Kilcowera Station - Life on an outback Queensland Cattle Station » 1

Letterbox’s fondness for green frogs.

zenonie — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:13:01 +0000

: Hereford cattle at Cardenyabba Lagoon, Kilcowera Station.

Another interesting person we had here was Letterbox. A very capable man, a big burly bloke, very smart and a top musterer. He had a little weakness though which sometimes prevented him from turning up for the job. If he wasn’t here on time you just knew that he wasn’t coming.

When he first started coming out and doing a few days mustering for us we thought we had really struck it lucky with Letterbox as he was so good at the job and he and Greg got along really well. After he’d been here awhile he took it upon himself to look after the grass around the shearers’ quarters where he bunked down. We would often hear “I’ll just slip down and move the sprinklers around the quarters” What a diligent man! A gem! Or it was “I’ll move the sprinklers in the sheep yard or the cattle yard” Righto Letterbox!

Well it transpired that L was a fairly thirsty sort of a fellow who was mightily fond of what he called his green frogs – cans of VB and he just needed a few to get through the day – and he did move the sprinklers too.

One Melbourne Cup day we were bringing a mob of cattle in to the yard and still had 5 or 6 kms to go before the race, I had resigned myself to not seeing it and was a bit glum. I love the champions of the turf and horse racing. Looking around at the mob of cattle I saw that Letterbox was nowhere to be seen. “Huh, b*st*rds gone off to move the sprinklers, I’ll bet!” flashed through my brain. About a half hour later he returned with a couple of green frogs for everyone and a radio so we could hear the race that stops a nation out in the middle of the paddock. What a good man!

Changes through the years Part 1

zenonie — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:10:42 +0000

: Old Crown stove – Kilcowera Station – Outback Queensland – Station Stay – Farm Stay

Changes through the years. Part 1

I was poking around the shearers quarters yard this morning, moving sprinklers and spreading the poddies manure about on the lawn (they move in over summer to keep the grass down) and thinking of some of the things that have changed over the years.

I suppose the biggest in your face change is the shearers quarters itself. When we first married and moved to Kilcowera, Greg and I, closely followed by 2 daughters, lived in the quarters. But not the nice building there today. Oh no, the one we lived in was drafty, freezing cold, or super hot and was a major conduit for the inflow of dust.

We had 32 volt power supplied by a big old diesel Lister engine and a bank of second hand Telecom batteries for lighting at night after the engine was turned off. The lights were pretty dim too. In winter the diesel would freeze in the fuel tank overnight and the engine could not be started till about 10 am. This old engine below is similar to the one we hadin our engine room. That old engine room has been scrubbed up and made into an extra bathroom now.

I was extremely lucky in so much as I had a 32 volt vacuum cleaner to suck up the dust, a 32 v mix master, 3 evaporative coolers that worked some of the time and best of all a 32 volt Simpson agitator washing machine complete with a wringer! Honestly they were fantastic old machines, simple to use and to fix. Every time one washing machine would die Greg seemed to have another one nearby to cannibalize for parts and bingo! I’d have a washing machine again. The old machines are still lined up at the old dump near the quarters. And we also have a new line up now of dead automatic machines that only seem to last about 2 years. They’re in the hanger. I don’t know why. Spare parts?

The kitchen was interesting. We had an old Crown wood stove which had a state of the art hot water system attached to it. I had a lot to learn in the cooking department on this wood burning beast! Now actually I wasn’t a bad cook except for one whole class of food….. no make that two. Cakes and biscuits and deserts were my problem. The savoury stuff was all go – even though I did blanch a bit at tongues, hearts, livers, sweet breads and brains! I had been a city girl – my Mum had made me eat tripe when I was a kid but after I threw up she gave up on trying to improve my palate and I never developed a taste for offal. But people in the bush love it. All those aforementioned things are a treat and certainly not to be wasted. Not much is wasted in the bush. Anyway being the young bride and eager to please, I learned how to cook the offally bits.

But I also had to tackle the sweet things cause the blokes out here sneer at Arnotts biscuits! Suffice to say I did learn and developed a bit of a sweet tooth too. This is the kitchen in the new shearers quarters.

Saturday morning at Kilcowera

zenonie — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:52:56 +0000

Tales of broken down planes and brown snakes in outback Queensland part 1.

zenonie — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:46:14 +0000

I always take myself for a little fly on my birthday so as that’s tomorrow I thought today was close enough. I had fuelled the plane up yesterday, checked the oil, coolant and tyres. Dawn saw me doing the daily inspection all over and around the plane, every things OK, so I start her up.

As soon as I moved off and used a little brake I felt something was wrong. I attempted to run the engine to 3800 rpm to check the CDI’s while keeping the plane stationary with the brakes, but the brakes wouldn’t hold. The left hand brake line has a crack in it and is letting the brake fluid out.

Now the thought did cross my mind that the wind was straight down the longest airstrip and I really could get away with no brakes if I really needed to go for a fly. But it’s an unnecessary risk seeing as I don’t really have to go. So put the plane back in the hanger. Our maintenance man flies out from Gympie to do any work that needs to be done on my little bus, so when he’ll be able to fit in a trip out here to fix it is in the lap of the gods, especially at this time of the year.

Me fueling up my Skyfox

Meet some outback characters.

zenonie — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:38:41 +0000

: Jilleroos on Kilcowera Station – Outback Australia

You get to meet some very interesting people out here and your often thrown together for longish periods of time, so you learn their stories and their foibles.

No too many years after we married, the running of both properties fell on my husbands shoulders. He was ready for the job but did need an overseer type of bloke to manage and live on our second property. We found Bob and Sue, a local couple in their late 40’s or early 50’s. They had been managing another place in the district but it had been sold and they were looking for a new place to live.

To say they were a Godsend would not be exaggerating. They knew their stock, windmills, pumps, they looked after our gear and were frugal, kind hearted people. They also loved children and had none of their own, so became wonderful baby sitters to our 2 girls who were about 6 and 4 at the time. The kids adored Bob and Sue.

Bob was fairly deaf and saw no reason to wear his hearing aid when there was only the two of them around the place most of the time. Sue knew which was his good ear! We were invited over to lunch one day and in deference to the occasion Bob puts his hearing aid in. A family of lousyjacks had moved into the garden and were squabbling and screeching all around the house and the dogs were barking at them all creating a fair amount of noise. Too much for Bob “Bloody hell! I can’t put up with that! “ and ripped it back out.

I had been a city girl and only been in the bush 5 or 6 years, I had learned a lot but it seemed there was always more and more to learn. Sue helped in so many ways – I was in awe of her – she was so capable at just about anything! She could repair tubes and tyres on the Toyotas and bikes – all on her own! Even out in the paddock if she had too. She could also castrate lambs with her teeth! I saw her do it!

She was a really good bush cook and could whip up things like Jam Roley Poley, Johnny Cakes and scones, pies and pasties as quick as she did the tyres. She opened my eyes to the fact that we sometimes place limits on ourselves when we really shouldn’t especially out here where we really have to be self reliant.

Bob and Sue stayed with us for 5 or 6 years and then moved on, we were lucky to have had them work for us at that time.

Wednesday – Mail Day

zenonie — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:06:39 +0000

Kilcowera Station Homestead - Outback Queensland

Up early – just before dawn, it’s the nicest time of day to sit on the front verandah, have yummy coffee, listen to the birds and plan my day. It’s 4 days since we had a bit of rain -16 mls, very nice! But time to start watering gardens again both here at the house and at the shearers quarters.

Greg is packing himself up to do a days work on the dozer clearing a fence line between us and Currawinya National Park. It’s a 30 km drive out to the dozer before he can start so he sometimes camps out there for the night to save time and fuel. This is him on the way out.

Wednesdays and Saturdays are our mail days and the mail person brings the stuff right to our front door. The mailman has a contract with Australia Post to deliver mail to the stations along particular runs twice a week. Our mail run would be about a 300 km round trip and includes 6 stations.

Our head honcho mailman drives up and down to Brisbane a couple of times a week in a fairly big truck to supply Thargomindah and the surrounding district with goods. He delegates the smaller runs to his wife and assorted other drivers.

To supplement the money from Australia Post the mailman also brings goods out that the station people have ordered from town. He or she could have anything on board from groceries and cold goods to fuel, beer, chooks, feed supplements, parts for machinery, vehicles and bikes, plants, Christmas presents and visitors. He brought my Christmas ham out last Saturday from our nearest butcher 300 km away.

They usually do their mail runs in traytop Toyota Landcruisers or Hilux’s (utes). Most people drive Toyotas out here as they are about the only vehicle that won’t fall apart on our roads. Toyota also has many dealerships and service centers in outback Australia. Sometimes the run is done in a truck when someone has ordered something big like steel for fencing or yard building, tanks or troughs, machinery or building materials.

Further west where the stations are a million plus acres, mail, groceries, bread and small parcels are taken in by plane right to each stations private airstrip. Some of these bigger places are a hundred or more kilometers from their nearest neighbour.

Our current mail man is a remarkable man of about 80 who has been in south west Queensland most of his life, mostly on the land but he is semi retired now. I think he is retiring completely in 2009. We will miss him as he is one of nature’s gentlemen. All the best Jack.

Saturday Morning at Kilcowera Station

zenonie — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:09:43 +0000

My beautiful little girls in the early 1980s

Life on Kilcowera Station

We have owned and cared for Kilcowera (49,210 ha) since 1980. In that time we have raised our 2 girls, teaching them primary school at home with the aid of Distance Education and School of the air, they went to boarding schools in Toowoomba, 1000 kms away at the age of 13 for further education.

Through the 80’s and 90’s we ran both Hereford cattle and Merino sheep on the 2 places (we also own Zenonie next door, 32,634 ha). After 5 years of drought in the early 90’s we joined OBE (Organic Beef Exports) and commenced the certification process with NASAA (National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia) for organic accreditation. We were certified organic right up to 2004. Unfortunately we found ourselves in the next drought and even though we sold all our sheep and two thirds of our cattle we had to supplement the remaining cows with a product that was not acceptable to NASAA. So we had to relinquish our organic status, however we still run the 2 properties in the same sustainable way and do not use any chemicals, HGP’s or antibiotics on our pasture fed cattle.

Hereford bull

The eastern boundary of Kilcowera abuts onto Currawinya National Park which was gazetted as a park in 1991. Our western boundary is the Dingo Barrier fence, the longest fence in the world at 5400 kms.

We started our foray into tourism in 2001 with the encouragement of the local Tourism officer who felt we had a special place that people would want to visit. We thought so too, even though the thought of dealing with a multitude of strangers was a little daunting. That first year we hosted the Cobar Rotary Club on their annual rally. There were 40 odd vehicles, 85 people, beds made up (and showers!) in the shearing shed as well as the quarters, with blankets, mattresses, chairs, tables and portaloos, borrowed from neighbors and also hired from various places for the event. My Mum, one daughter and a sister-in-law drove down from Mt Isa to help us cook for the multitude and keep them all happy.

Organising breakfast.

We all had a great time, they stayed for 2 nights and when they left the following morning, the organizers said they would be back and so they have been in 2007! It was a pretty full on introduction into the hospitality industry.

Our little tourism business is steadily growing; we feel we must be doing something right as we have repeat visitors who appreciate the improvements we are constantly implementing around the place. We do not aspire to be too commercial or expensive but want to retain the outback feel and continue to offer guests our time, hospitality and knowledge of our place and the local area.

This area has had a run of bad seasons and so we sold all the sheep in 2002 and have progressively lightened our cattle numbers in order to maintain a core breeding herd. We currently have about 700 cattle on the 2 places.

We do our mustering about April and use a small plane to find the cattle and then the stockmen muster them on motor bikes and either put them into smaller paddocks or into the cattle yard to be sorted out. The pilot and the stockmen are in continuous radio contact. In order to do the job properly great skill is needed by all as each person is a member of a team working together. The stockmen need to have a good sense of direction, stock sense, an ability to track the cattle, to be excellent bike riders and to have a cool head when cattle are going everywhere and they are tearing through the scrub at 60 or 70 kms an hour!

The pilot needs similar skills as in a good sense of direction and stock sense, also the ability to orchestrate the whole muster and get everyone together with the cattle at the end. Sometimes it’s hard flying too, low and slow with very tight turns, big paddocks and just trying to keep finding the cattle and the men in the scrub. Stamina is called for as the pilot could be flying for 7 or 8 hours in a day.

And as this is my first time blogging I’m finding it really difficult getting any help in how to upload an image or two here. But I will persevere there must be a way! Had 18 mls of rain here yesterday afternoon as well as gusts of wind up to about 60 kms an hour and a dust storm. Thems the breaks!

Me back in the 1980's sitting in Toyota