City Girl, Country Girl

by Liz Harfull

  Most years, the Tullys hosted two major camps, one for painters and one for photographers. As Annabel’s reputation grew, in between camps a spattering of people came to work one-on-one with her, and there were the occasional smaller groups who would ring up and ask if they could come and do their own thing. Many of the artists who spent time at Bunginderry have since staged their own exhibitions of work inspired by the landscape. In 2011 Annabel even curated a touring exhibition that brought together the work of ten participants, which travelled around regional Queensland with support from the state’s Arts Council. ‘You do not realise the legacy you have left behind,’ one of the artists told Annabel when she decided to wind up the camps in 2015. ‘There are so many people that have gone on to do other things, or have connected, because of Bunginderry.’

  Annabel’s life as an artist wasn’t the only thing expanding during their first few years at Bunginderry. In 2005, their third child, Harriet, was born. She was followed fourteen months later by Hugo and then just ten months after that came Eve. Annabel had always wanted six children, but even Stephen said ‘That’ll do!’ when they got to four, so they organised to see a fly-in surgeon about a vasectomy. ‘By then slippery little Eve had got through. I remember doing the walk of shame down the Quilpie hospital corridor with Stephen. I was pregnant. I had Hugo on my hip, and I was holding Harriet’s hand because she was toddling, and Stephen was holding the other two.’

  ‘What if you lose a child?’ the surgeon asked, wanting to make sure that they were certain about the procedure given the couple were still in their thirties.

  ‘How could you ever replace one of these little darlings?’ Stephen asked him. ‘No, I’m done. Even if Annabel is ever done with me, I’m not having any more kids.’

  With Eve’s birth, there were three children in the house under three. ‘It was like having triplets without sympathy. You just had to chill out and let it go,’ reflects Annabel. Stephen was a dab hand at changing nappies, and they employed a governess. ‘I’ve got a damn good husband, and it was always teamwork. If it hadn’t been like that, I wouldn’t have gone past two!’ she says firmly.

  21

  THE FENCE OF HOPE

  It is early August. The sheep were mustered and shorn back in autumn, and the cattle work is done for now. Before the weather starts to warm up, Stephen and Annabel are out on their eastern boundary, building a fence. It is not just any fence. It is a symbol of hope. An act of defiance against a drought that is dragging into its fourth consecutive year. The Tullys can’t make it rain, but they can build a fence that they believe will improve their prospects dramatically once it does. ‘The fence will fix everything,’ Annabel says, only half in jest.

  Financially, physically and emotionally, there is a lot riding on this barrier of posts and wire. Across much of central and western Queensland, pastoralists are doing battle with more than drought. Wild dogs are killing their sheep in escalating numbers. Much as the pests are ripping out the throats of the livestock, graziers believe they have ripped billions out of the economy, forcing people to walk away from sheep altogether and threatening the viability of a once-vibrant industry. Australia’s favourite rural television program, Landline, reported in September 2015 that 8000 wild dogs had been trapped in a single year in the combined local government areas of Barcaldine, Murweh and Blackall in an effort to reduce the problem. At Quilpie the local shire employs two full-time trappers and sets out tonnes of bait in a program that costs the council almost half a million dollars a year. It has helped but graziers are still losing thousands of sheep.

  Kangaroos may not be killing and maiming livestock, but graziers are convinced they are also doing untold damage. They strip pastures bare and when grass is scarce they destroy native vegetation, in turn affecting endangered wallaby species that are also desperate for food, and decimating the habitats of smaller ground-dwelling native animals. Parts of Queensland that have received a little rain are struggling to bounce back because the kangaroos are eating fresh vegetation as soon as it emerges. ‘There are stations at Longreach that completely destocked, trying to do the right thing and give the country a chance to recover, but there are so many kangaroos it’s making no difference,’ says Stephen.

  A paper put together in 2014 by Queensland’s environment department estimated there were more than 27 million red and eastern grey kangaroos and common wallaroos in Queensland, compared with about 12 million in 2010. The government sets quotas for the commercial harvesting of all three species, and also hands out what are called ‘damage mitigation permits’, allowing landholders to shoot up to a thousand over a twelve-month period. Commercial harvests are controlled through quotas, which allow between ten and twenty per cent of the population to be culled in specific zones. Since 2009, those quotas haven’t come close to being filled because export markets for roo meat have collapsed and there are fewer licensed shooters around to do the work.

  One of Stephen’s neighbours reckons he saw about 5000 kangaroos during the last mustering in a paddock that runs 700 sheep. They are so thick on the ground that after sprinkles of light rain bring up the tiniest amount of green pick on the edge of local roadways, they line up along both sides like a guard of honour. In this part of the world, people avoid driving after dusk because kangaroos are a major hazard, but there are still countless bloated carcases all over the roads. Police further north at Longreach reported in January 2015 that up to forty were found in a stretch of just forty metres, and there is a section of road between Longreach and Barcaldine that’s known as ‘the killing fields’ because there are so many. ‘The numbers have never been like this here, ever,’ says Stephen.

  No farmer likes to see the livestock he has worked hard to raise mutilated or dying of starvation, and Stephen is no different. He is passionate about the need for action to reduce the damage both wild dogs and kangaroos are doing, not just to the rural economy but the environment and social well-being of local communities. As chairman of a macropod working group set up by the Queensland rural advocacy organisation AgForce, he is playing a part in doing something about it. The advisory group is pushing governments to give landholders a greater say in how kangaroos are managed so that some more effective practical solutions can be found.

  There is plenty of debate between landowners, government departments and environmentalists about the best approach. Culling kangaroos is an emotive topic, because they are a native animal and an iconic symbol of Australia. Then there are the practical considerations of the costs involved and the difficulty of effectively patrolling vast acreages of land with few roads and access tracks.

  Governments are reluctant to install barriers like they did in the late 1800s, when a fence covering more than 5600 kilometres was raised between the Darling Downs and the Great Australian Bight. Often described as the world’s longest fence, it was designed to keep dingoes out of the southern states. However, smaller fences, protecting clusters of land covering a few properties, are starting to find favour, and that is what Stephen and Annabel are putting up at Bunginderry.

  They have combined forces with Stephen’s brother Gerard, who manages Canaway Downs on their northern boundary, and cousin Rod Tully, from Ray station, to secure a grant and build the first cluster fence in the Quilpie district. It will stretch over 320 kilometres and protect 275,000 hectares of land from feral animals such as wild dogs and pigs, as well as roaming mobs of kangaroos. The three properties are contributing more than $650,000 and their own labour, with matching funds towards material costs coming from the South West Natural Resource Management Group. In return the group is closely monitoring the results, to see if scientific and practical lessons can be learnt to help protect other properties and the natural environment. ‘What we are trying to do is control the total grazing pressure on the land. We want to get kangaroo numbers down to a sustainable level, and hopefully eradicate dogs and pigs,’ says Stephen.

  Looking around at the people who hung on after the last major drought, Stephen can
see that people learnt valuable lessons from the experience. For example, many people started destocking earlier, rather than waiting until they were forced to sell and livestock prices were rock bottom. On Bunginderry, they are down to 8000 sheep, instead of the usual 15,000 or so. ‘We are back to the core breeding herds, and we have put everything out in the mulga scrub. It’s not highly productive country but it’s what saves you in a drought. We can push the trees down to feed the sheep and the cattle—it’s not a great diet but it gets them through, and it’s a lot cheaper than carting feed. But it’s another battle that we have had to fight against government regulation, so that we are still able to do it.’

  Receiving practical support, like money to build a fence or install water infrastructure, is something most graziers much prefer to being given social welfare handouts. Aside from creating a permanent asset that will make them better able to withstand future droughts, it has other benefits that may seem less obvious. Even before the first stretch of fence is completed on Bunginderry, it has boosted everyone’s spirits because it’s given them something constructive to do, rather than sitting around waiting for the drought to break. Stephen is also relishing applying his inventive mind to refining the design of the fence and the system for installing it. The smallest efficiency might save many days.

  Out in the paddock, he is in charge of a skid-steer loader, fitted with a bucket attachment, which he uses to pull out old fence posts. Once the posts are out, he switches the bucket for an auger and sets to work drilling holes for new strainer posts which are being installed every 500 metres or so along the fenceline. Bunginderry’s only full-time stationhand, Josh, stands by to clear away the large stones that occasionally make it heavy going. He then drops the new post into place, checking the hole is deep enough.

  Meanwhile, Derek is up on the back of an old truck mixing concrete. A Canadian backpacker, he is helping out at Bunginderry to fulfil the terms of his working holiday travel visa. Derek has to spend three months doing a specified kind of work in a regional area if he wants to stay in Australia for a second year. It’s a long way from Toronto but he is loving his time on the station, even when it involves shovelling sand and gravel into a concrete mixer. Once the mixture is ready, he pours it over the edge of the truck’s tray.

  Annabel keeps her head down as the concrete splatters into an old metal wheelbarrow she has lined up below, and then wheels it over to where Josh is waiting beside the new post. She upends the load and together they tamp it down into the hole, fixing the new post firmly so that it can withstand up to two tonnes of pressure when the new fenced is strained. When all the posts are in place, the Bunginderry team will roll out a special wire mesh designed specifically to keep out feral animals. One and a half metres high, it will be spring-loaded at the bottom to withstand pressure from wild pigs and dogs. A single strand of barbed wire will be strung above it, to add more height and deter kangaroos.

  Unable to resist the temptation, Annabel picks up a small stick and signs her name into the wet concrete, an artist making her mark and a farmer quietly commemorating her first tangible contribution to the project. She loves being outdoors. ‘I’m definitely solar powered,’ she says. Raising five children and her illness has prevented her from working out on the property as often as she would like until the last year or two.

  But she managed plenty of work in the sheepyards while the children played nearby and countless musters, too, working on the ground with Josh and Lachlan, while Stephen spots livestock from above in an ultra-light. With summer rains failing to materialise for a while now, she’s also shared the dispiriting task of going out every day to check watering points, and moving the stock on as one dam after another dried out. ‘And I had the crappy job one year of fixing all the holes in the fences to get ready for shearing, but that was okay because I got to know where all the gates were,’ she adds, admitting that it’s still possible for her to get lost on Bunginderry.

  It’s also been an interesting experience learning how to tackle tasks that Stephen has been doing most of his life, having absorbed the knack by helping his father, who in turn learnt from his father, and so on. ‘I’ve had to learn from scratch. I don’t know anything intuitively. When I ask Stephen to explain to me what to do, he gives me instructions one, seven and fifteen, and the rest is missing because he does it automatically. When it’s not what you grew up with, it’s nice when you learn a new skill and find yourself on the same page and working with the person you love. It’s a really cool feeling.’

  The fence of hope is not the only thing that Stephen has built during a period of considerable stress, when his practical, hands-on nature pushes him to look for something constructive to do, instead of sitting around feeling helpless. Before the fence, there was the studio. He built it over a two-year period after Annabel’s cancer came back.

  Annabel was diagnosed again with breast cancer in 2009. This time, the surgical response was much more extreme. ‘The lump was the size of an orange. It was benign and then it just went nuts,’ she says. The surgeons recommended that her breast be removed completely, and Annabel decided her other breast should go, too. She was done with the worry and the risk. So both breasts were removed and then reconstructed using skin, fat and muscle from her abdomen. ‘It’s amazing what they can do. I make it sound easy, but it was two years and ten operations, and I got some bloody stupid infection that one in a million people get. I was sick as a dog, more sick than I had been with the chemo. It was the same shit all over again, but with five kids this time.’

  While his wife was forced to spend considerable time in Brisbane where she could get the medical care that she needed, Stephen stayed at the station and looked after the home front, with help from the governess and a nanny who was employed to provide extra assistance. ‘I was better off with him here looking after the kids, and he knew I was being looked after,’ Annabel says.

  As a final precaution, in yet another operation the surgeon also removed Annabel’s ovaries. She had rejected this step when she was younger and wanted more children, but this time her doctors made it clear there was no choice. The surgery triggered another period of full-blown menopause. ‘Hot flushes and everything,’ Annabel says. ‘Everyone thinks they have it tougher than everyone else, but mine wasn’t gradual. It was overnight, and from what I can gather the impacts were pretty full on. I’m past it now, but it would have taken a good two or three years.’

  All through this time, the exuberant, outgoing Annabel was also struggling with clinically diagnosed depression. ‘I’ve probably gone through eight years of hardcore depression,’ she says, wondering whether menopause and the radical changes caused to her body by chemotherapy may have been contributing factors. ‘It was almost like post traumatic stress disorder, and I didn’t have any strategies to deal with it. I sought help and I took drugs, and once I was physically healthy again, I was mentally better,’ she says.

  Even her closest friends had no idea of what she was going through. ‘I used to go and cook for the artists’ camps,’ recalls Ali. ‘We were sitting in a gully one day. I’d taken smoko down, and she was painting, and it all came out. I was quite shocked. She has become like a best friend, or a daughter, and every time I left after cooking I cried. And then the last time I left, I didn’t. I just thought, “You have come so far.” But the thing is, if she thinks she needs help, she will go and seek it.’

  Annabel gradually learnt to recognise the factors that trigger her depression, and ways to manage them. She goes for a walk in the bush every morning before breakfast, and she has taken up yoga. She knows that scheduling too many outside commitments back-to-back is a bad idea, and that she needs to allow plenty of time to spend with her family and in the studio. ‘Art is my therapy,’ she says.

  Stephen built Annabel a studio knowing how much it would mean to her recovery and staying well. ‘That was his therapy. Whenever I couldn’t find him, or I’d ring and he didn’t answer the phone, he was over there,’ she says, looking towar
ds the small but elegant building just a few metres from the house. The studio is set on a slight rise that Stephen formed to create a better aspect in this essentially flat landscape. Facing the home paddock and a meandering line of trees that mark Whim Creek, it also sits above a levy bank that prevents the homestead from flooding. When the creeks and channels burst their banks, the water spreads out for kilometres. In the way of the Channel Country, this phenomenon can happen without it even raining at Bunginderry, with the water sweeping down from the hills twenty or thirty kilometres away, catching people unawares.

  Simply designed, the studio has a gently curving roof that extends slightly over the front wall to create a shallow verandah. Huge windows fill most of the walls on two sides, allowing natural light to flood the space where Annabel sets out big tables when she is working. There is a fold-out bed, too, so the studio can double as spare accommodation when needed. Apart from the main room there is just a small bathroom, and storage space for her work and the tools of her artistic trade. ‘Stephen built it all,’ Annabel says with considerable pride in his efforts. ‘He had an extra pair of hands at one point, but no builders.’

  The studio is Annabel’s bolthole. With three children still at home all day every day, it’s important that she has a place of her own, where she can work uninterrupted. ‘It’s my little spot and nobody else is allowed here,’ she says. She tends to work in large blocks of time, and follows a precise process with every painting. ‘I like order amongst the chaos, so my poor old brain has a bit of a fight most days, but maybe that’s okay because maybe it means I’m using it to its maximum potential. I’m a very organised, rigid person, and the creative side of my life is my spontaneity. It’s my outlet, it’s my balance.’