Tag Archives: australia

I make no apology for the fact that both past and present tense are used in this piece; nor for the fact that both the imperial and metric measurement systems are used. I was raised on the imperial and it is these measurements which I continue to use in this piece.

Mention the Australian outback to most people, be they from other nations or Australia and often visions of vast, barren deserts, miles upon miles of virtually nothing except a bush here and maybe a tree there and plenty of red bulldust, are conjured up. 

Overall not an attractive picture, so most would think.

Old petrol bowser and pump on a station in Qld.

How wrong can some people be.

I was born in Adelaide, capital of South Australia and raised on a sheep station in the north eastern pastoral district of that state. The station is 115,000 acres, which is small compared with other stations further up and out. Our livelihood depended on Merino sheep for their wool and a few head of cattle. The land, which is very barren, is comprised of such vegetation as salt and blue bush, mulga and gum trees, among others. We average less than seven inches of rain per annum so cannot rely on cropping. Ours is amongst the first of the ‘big’ sheep stations heading north east of Adelaide.

Peterborough is the nearest town, being 32 miles away. Along with my three older brothers and our cousins, I was educated, until the ripe old age of 11, by School of the Air and correspondence school.

There were times when we actually did have enough rain to isolate us completely but with today’s technology this no longer happens. In those days (and I am only going back 30 or so years), we had our own generator providing us with 32 volt power, a telephone connected to a ‘party line’, mail once a week and groceries monthly. The wonderful Royal Flying Doctor Service provided our medical services in emergencies.

My brother and his family are living on and managing the station now. With improved roads, transport and technology my niece and nephew were able to attend the local primary school in Peterborough, rather than relying on the School of the Air. Both then followed the lead of the generations before them and attended boarding school in Adelaide.

As can be gathered from the information above, rain water is very scarce. While all (or most) stations have several large concrete tanks, dam water is used for personal bathing, washing and dish washing. The water looks dreadful, like wishy washy mud, but to many, it is a real novelty to wash and swim in. We also used to swim in the dams when they were full enough; usually they did not have enough water in them in which to swim. But there were the very rare occasions when water was plentiful, thereby allowing us to swim in the dams and even in the creek, both of which were a lot of fun. When swimming in the dams you just had to be careful not to be nipped by a yabby (similar to a crayfish or lobster and just as tasty). The other positives about swimming out there – no chlorination, no salt usually and no pullution. Just good pure water. A good deal of Australia’s outback water is supplied by huge artesian basins.

While kangaroos are a dearly loved part of the Australian fauna, they, along with rabbits and foxes, are also a terrible menace in the outback. Our station is surrounded by a supposedly dingo-proof fence. However, it seems no-one told the kangaroos about this as they cause more damage to the fence than anything else does. In fact, dingoes and wild dogs are plentiful further up north and rarely venture as far south as our station. They rip the stock to pieces – not to eat – just for the fun or it. Rabbits, kangaroos and other pests eat the spear grass and general vegetation, what there is of it, which is food for our stock.

Despite the above, as children we often rescued orphaned animals, including ‘joeys’ (baby kangaroos), emus, the odd kids (baby goats as some would know) lambs and calves. We also kept a carpet python as a ‘pet’ at one stage. All were released into the wild once old and strong enough.

Entertainment was a little different out there. Travelling over one hundred miles for any kind of social occasion was and still is very much the norm. If you were not prepared to travel – take a ‘road trip’ you didn’t really have a social life. I now live in the city and dislike driving in the suburbs intensely – too much traffic, too many pedestrians, traffic lights, freeways – no thanks. And I won’t go near the CBD. But put me on a country road and I can drive forever and love it. ‘Local’ towns held annual horse racing carnivals where the emphasis seemed more on local gossip, ‘high’ fashion and of course, drinking, than on the races themselves. Races? What races? We actually had race horses at one stage, but that was well before my time.

Up to the age of 11 my only real play-mate was my youngest brother, until we were sent away to different boarding schools. I also had a cousin – her father and my father were brothers and co-managed the stations for many years.

We all learned to ride horses and motor bikes and to drive cars (on the station only – NEVER outside the boundary) almost before we could crawl. That just seemed to be a part of life out there and I presume it still is on many remote properties.

Old chimney stack. Rest of the building long gone. These are found throughout the rural and remote areas of the nation. What a story they could probably tell…

At times we were almost completely self-sufficient; raising our own chickens; milking our own cows and also making cheese and we had our own sources of lamb and mutton. Also vegetables and fruit when we had sufficient rains for them to grow. In the very early days we also produced bread from our own ovens. In those days, we were fortunate enough to have an excellent cook, along with governesses and a ‘cow-boy’. Those days are long gone now and we no longer produce any of the above apart from the meat and fruit and veges on occasion. While parts of the sprawling homestead have been modernised for practicality, the bread ovens have been preserved, along with our old milk-separating cellar, although neither is used.

Like most stations, we have a couple of ‘outstations’. In better years one of these held a family of about fifteen children; the other has been empty as long as I can remember. Now both stand empty.

The homestead itself is typical of many country homesteads, with huge rooms, very thick stone walls, completely surrounded by wide verandahs, huge open fireplaces and very high ceilings. This building, the engine room, slaughter house, shearers’ quarters, shearing shed, stables (no longer in existence) and assorted other buildings, resemble a small village.

And then there are the snakes and other reptiles and ‘creepy-crawlies’. The worst and most venomous snake is the Common Brown but we also have had the occasional visit from the King Brown, which lives further north. Another common species is the afore-mentioned Carpet Python, which is harmless. As for spiders, the harmless Huntsman is easily the most common and they can grow to be enormous. I am afraid that I am very much an arachnophobic and have suffered from this fear since childhood. I used to try to overcome this for the sakes of my daughters – but that didn’t work – they are both worse than I am. We also have the Redback spider, which is a cousin to the Funnelweb (which we do not have) but not as venomous. But you don’t want to be bitten by the Redback either.

Budgerigars (budgies) poking their heads out of their front door to say hello – or maybe to tell us to go away.

Among my childhood and teen memories on the station is one relating to a certain uncle (not blood relative) who lives on a nearby station and who owned and flew a Tiger Moth aeroplane. This uncle used to make a habit of flying low over our station and dropping bags of sweets attached to tiny parachutes, for us children. This occurred annually, after he had visited the Royal Adelaide Show. We used to love racing each other into the huge creek bed at the front of the homestead searching for those little parcels; a bit like an Easter egg hunt. We also had an airstrip, as did and do most stations, only ours has been overgrown by salt and blue bush and I think would cause an emergency if someone tried to land a plane on it. If I remember correctly, these airstrips were mainly for the use of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) as well as the odd other plane – like our uncle’s.

Sign for outback race club meeting. Western Australia.

The afore-mentioned creek could be quite dangerous, but very exciting, in heavy rains. It didn’t even have to be raining on the station; as long as there were heavy enough rains ‘upstream’, the chances were very hight of our creek coming down a ‘banker’ (meaning a usually bone dry creek suddenly filled to over-flowing with rushing water). I have only witnessed it once but would not have missed that. Imagine standing in a completely dry creek bed and suddenly hear an almighty roar – looking in that direction and seeing a huge bank of water, sometimes many feet deep, coming straight for you, taking all in its path. These ‘bankers’ have been known to drag fences, trees, windmills, junk, animals and anything else that gets in the way, as far as the creek travels. We have found items on stations over 200 miles away – and other items have disappeared forever.

Very dry lake bed…middle of Qld.

There really is just so much more to the magnificent Australian outback than has been mentioned here. To the eye of the uninitiated, it probably still is and always will be a vast, barren, boring, unending desert with very little, if anything, to offer – especially compared with mountains (we have those in the outback too), lush green pastures, rivers and waterfalls, flowers and other flora and fauna…yes, I concede that the outback could well be considered ‘ugly’.

Just an idea of what the distances in our outback are like.

But it is not. To me, the outback is absolutely spectacular.

It really is beautiful if one bothers to take the time to really look and appreciate the beauty. You do not need a vivid imagination to really see the beauty out there. The colours of the hills and valleys at dawn and sunset and after a rain – even before a rain – are spectacular in themselves. I have seen many paintings of different settings in the outback – they cannot be imagined, they are real, just as are those of snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, rivers and forests.

Outback worms….hmmm….

The fauna of the outback is as impressive as that of the lusher areas, too. As previously mentioned kangaroos abound out there – but not koalas. These gorgeous creatures are fussy eaters in that, while Australia has numerous types of eucalyptus trees, the koala will only eat the leaf of one species and this is found in certain areas of the nation, not all over. Other fauna includes hundreds of different sorts of reptiles, along with many other creatures, some harmful, others not. Emus, eagles, eaglehawks, galahs, sulphur-crested cockatoos, rosellas, cockatiels, wild canaries, budgerigars to name just a few. There are also hundreds of species of small ground-living birdlife.

The spectacular Wreath Flower – one of our beautiful wildflowers.

Like every nation Australia has a huge amount of features of interest for the tourist and locals alike, but I just feel that the outback, which really does have just so much to offer, is so often overlooked. It is not even acknowledged by many city folk – or if it is, from what I have heard, it is very negative, in our own nation which I think is so very sad.

So this is my little effort to help acknowledge and salute it, as truly deserved.

No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt XI)

Chapter 8 – Life After School

There was not a chance in heck that I would return to that school for another year, even with all the extra goodies thrown in to tempt me. Instead I tried to settle into my allotted duties on the station. Sadly, after a few weeks, this did not work for me either. I didn’t have any money and in hindsight I realize that this was partly the reason that we were all offered the chance to spend that first year after school at home, to save a bit of money for ourselves while working up there before entering the ‘real world’ or whatever we decided we wanted to do.

But it didn’t work for me and I found myself heading for Melbourne. For the life of me, I cannot remember why, unless someone else was going over there and I decided I wanted to go too. And I did. I was very fortunate in that Dad’s youngest sister lived there with her husband and three daughters, my cousins. The main thing I remember about that visit was buying two puppies. I have always been hopeless where pet shops are concerned and this time was no exception. These two puppies were in the window and I fell in love. I was initially only going to get one (not giving any thought at all as to where they would  go while I was still in Melbourne and then getting them home with me…none of that occurred to me at the time) but found that I couldn’t leave one so bought them both. They must have stayed with me at my aunt’s and uncle’s house then I think we flew them back to Adelaide, all at others’ expense. And it must have been arranged that someone would meet them in Adelaide and then take them up to the station. None of this occurred to me. All I wanted was those two dogs – and I got them.

I must then have returned to our station and those two dogs. In fact I then had three dogs because I still had my gorgeous little Australian Terrier that Mum and Dad bought me when I was still at school as is mentioned above. He was always my favourite. I loved those dogs so much but tragically none of them passed on naturally. Spound (Spot Hound shortened – she was white with one big black spot over her eye) drowned, I believe her sister, Blound (Black Hound shortened – needless to say she was black all over) died from snake-bite and the third, my beautiful Australian Terrier, survived distemper but the after-effects were awful. Mum and Dad kept offering to have him put down but I just couldn’t bring myself to let that happen. Poor little thing was suffering and must have been in so much pain but I just couldn’t do it. Finally, on one visit to the station, Mum and Dad told me he had finally passed on. I don’t think I asked why – as devastated as I was, I accepted that.

Back from Melbourne, I settled in Adelaide for some years. In 1973 I lived in a hostel in North Adelaide and attended business college. I had high hopes for myself there, as did my parents I think – but while I did not have any of the problems I endured at boarding school, it seemed I was not made of secretarial stuff either. My typing was OK and still is, but shorthand – forget it. And the rest of the subjects were equally useless. I graduated with a certificate, as opposed to a diploma. About half way through that year, I became very ill and was taken up to the station so Mum could look after me. While away, we got a call from the head of the hostel to tell us it was being closed down. So we had to find alternative accommodation. I was home for a while (a couple of weeks, I think) and Mum found another hostel which happened to be just down the road from my old school.

I finished that year and then it was time to join the workforce and find a flat or similar to live in. It happened that my mother’s old family home had been divided up into five separate flats, since the family had grown up and moved out. My grandparents had lived in the first flat and the last one had been used for any live-in help they had ever had. I can well remember the last tenant in that last flat, a lovely lady who never married but I always enjoyed her company and was thrilled when she came to visit Granny and Grandpa when we happened to be there too. This lady eventually moved on and I moved in with different flat-mates at different times.

I applied for a number of different employment positions, all involving office work. I did get a position in an engineering firm which was within walking distance of home. I stayed there for some months. Can’t say that I loved it – but it was work and did bring a small wage in. Then I went to NZ with a friend whom I met at business college and I had been asked not to return to that position when I came home. OK. Fine. I didn’t like it anyway and had planned to resign, but not before finding something else. However, they got in first, so that was that.

Another position I held for a short time was that of nanny/nurse for an orphanage. That was a live-in position and really interesting but for some reason that escapes me now I was not there for long.

After that, I successfully tried to get into nursing. However, at that time I had also been accepted for a position in the world of computers with one of our banks. By that stage, I didn’t need to give this much thought and I opted for the computers. And in hindsight, I am glad I did. I stayed with that bank for some years, eventually being sent to Canberra to help out over there. I cannot remember how long I was supposed to be in the ACT but I was there for 11 months. I absolutely hated the work but loved my accommodation, which happened to be one of the residential college in the ANU (Australian National University). When I first moved into this college, I was terrified. So many students. But after a week or so, I realized I needed to get out and about and did so, never looking back. I made some wonderful friends during that year, all of whom I have since lost contact with but the memories remain and they really were fun times.

At the end of that year, when many of those students moved on either into other colleges or sharing houses elsewhere in Canberra, or whatever, I decided it was time for me to move on, too. So I requested a transfer back to Adelaide. The manager and powers-that-be were not happy about it, but I told them I would resign if I couldn’t be transferred. I realized I was dicing with my job, but I was beyond caring – I just wanted to leave. I was very lucky in that I was granted the transfer and returned to Adelaide at the beginning of the following year.

When I did return to the bank in Adelaide, I found that I was allocated to a different group from before and while the girls were nice, I wasn’t as happy as I had been. After a few weeks back I was called aside and asked if I would be interested in going to Melbourne for a few weeks, all expenses paid, to ‘trouble-shoot’ and train a new employee. Now this sounded wonderful, so I accepted and off I went. I lived in a lovely suite in one of Melbourne’s best hotels, again within walking distance of the bank. I was there for a few weeks and made some wonderful friends, although lost contact with all of them. Some lovely memories there, too.

I was nearing the end of my time in Melbourne when I discovered to my elation that my bank balance was looking pretty jolly good. That was also when I made the decision to leave the bank for good and head overseas. With further investigation, I discovered why my bank balance had looked so good – it seemed I had been paid my Christmas Club cheque twice. So I had to pay that back but luckily, I still had enough to be able to fund an overseas trip.

l planned to spend about two years overseas, working and traveling, as so many do. I ended up going with a friend from the bank as well as my middle brother. My friend and I lived in a house that had been purchased especially for Australians and other international travelers. My brother went up (down – whatever) to Oxford University and stayed with one of his friends who was a student there. I found a position as an audio-typist for an insurance company and quite enjoyed the job, but was not so keen on my accommodation. Things did not work out with the latter and after a few trips over to Europe and Scandinavia, then up to Scotland, I decided to head home, back to Australia. My brother had already gone but he only ever planned to be there for a few weeks anyway.

We had flown to London on my 24th birthday. My friend and I went up to Scotland for Christmas, really hoping for a white one as we realized this might have been our only chance to ever see a white Christmas. However, as luck would have it – apparently it was too cold for snow. In fact, I don’t think it snowed while we were there at all. Darnit!

Meanwhile, my brother was due to return to Australia in time to help with shearing on the station. Now picture this. Being winter in the UK, it really was bitterly cold in England when he left there – and of course Australia was right in the grips of a typically searing hot summer. My brother must have been collected from the airport in Adelaide and went straight up to the station. He was due to muster the sheep for shearing. No time to acclimatise himself to the huge difference in temperature and I understand that this was just too much for his body to handle. Trying to shelter under trees in our Australian heat did not help. It was next to useless and I seem to recall that he actually collapsed. He was all right but it would not be something I would advise anyone to try to do. Not if you have a choice – he didn’t and therefore suffered for it. 

While I was in England my youngest brother and one of his friends flew over and stayed with us for a night or so. Then they moved onto Ireland. But they must have returned as they were able to see me off when I flew back to Australia not long after.

In those days Adelaide did not have an international airport so if you wanted to leave the country, you had to go through either one of the eastern states or Perth. As it happened, one of the girls that I worked with in London was Australian and we became very great friends. And still are. She is actually also a Godmother to one of my daughters. As I had never been to Perth and she lived here I decided this was the perfect opportunity to see it. I had been here for only a couple of weeks when I decided that this was where I wanted to settle. My family knew I would never return to Adelaide to live and was just waiting to see where I would settle. So it was no surprise to them when I called to say I was heading home, but would be returning to Perth to live.