MUSTERED AND CONQURED + we're not kiwi's yet

Landscape full of nondescript bushes, endless congregated jagged roads, ranges of impassable granite, the distant view of white sheets of salt lakes, and the vivid colour of earthy browns and greens contrasting with the surrounding clear blue sky make this country 'Kukuta'.

We are finally back to semi-civilisation after 2 weeks. We (me especially) would like to thank all our friends and family for being patient with my blog. I know I don’t write one everyday or even one every second day but I do enjoy seeing people viewing our blog and our work. It really puts a smile to my face.
 
So to put everything in brief we accomplished:

• 350km of bike riding
• Falling off the bike x3 (JW+DB)
• Endless stalling; insane terrain
• One sprained left wrist (JW)
• Countless number of bruises
• Millions of insanely prickly things
• one bike tyre puncture (DB)
•  2 cartons of beer sweetly consumed
• 3 visits to the local 48km away Kingoonya Pub
• Zero sunny days
• Given 20 lambs a lift on the bike
• 4 lambs died :(
• Dave attempting sheep rodeo x 20
• 1000 sheep yarded and trucked
• 5895 sheep shorn plus back lined
• 172 bales of wool in one over flowing double semi
• AND one Queensland Origin success!

MUSTERED AND CONQURED

 

NOW THATS AN OUTBACK PUB!

The house we were staying in was built in the 1920’s with 8 rooms each having 2 entrances which made things confusing for a while, massive dining area that could entertain for 30 people, and old school kitchen comprising of wood stoves and hot water supplied by a donkey. For those who don’t know the term ‘donkey’, it basically involves starting a fire under a 44 gallon drum of water and waiting until it’s hot. Old and out dated but its bloody brilliant; best hot water system ever! It’s a house that you would call a farmers home.

Firstly, the terrain out here is something else. If the sheep lived off eating rocks then the farmer would certainly be a millionaire tenfold as most of this country is covered. Most of this country is passable while standing up on the bike but always needing to be weary of sudden dry river ditches, deep light sand patches, and every single salt bush avoiding the hard solid mound of dirt at the base. Bike riding out here is difficult for young Jackaroo’s like us; ending up with sore bums and stiff backs from all the bouncing hence the falls and my wrist. When travelling behind a mob of 300 sheep it’s quite easy riding but having only 3 to look after is a different issue as yesterday proved. Each wanted to go their own way but shit hits the fan when they piss bolt off and you have to re-control their direction. Going over this sort of terrain at 40-50km with rocks, tree branches, every bush with prickly things, and ditches galore all I could think of is not falling off and being really pissed off with these sheep. Knowing how much trouble you’re going through just because they don’t want to be with the mob. You come out battered and bruised but bloody satisfied when you’ve won!

Mustering out here usually starts early in the morning. Sunrise is a beautiful time of day but its the fresh icy breeze that nulls the beauty; going straight through the 17 layers of clothes and making fingers stiff as ice. There was one classic moment when Dave overtook me at 70km screaming at the top of his lungs “ITS F#%KIN’ FREEZING!” while tears streamed down his face. Couldn’t help but just laugh. Paddocks out hear average 10sqkm which is a large area to muster usually requiring 5 riders scouting to find a mob of sheep each and heading towards one point. Along the way we join mobs freeing up a rider which then scouts again for another mob. Things do become easy when a hill overlooks the whole paddock and radios are used for communication. Having someone in a vehicle on the hill delegating directions to the riders joining 2000 sheep in one hit is a certain luxury. Once we have a massive mob it only takes 2 riders to control the mob; one behind pushing and one on the side steering the direction. Sheep are simple herding animals knowing only to follow the one in front which keeps them well in line and even better if there are older sheep who know where they are going. The only time sheep get aggravated is when they come to a gate; channelling 2000 sheep through one 5 metre gap can be difficult. They create an extremely tight circle as all riders creep closer and closer to the mob which scare the nearest sheep to run around the outside of the mob eventually leading to ONE going through the gate. Once one finds the gap they all follow making a classic bottleneck example. If anything is to go wrong, it’ll happen at a gate. Usually sheep in the outer circle take up an opportunity to pass in between two riders and make a run for it which requires immediate full throttle. This means either you’re been pushing too hard/too close, been in the wrong place at the wrong time or probably in most cases, their just being sheep.  One instance it wasn’t sheep being sheep. I was at the back of the mob in the cruiser when I noticed the mob heading in a different direction after kilometres of calm straight walking. I look ahead trying to figure out what was happening and all I see is Dave quickly jumping off his bike in a panic. The bike falls to ground and he is what I describe as ‘river dancing’; frantically hopping on one leg swearing and carrying on. I zoom up to find a massive bull ant nest under his bike and thousand of ants all over his legs. I could help but to point and laugh, he’s yelling “don’t laugh! Don’t laugh, arh arhhhh”. Finally after running around in circles for a while there may have been quite a few bites on his leg. Dave the farmer and his son are over in the distance rolling and crunching their stomachs in laugher while the sheep secretively wonder away.

During mustering you either get extremely frustrated or learn to be patient. When pushing sheep over long distances the tail ends up with ewe’s with their lambs and sick sheep suffering from flystrike which typically take their sweet time to walk. Flystrike is a horrible condition mostly common on sheep that haven’t been mules where Blow flies lay their eggs in the sheep’s wool near its tail. Over time maggots grow and feed inside the sheep and destroy the wool making it very uncomfortable and without treatment of shearing/mulesing they usually die. There is a massive debate in the wool industry whether or not to mules. To mules seems like an awful experience of cutting off the tail and removing the skin which endlessly makes them immune for life but if the tail is left on flystrike can effect up to half of the stock. PETA in America is now boycotting all Australian mulesed wool which, in my option is ridiculous when they don’t suggest any viable alternative. All sheep recover in a few days from mulesing which is more humane then allowing a sheep to be eaten alive from the inside by maggots. Luckily for the wool industry in Australia, 90% of all wool is exported into China. So “Made In China” isn’t that bad as long its wool.

This is only part one. We have had the best week of our lives out in this country with our second family. The amount of amazing things we’ve learnt and seen will be something I can’t wait to tell my kids.

I’ll post a second blog about the shearing and yard work.