by Jenny Old
‘That was money down the drain, literally,’ moaned Rick.
The lesson: never have your hair done in a salon without any appointments OR other clients.
We all enjoyed a very happy wedding. After several more Cherry Ripes, Rick and I waved goodbye to our new friends, vowing to see each other soon. We drove north and spent two days on Daydream Island, then headed west and home to Anthony. How we had missed him.
Anthony, however, had barely missed us: he’d been having a great time with Paul and Rhonda. But, sadly, they’d made the decision to move on from McAllister. It had become obvious that the company was unable to sustain wages for both managers and that our smallholding wouldn’t support two young families.
The beef market was developing a worrying trend. Meat workers were striking for a considerable wage increase, which would cripple an industry already burdened with increasing costs and wages. Due to a glut of cattle in the USA and Japan, exports dried up. The beef produced for export, such as ours, then flooded the domestic market. Prices plunged to the lowest levels in thirty years. To add to this disaster, Queensland was suffering drought. Interestingly, the retail price didn’t seem to drop at all.
We totally understood why Paul and Rhonda had to leave: they needed to find an opportunity to build a strong future for themselves. But we would miss them dreadfully.
Paul had worked so hard alongside Rick to make the property viable. Rick would lose the best worker he had ever worked with, and I’d lose my good mate who was always there for me. Rhonda was a great friend and support to me too, and on many occasions she’d unhesitatingly looked after Anthony when I suffered a debilitating migraine. I’d always appreciated that she’d shared her knowledge of the Gulf, and her kindness had helped me adjust as a newcomer. Anthony, of course, adored Paul and Rhonda.
We’d weathered good and bad times—and, incredibly, there had never been a cross word between us. Saying goodbye was difficult. Our friendship with this wonderful couple would always continue, but we would be many miles apart.
18
Forces of Nature
Progress had to continue. We employed a series of jackeroos and ringers for the season. When we’d completed the first round of mustering after the wet, we put eighteen hundred head of cattle through the yards in ten days, branding a thousand calves.
Yard work involved drafting the cattle into breeders, weaners, fat cattle for sale, and old cows to be spayed. Every beast was dipped to protect it from ticks; male calves were castrated and all calves were branded. The young calves were weaned from their mothers at a young age, enabling the cows to stay strong and become pregnant again quickly. It was hard, hot work drafting the mob then returning the cattle to their respective paddocks as quickly as possible with minimal stress to the animals.
My birthday treat that year was an entire day’s mustering with the men. No cooking! I enjoyed the freedom of the open paddocks, riding behind the mob on my favourite horse, Topaz, while singing my heart out. I think the cattle loved my singing and so did Topaz, his ears moving back and forth to hear me, or so I imagined.
At the end of my day, after a hot shower, I wandered into the kitchen to find all the men waiting for me. ‘Happy birthday, Jen!’ they sang in guttural tones. I was presented with six stubbies gift-wrapped in toilet paper, plus a card that was signed—by the ones who could write—with the message: To the best cook in the world on her 21st birthday. Of course, it was certainly not my twenty-first.
I was touched by such a gesture from these tough bushies. The stubbies were better than jewellery and the card very precious to me. I immediately shared the stubbies around.
The dry months produced beautiful weather: warm, sometimes hot days with cooler nights. This was when my garden flourished. The wet season was the rampant growth period, but along with that came masses of weeds; often the lawn would turn to a grub-infested mush, and mowing was impossible in the soggy conditions. The dry was the time when I enjoyed the benefits of my hard work. The bougainvillea were a mass of vibrant purple, pink, white and copper. All my young trees were a cluster of fresh new leaves and flowers. The lawn was a lush green, and the vegie garden in its prime. I took great pride and satisfaction in my blossoming tropical oasis.
Becoming adventurous, I decided to grow potatoes. I laid two enormous tractor tyres on their sides, filling them with rich soil and manure. Then I planted the seed potatoes. Soon I was rewarded with green shoots. Many months later, when the shoots had withered, it was time for the harvest.
‘I can’t wait to have some baby potatoes from our own garden,’ I said to Anthony.
We brought a large bucket. I was dreaming of the delicious new potatoes we would enjoy for dinner—I could almost taste them, dripping with butter, salt and pepper.
I rolled the first tyre back to reveal the crop.
‘Where are the potatoes, Mummy?’ asked a little voice.
All we could find were two pebble-sized specimens. What an anticlimax after months of watering and nurturing and the anticipation of a bucketful.
Obviously, our climate was totally unsuitable for growing potatoes. If only I’d had Google to help me in those days.
Our machinery was frequently being upgraded. Rick bought a second-hand Thames Trader truck with a freezer on the back, and one of our men drove it to McAllister from Brisbane. The freezer was unloaded and set up as a coldroom, then the truck was converted into a cattle carrier with a crate on its back.
The coldroom made an enormous difference to our lives. I could finally buy and store supplies in bulk: bags of potatoes and onions, drums of flour and cartons of fresh fruit. We could now hang an entire beast after the kill, enjoying more fresh and less salted beef.
We bought a larger generator with a bigger capacity to run appliances. But the cost of diesel made it unaffordable for us to run it full-time, so it only ran for several hours in the morning and again in the evening. While I was accustomed to this—24-hour power was but a dream for us—our visitors had great difficulty managing.
The day came when our big generator broke down, meaning our smaller back-up generator was called into action. This caused a lot of juggling of equipment. The iron, washing machine and coldroom couldn’t operate at the same time. And when the generator allows limited power, or no power, the woman of the house is not happy.
This inconvenient situation was to last for some time, while the big generator was overhauled in Mount Isa. My priorities didn’t correspond with the cattle work.
Our lack of adequate staff accommodation was an ongoing problem. Rick had tendered for some barracks from Mount Isa Mines, and it was accepted for two buildings: one for Melinda Downs, the other for McAllister. Rick and Rowan would demolish the buildings with the help of local labourers then reconstruct them at home. I remained in McAllister with Anthony to cook for our men; he was my little offsider, and each afternoon we checked the waters in the Toyota.
Murphy’s Law kicked in the minute Rick departed.
One day, on our rounds, Anthony and I found a heifer trapped in a trough at Corella Tank, something I dreaded finding. I managed to put a rope around her horns and pull her out with the LandCruiser. The tricky part was getting the rope off her head before being charged, and I did this while she was still a little stunned. Then Anthony and I ran madly back to the safety of the LandCruiser, the feisty beast in hot pursuit.
‘She wasn’t very grateful for being rescued, was she?’ Anthony remarked.
Our most important job was to keep water pumped to a tank and trough that watered a thousand head of cattle each day. This critically important pump was also extremely temperamental. Rick had given me lessons before his departure: ‘One, two, three…and flick. Easy.’ But this never worked for me. I decided to leave it on twenty-four hours a day and prayed it wouldn’t stop.
The worst thing to happen during Rick’s absence was a series of fires ignited by lightning on three sides of our property. The entire horizon turned an angry orange as the flame
s joined forces and surrounded us, fuelled by masses of dry feed and fanned by a strong wind.
The men rushed home from Topwater Camp, where they’d been camping and mustering. Neighbours arrived with graders to help us and also protect their boundaries. I knew I’d be safe at the homestead but I was worried about the cattle and horses.
I contacted Rick via the two-way, asking the Royal Flying Doctor Service to pass on a message to him at the barracks where he was camping. They were extremely helpful, as always, and made contact with him swiftly. He began the long drive home.
The men were back-burning and checking the stock, grading firebreaks, doing whatever they could. The stock were our main concern. I maintained vigil at the homestead with hot food for the hungry and tired men.
Rick arrived home, and with great relief I handed over to him.
The fires were brought under control with much help from our neighbours who, thankfully, weren’t affected. We’d suffered a lot of fence damage, and miles of poly pipe had been burnt. It was now a matter of fixing the fences and pipes and hoping for early rain as we had virtually no feed left.
‘Rick, I’ve had enough of these dramas on my own,’ I declared. ‘Anthony and I are coming to Mount Isa with you.’
‘That will be great, mate! You can cook for us.’
Not exactly the response I wanted. However, anything was better than looking out onto the blackened paddocks and having to deal with that pump. I was relieved to hand over to the men.
This Mount Isa experience was like no other. Anthony and I rolled our swags onto the floor of a building in the process of being demolished; as the room was pulled down, we moved to another area where there was still a roof. I faced the challenge of cooking for everyone with an electric frying pan. Sometimes there were four of us, sometimes eight. Rick drove to the Barkly Highway every morning, asking hitchhikers if they wanted some work. If so, they were with us for as long as they wished—usually not very long.
Around four o’clock in the afternoon, sulphur fumes from the mines wafted over. The nasty smell was suffocating to us after the pure clean air at McAllister.
Thankfully we had a large ablution block at our disposal. I used a laundromat in town and hung the washing to dry on a makeshift line Rick had constructed.
To wind down each day, Rick and Rowan played squash in air-conditioned premises. Anthony and I were occasionally spectators, but the competitiveness between these great friends made their games difficult to watch. I would take Anthony for a drive instead and shop for fresh food.
We were living like squatters, but Anthony and I were happy to be with Rick.
Finally we had nowhere to sleep: the barracks had been totally demolished and loaded onto trucks. I was pleased to be on the road home again, after an interesting time in the metropolis.
Our men had still been having trouble with fires flaring up. Joe had arrived from Inverleigh with his grader to make more firebreaks, while Des and the team had done very well managing the situation. Oh, to have had the luxury of a telephone. We relied more on smoke signals and telepathy.
Rick, Rowan, Anthony and I were close to home when the truck got bogged. Luckily Joe was still in McAllister with his grader and able to pull us out. ‘Welcome home!’ he greeted us with a grin. ‘I hope this exercise was worthwhile.’
We hoped so too. Rick had paid a hundred dollars for the barracks, plus labour. Naturally, Rick, Rowan and I didn’t qualify for wages. We were money-saving devices, I decided.
For me, the biggest positive to all this was that the larger generator had returned home on the truck too.
Rick, Rowan and the men stored the materials from the barracks in the shed, where they would await the time when they could be reconstructed into staff accommodation. In the meantime, the fence repairs were a priority, and the second round of mustering had to be completed. We had some rain, which provided the green ‘pick’—a northern Queensland term for fresh grass—desperately needed for the stock.
And so, another working year at McAllister was behind us. We were pleased to leave the heat at the Ridge for a family holiday in Deniliquin and Palm Beach.
In January 1974, we were at the beach when the big wet set in. Monsoons began in earnest in the Gulf, creating devastating flooding and heartbreak for many. Brisbane was also suffering horrific floods, the worst on record. We anxiously watched the television coverage, feeling sick at the images of cattle being swept out to sea from the raging torrents of the massive river system in the North.
We were in daily contact by telegram with Des and Colin, another trusted worker, at McAllister. They’d stayed on after the mustering season to caretake while we were away. They reassured us that they were fine.
‘What can we do?’ I asked Rick.
‘There’s nothing we can do at this stage,’ my pragmatic husband replied. ‘The men are safe, and we can’t call on charter flights when every available plane is involved with evacuations and more urgent calls. The only thing we can do is stay here until the airports are open in Brisbane and Normanton, and the situation has eased.’
We reluctantly extended our holiday at beautiful Palm Beach. It wasn’t a joyful or relaxing time: we were distracted and feeling guilty that we weren’t at home.
Oh, for a telephone.
We’d prepared for the wet season well in advance, with six months of tinned stores on hand. There was always plenty of beef in the coldroom and freezers, and I froze and preserved as many vegetables as I could in the dry. However, I knew the men wouldn’t be using any of the vegies—they were happy to live on beef and tinned food.
Our airstrip was built to flying-doctor standard, meaning a plane could land even in the wettest conditions. This was imperative in the case of an evacuation. McAllister was as prepared for such a wet season as humanly possible.
The evening news continued to show many of our neighbouring stations totally underwater. The loss of stock, fences, yards, dips, sheds and other infrastructure was devastating. Everyone in the industry was already struggling because of the Beef Crash. Would insurance cover the cost of replacing a lifetime of work, as well as lost stock? This was difficult for us to absorb, surrounded by Sydney’s beautiful northern beaches.
We met a journalist who’d been in the Gulf covering the floods, so we anxiously asked him questions.
‘There’s only one flood-free station in the Gulf, and that is McAllister,’ was his gratifying reply.
Phew! This was confirmation that our station had the perfect balance of red ridges and black soil plains in every paddock. Also, the creeks all headed (started) on McAllister and didn’t flood out until they drew closer to the Gulf, and we didn’t have a river to fear in times of flood. The fences were still washed out every year with the creeks, but at least our cattle and infrastructure were safe—fences could be repaired.
Despite our relief that McAllister was safe, we had enormous concerns for our friends and neighbours who were suffering serious damage and loss. Most had been evacuated knowing they would return to a scene of devastation.
Many anxious weeks later, we arrived home. My sister, Pam, accompanied us to help me for a couple of months. We flew to Townsville, then with Bush Pilots from Townsville to Normanton, followed by a charter flight to McAllister.
We looked out the small window of the plane. The countryside was in ruins. There were no cattle to be seen, massive washouts and erosion everywhere, huge trees uprooted, everything covered in mud. We were all silent with our thoughts. The pilot kindly offered to fly over McAllister and check for any damage.
We were overjoyed to see that the journalist had been right. Apart from the usual fencing damage and the roads washed out, nothing was wrong. We could see our cattle happily grazing on lush green grass, getting fatter by the minute.
The heat and humidity hit us as we stepped out of the plane. The bush flies were unbelievably irritating and sticky, and we knew the mosquitoes would be prolific at sundown. But we were grateful, and blessed, to be bett
er off than so many others.
Des and Colin were happy to see us. The five of us spent hours talking before we started unpacking, anxious to hear all the news.
‘We were so sick of planes circling overhead, asking us if we were all right,’ Des reported.
Colin chipped in, ‘We decided to mow “OK” on the airstrip so they’d leave us alone.’
‘Or focus on helpin’ some other poor buggers who needed ’em,’ added Des.
‘One day they dropped rations for us. Guess what it was?’
‘Fresh bread,’ I said, ‘oranges, potatoes, pineapples…maybe chocolate?’
‘Tins of jam and butter! Real nice, but we had no bread,’ Colin retorted.
They told us stories of snakes, centipedes and all manner of creatures that normally live underground invading the Ridge to escape the water.
Colin and Des had enjoyed the fuss and concern for their wellbeing. Apart from having been totally confined to the Ridge, they were unscathed.
‘Okay, boys, Pam is here to help with the cooking,’ I said. ‘You’ve been without fresh produce for six weeks—that will change. We have plenty of fresh goodies with us now. I don’t want you getting Barcoo rot.’ (Ulcers caused by scurvy.)
‘Yes, missus,’ was their crestfallen reply.
The rain continued for many weeks. We were very relieved when it finally eased in May. It had been a big wet.
Pam and I worked hard to clean the house and clear the jungle that my garden had turned into. After weeks of loving care, it was looking tidy and healthy again.
Our community took many years to recover from the dreadful floods. Neighbours and friends returned to homes full of mud, with snakes in residence and gardens destroyed. Fortunately, many of the stations were owned by large corporations that had the resources to rebuild; in time, some of the homesteads were reconstructed or renovated to a better standard. But there was a lot of discomfort and inconvenience, and it took a long time for the stock to be replaced.