the homestead. Barb – the station’s cook – was waiting for us with a welcome cup of hot tea and Anzac biscuits. We then bade our farewells and started the long ride back to meet up with the rest of the team at Limestone Gorge.

April - journal entry