Tales of the outback - A true story

This story is in no way a representation of Australian people in the outback. I want to make it clear that the following events were a one off experience. I met many people who had extremely positive experiences. Everything I have written is true, I haven’t added anything for effect.

Chapter 1 - The Outback

My new employer

Seven imposing metal cages on legs, stood strong in the afternoon’s fully charged sunshine. Inside, working dogs, at least four to an inadequately sized cage, stepped frenetically in each other’s faeces and pawed in vain at their sizzling enclosures. This was the Australian Outback, a cattle station in Charleville, two hours from the nearest shop and a great distance, I continued to discover, from the touch of human kindness.

“How many dogs do you have?” I asked nervously, as my new employer heaved my bare essentials out of the back of the vintage Ute.
“Twenny five, only use a few of ‘em, they get rotated every time we go out on a muster” she said casually.

Her strong Queensland accent intimidated me and I felt my heart rate increase rapidly, causing me to sweat even more in the unfamiliar humidity. I looked at the sad faces of the dogs, the unaccompanied farm building that stored secrets I had yet to discover, the dry red dirt that had managed to make my feet unrecognisable in my unpractical flip flops and all of a sudden I felt incredibly overwhelmed; I was definitely out of my comfort zone.

“We’ll start work tomorrow, you’ll work seven days a week, 12 hours a day, no days off, plenny of smokos though. We’ll get started tomorrow”, she said, without hesitation whilst ushering me towards her house.

As I contemplated my new heavy work schedule, I tried to reassure myself with her mention of barbecues, at least I wouldn’t go hungry, immediately regretting that thought with the fresh image of the underfed dogs. I found out later, however, that ‘smoko’ had actually meant a break. This was not the last Australian word I would learn. I followed my new employer into the house and watched for clues to this new found personality.

Kathleen was a robust looking woman, tall with extremely broad shoulders that could have easily supported two small children comfortably on each side. Her short wavy black hair tried to make an escape from under her wide brim hat, covering her thick and surprisingly pale skin. She would push it back each time with her muscular fingers commenting that it was about time she bought a new one.

As we approached the bungalow style house a small white dog came running to greet us from the front porch excited and hopeful that somebody would play with him. His name was Pip, he was a Jack Russell. They were not one of my favourite breeds of dog as they tend to be a bit temperamental, so this made me hesitate slightly before giving in to my urge to stroke him. He was a fat little thing, resembling a soft toy that had been overstuffed by a frustrated factory worker. I wondered why he had been privileged to receive more food than the dogs in the cages out the back that looked scrawny and hopeless.

The house was old and wooden, the front porch was besmirched with old boots, pieces of rope and an old plastic dog basket that made Pip look like a sleeping field mouse on a bale of straw. There were a variety of other items that I could not put a name to. On entering the house I noticed how functional it looked, lacking a woman’s touch it seemed only to serve the very basic of needs. An ancient television sat heavily in the corner with a sofa opposite to watch. At the far end of the room there was a large square table entertaining six empty chairs. The kitchen and bathroom were the same in character, the latter embellished with timid pastel pink geckos.

Kathleen showed me to my room, which was situated just outside of the house, it contained a huge double bed, a small antique wardrobe and a large spinning fan on the ceiling that looked and sounded as though it would fly off its nuts and bolts at any given moment taking chunks out of each wall as it began its descent. The walls were a slightly off white colour with random black marks situated in positions that made me curious as to how they got there.
I was starting to feel apprehensive about this new place that I had romanticised about for the last year. So far it was nothing like I had envisaged and that underwhelmed feeling scared me to death.

My first night in the house was filled with raucous chants from a variety of species and at that point the only one I recognised was the cricket. Those tiny creatures must get sore legs at some point, I thought. I kept the light on for awhile and stared up at the fan, hoping I would be hypnotised into sleep. I noticed hundreds of mosquitos dancing wildly behind the rotating blades. I imagined they were celebrating one of the mosquito’s incredible plans, which was to get the swarm passed the spinning fan and down to my blood filled body without being blown around the room or sliced and diced by the blurring blades. I comforted myself with the thought that this would be impossible but decided to spray myself just incase, I didn’t want those horrible blood suckers having the last laugh. Turning off the light, I felt slightly ambivalent and questioned my reasons for being here. I must have quizzed myself to death because I don’t remember falling into a deep sleep.

I was woken abruptly at 7.00am the next morning by Kathy banging on my bedroom door; she had made me eggs and vegetables for breakfast. With sleepy eyes I looked disdainfully at the vegetables but was told almost immediately,

“You must eat as much as possible for the long day ahead. It’s energetic sweaty work” she said unwaveringly.

Although I knew she was probably right, I politely refused the vegetables on the grounds that I wasn’t that hungry; my stomach could not even begin to contemplate such a delightful mixture.

Our first job, I was told, was to ‘burn the scrub’. Having some knowledge about Australia’s reputation for forest fires, I suddenly felt very uneasy and these two words now reverberated around my head like a loose trainer in a washing machine drum. Pressing pause on the echoing intermittent thud, I tried to think pragmatically for a moment and considered the next piece of information I was given. The cattle station sat on 11,000 hectares (over 27,000 acres) of land. This certainly wasn’t a couple of farmer’s fields, this was serious acreage; I wondered how much of that we would get done in a day, I guesstimated around 10.

As Kathy and I walked down to the outside buildings, I realised that on my arrival, I hadn’t noticed the bluey grey dog tied up to the tree outside. He was so quiet that in all my jittery energy, I had overlooked this beautiful new Australian breed, the blue heeler. I found out later that they were initially bred to herd cattle in Australia. They were strong muscular dogs always needing a job to do and loved companionship; he seemed to be lacking the last two of these things.

“Don’t touch him, he’s a temperamental bastard, he’s retired from mustering now” said Kathy sounding like she had given up on him and wanted nothing more to do with him.

I looked at his old handsome face and wondered if he was retired because he had just had enough of chasing stubborn cattle around all day, or if Kathy had decided he was no longer of any use. Maybe the younger models she had bought in had usurped him. I was curious if a herding dog would ever want to retire, maybe he missed it.

After catching a breath and coming out of my head for a moment to get acquainted with the plans for the day, I noticed that Kathy had walked on ahead to the farm outhouse; I quickened my pace.

It was chaos inside the stand alone construction and all I could see were old motorbikes, patched tyres and metres and metres of wire. There were sacks of dog food, technical instruments that I didn’t know the English names for, three large quad bikes and lots and lots of black soot everywhere. She handed me something that looked like the tin man was lurking around the corner somewhere, waiting to be de-rusted. I held on to it and discovered it was lighter than it first looked. This was the instrument we would be using to set fire to the fields, it was a drip-torch. I had no idea how it worked but hoped I wouldn’t kill myself trying to use it.

Our next job was to fill up the ‘Ute’, an Australian word that I was starting to prefer to its English counterpart ‘pick-up truck’; delivery of the word was effortless. Kathy had two petrol pumps at the cattle station, which was lucky as I wouldn’t want to run out of petrol on a two hour trip to get to the petrol station in the first place. I’m not sure who would find us out here in the middle of nowhere.

Before we became fire starters we had to make sure the dogs and the horses were fed. The dogs, of course, were not going to let us forget them as their barks started as soon as they saw us. The noise only ceased when every last one had been fed. We dragged the large rubber dishes to the front of the cages and let them out, two cages at a time. Each skinny frantic dog had to fight for its share and I was starting to realise that the portions they were getting were miniscule. The dogs choked on their unequal pickings, trying to get it down their necks as fast as they could; I had never seen dogs that hungry. I tried adding more food to the dishes but was stopped abruptly.

‘They don’t need more food, they’re working dogs, if you fatten them up they will be slow’ she said sharply, snatching the bag of food from my hand.

I was surprised by her reaction, I felt myself flush with embarrassment so I turned away from her and lost myself in the blue heeler puppies that presented themselves boisterously at my feet.

The horses were well fed and they did not react in the same way, they appeared happy, if a little timid in my presence, I put this down to me being a stranger.

We finally made our way out to a thirsty and colourless landscape, where the fields rolled on and on, swallowing all clarity. Kathy began to tell me the reasons why a controlled burn was necessary and I listened unusually with ease, to the factual information. Back burning was an old tradition that the indigenous people of Australia had started to regenerate plants and control woodland areas. Australia’s dense forestry combined with the intense heat, could be compared to a gas leak waiting for somebody to flick a switch or light a match; always a tragedy waiting to happen. Pre-empting the fatal bush-fires, communities would also burn the scrub in specific lines so potential fires could be stopped in their tracks. For this to be affective the trails had to be wider enough so the fire couldn’t jump over the top of them.

Now I had a better understanding of the process and discovering there was a positive purpose to our destruction, I was looking forward to being involved in the rejuvenation of the land and prevention of death.

I sat on the back of the ute, legs dangling precariously over the edge with nothing to hold onto apart from the drip torch. I imagined falling out of the ute head first and desperately hoped that Kathy would be driving at a leisurely pace, as the fire would be following close behind us and the last thing I wanted was a face full of flames.

The Ute shuddered forward and I had to steady myself with every muscle in my body to prevent myself from falling off. As soon as the driving became consistently steady, I tilted the drip torch and let it do its job. When the first flames appeared, I had to stop myself from shouting obscenities at Kathy as the heat was fierce and my body did well not to dissolve into the brightly lit scrub. The fire spread quickly and rushed towards me like those from murder scenes in films. I hoped the procedure would be quick as I wasn’t sure how long I would last.

My initial decision to stay for six months in the outback was diminishing by the seconds and all I could think of were the comforts of home. I’ll give it a week and then I’m out of here, I thought to myself; this place is going to kill me.

Chapter 2 coming soon!