The Strength of Our Dreams

by Sara Henderson

  When the first truckload of cattle was leaving Bull Creek valley there was a tremendous storm in the main valley area near the homestead and inches of rain fell in a few hours. The road from Bull Creek to the yards was through Nutwood and Desert Paddocks. Moments before we reached these paddocks, Franz had been battling bulldust and sand which would bog him down to the axles if he didn’t drive on different ground each time. Then he found himself in a sea of mud, hopelessly bogged on the black soil plain.

  He was just three-quarters of a mile from the yards with a truckload of very wild cattle. Some of these cattle had just set eyes on a human for the first time in their short lives. There was no chance of jumping them off the truck and using horses to walk them the short distance to the yards. If we opened the door of the truck they would be gone faster than Eleisha’s sore-eared mickey.

  The only good thing was it was late at night so at least it was cool for the cattle. But we still had to move quickly. The problem had to be solved before the reappearance of the sun and the heat of the day. There was no way across the black soil flat: it was just a stretch of unnavigable goo. The only answer was to build another road back along the edge of the mountain range, following the rocky ground until opposite the yards, then turning right towards the yard site, cutting through a few fences on the way.

  The next problem was that the bulldozer was back at Bull Creek where it had been building roads, clearing fence lines and an airstrip. Luckily Franz was not alone. There was a small convoy travelling behind the cattle truck—Marlee driving the grader and Gail and Eleisha in the Toyota. The grader was travelling with the truck to pull it through the creek crossing or out of bulldust bogs. But the whole truck down to its axles in the black soil bog proved a little too much for the grader so the only answer was to go back and get the bulldozer.

  Franz, Marlee and the two girls drove back to the camp, where Franz swapped the Toyota for the bulldozer. While it took about twenty minutes to cover the distance in a four-wheel drive, Marlee knew it would be a slow journey for Franz so she and the girls grabbed a few hours’ sleep.

  Franz also had a few short, unintentional snoozes—on the road! But that was understandable as the D8 bulldozer moves at about four miles per hour in good conditions but this was at night with no lights through rocky ravines and over sandstone mountain ridges. So the speed sometimes got down to two miles per hour. It was a good four hours before he arrived back at the bogged truck. Franz had been awake for almost twenty-four hours by this time, but his few catnaps on the laboriously slow journey did help.

  There was no moon that night and by the time Marlee and the girls turned up at the bogged truck after a refreshing few hours’ sleep there was no sign of Franz or the bulldozer. They hadn’t passed him on the only road out of Bull Creek so it was obvious he had gone off the track. Marlee turned off the engine and heard the sound of the dear old dozer. Franz was heading slightly bush so Marlee flashed the lights of the utility in the direction of the noise. Almost immediately she heard a change in the engine revs as Franz changed the direction of our old faithful forty-six-tonne machine.

  When the bulldozer finally trundled out of the darkness and stopped at the edge of the bog, her journey was far from complete. The truck had to be pulled out of its muddy resting place and taken to the yards.

  Franz swapped the bulldozer for the wheel of the bogged truck and Marlee handed the utility over to Eleisha and Gail and climbed up onto the dozer. The girls continued onto the homestead but they too got bogged further down the road and had to walk the rest of the way home.

  It was a very busy night out on the flat and I’m sure the cattle and wild animals had a very entertaining time with vehicles getting bogged, people walking, shouting, swearing and the distinctive clunk, clunk, clunk of the bulldozer echoing through the valley.

  The roar of the mighty engine sounded across the valley as the dozer effortlessly pulled the cattle truck out of the sea of congealed mud in a matter of minutes. With Marlee driving, the dozer slowly moved through the bush and cleared the way for the truck along the foot of the mountain range, sticking to the rocky hard country and skirting the black soil. In a few places trees had to be cleared because there was nowhere else to go, but being very conscious of every one of our trees, Marlee usually found a way through and saved the tree.

  Sunrise made the job much easier and their speed increased. They had to cut through two paddock fences and arrived at the yards by midmorning. The cattle were happy to see the ground and have room to move, even if they were in the yards. Water and hay made them even more content.

  It was a busy road to Bull Creek the first few weeks of October. There wasn’t much sleep as we had 350 cattle to get to the meatworks before they closed in seven days. If we didn’t get them up to the main yard site in time to meet the road trains then they would all have to be let go until next year. A lot of money had been outlayed to get to this point, so failure was not an option.

  Even the girl cooking was experiencing weird hours, often serving dinner at midnight to various groups and sometimes seeing no-one back at the homestead for the entire day.

  The main objective was achieved and all the cattle were waiting in the yards when the road trains arrived. The cattle were loaded and the big machines moved off, climbing through their many gears, gathering power for the long pull ahead.

  There was a collective sigh from the entire crew as they sagged onto the nearest resting place and watched the road trains disappear in clouds of dust.

  Days of reclining around the pool and sleeping followed as everyone caught up on much-needed rest. But it was soon back to work. The last of the yard at Bull Creek had to be brought back and the mustering site had to be cleared.

  After a day of packing, a safari train consisting of the front-end loader, grader, portable loading ramp, trailers, trucks and Toyotas with steel portable panels, camp-site equipment and tools moved slowly out of the valley.

  The same day the crew moved into Bull Creek for the last muster of the season, I left on tour for Some of My Friends Have Tails. I got daily reports on their progress as I travelled around Australia, starting in Perth on the 2nd October. The book tour was combined with the BreastScreen breast cancer awareness campaign. The advertising campaign had started back in February while I was in South Africa and was going very well. The month after it was launched on television and in all print media, there were fifty thousand bookings in one month. I find this a staggering figure and am very proud that I had something to do with it.

  When I first saw the BreastScreen commercials they didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me. Everyone connected with them seemed pleased, but I don’t think even they expected such a huge response. I certainly didn’t. But maybe I was too busy being thankful I didn’t look like a beetroot! And was marvelling how the photographer made me look, well, normal.

  Before I appeared in these ads when I went shopping, perhaps a few people would recognise me because they had read my books. A few months after the ads came out I was recognised everywhere.

  A lot of men, mind you, didn’t know my name, and I got remarks like, ‘You’re that sheila from the bush, aren’t you?’

  But my favourite comment came from a taxi driver in Sydney. He was driving me out to Mascot for the 7 a.m. flight to Darwin. A few times during the journey I saw him looking at me in the rear-vision mirror then shaking his head and mumbling to himself. As he was taking my luggage out of the car he asked, ‘Goin’ far?’

  ‘Yes I’m off home to Darwin.’

  He paused and looked closely at me, then put down the suitcase and jabbed an index finger in my direction. ‘I know you now, you’re that sheila in the boobs ads!’

  I was trying to think up a suitable reply but wasn’t having much luck so early in the morning.

  Then he continued, ‘Yeh, I told me missus, “’ere listen to this sheila. She’s from the bush so she’s dinkum, and whatever it is she’s selling go get it, ’cause it’s free”.’

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bsp; He tipped his finger to his head in a mock salute, told me to keep up the good work and got into his cab and drove away.

  I received this letter from a delightful woman in her eighties.

  ‘When you started appearing on the telly in every break telling me‚ “if I haven’t, well I bloody well should!” well‚ I turned you down to start with, because I don’t approve of swearing. But it didn’t do any good because you were there and I could lip-read so I still could hear you in my brain. So I finally said, “All right, all right! I’ll go!”’

  On her next visit to her doctor she mentioned that maybe she should have a mammogram. He told her she really didn’t have to bother as she was too old.

  But when she turned on the television there I was telling her, ‘you owe it to yourself no matter what age you are.’

  So she called the number on the screen and they told her she should come for a test. She booked in, had a mammogram and was shocked to learn she had breast cancer. It was in the early stages and she only lost one breast and two years down the track she is still clear and enjoying life. My first thought was she should change her doctor!

  The ad even convinced my sister to have a mammogram. She informed me she had to do it because she was my sister and how would it look if she was asked if she’d had a mammogram and couldn’t say, ‘Yes’. This was something I hadn’t even thought about, but on reflection she was perfectly right.

  I hadn’t worried about the mammogram I had at the beginning of the campaign. But during the following two years I met and heard so many stories about this disease I certainly thought a lot more about breast cancer. Knowing now, it strikes anywhere, I went for my second x-ray with a great deal more awareness, trying to visualise how I would react if the news was not good.

  When I returned home a week later I sat down and went through my messages. In the middle of the long list of callers, one message stood out: ‘Please call the BreastScreen Clinic in Darwin, urgently’.

  The words jumped off the page and hit me first in the throat, then the chest and stomach. It was minutes before I could compose myself enough to breath normally and phone the clinic. The phone rang out as it was after hours on a Friday afternoon and I realised I had a whole weekend to get through, not knowing what my results were.

  I made a decision not to tell Marlee, as she was pregnant, and I didn’t want to worry her. So I tried to busy myself with tasks that would take my mind off it, but all I could think about was the worst possible outcome. Marlee could tell I was not myself and spent the whole weekend asking me if I was okay.

  When I finally got in contact with the clinic on Monday morning they thanked me for calling back and said that they were wondering if the clinic could get permission to use my posters at an upcoming function! Relief coursed through my body as I tried to sound normal and gave an elated ‘yes’ in reply.

  Those two days gave me just a tiny glimpse of what it is like for the women who are dealt this terible blow and I know from Marlee’s experience just what it is like for the families of people with cancer. I take my hat off to anyone who has to deal with any cancer, you are the bravest of the brave.

  I arrived back at the station on the 31st October a little tired. But the hard work of the prolonged tour had been worth it. Some of My Friends Have Tails went onto the bestseller list in seven days, reaching number one and staying on the list for a few months. It was also joined on the list by From Strength to Strength for a short period of time.

  The station was a hive of activity and the equipment sheds were finished. Jim Coggan (from whom we bought the sheds) and his wife, Pauline, had arrived on the property while I was on tour. Jim had directed and worked with Franz and the team and the sheds went up in record time. I’m sure Jim was pleasantly surprised when he found all the foundation footings for the sheds were level and in line. I don’t think he counted on a perfectionist such as our Franz in the middle of the Outback. He complimented Franz, saying he had never seen anyone work as hard as he did. Pauline was roped into cooking and was a terrific help … and a good cook!

  It was a mammoth job well done. And it brought the usual surprises. One of our stockmen who couldn’t walk on flat ground without falling over his feet, was like a cat thirty feet up in the air, walking on a six-inch girder on the roof of the hangar. You never can tell!

  The sheds and the hangar are superb. Franz immediately parked all the equipment in the shed bays and wheeled the little plane into her new home in the vast expanse of the hangar.

  It took a while to get used to having these new sheds. Drew, our farmer–stockman from New Zealand, went to Katherine one day to pick up a load of wet season supplies and was due home about ten o’clock that night.

  The next morning Franz looked out and saw the truck wasn’t parked at the back gate and assumed Drew had broken down on the road or was bogged in one of the creeks. So after a quick bite to eat he was off down the road to look for our lost truck.

  Half an hour later Drew walked in the door of the homestead and Marlee asked him where Franz was. Drew looked puzzled and replied he didn’t know. Franz got home five hours later!

  Drew had arrived home at ten o’clock the night before and had parked the loaded truck in the new equipment shed because it looked like rain and he didn’t want the load to get wet.

  After a five-hour drive to the front gate and back Franz never again forgot to look in the sheds whenever a vehicle was overdue.

  The year was finally slowing down. November was blissful—apart from the everyday work on the station, opening mountains of mail, swimming through a sea of office work and a few trips to conferences, I was home all month!

  My book of quotes, Outback Wisdom, was launched and hit the bestseller lists and before I knew it, December had arrived. Marlee and I had a few days in Darwin shopping for Christmas. Marlee had another clean test for cancer behind her and was trying to come to terms with her growing stomach. She was lucky though, and carried like me—not all out in front—so at six months did not look too bad at all. One male friend in Darwin didn’t even know she was pregnant and in typical male fashion said he thought, ‘She had stacked a bit on’!

  Marlee terrified her gynaecologist with what she was doing during her pregnancy. He repeatedly requested she give up things like horse mustering, bullcatching and castrating seeing she was now approaching the latter part of her pregnancy. I wondered what he would have to say about her leaping over steel panels in cattle yards, rushing to the rescue of Eleisha and facing a wild bull in the process. But she was only a few months pregnant then and she now admitted her stomach was getting in the way when she was working, much to his relief. But then she had him back in panic mode when she said she would like to go for her helicopter licence during the next spare few months! He explained that this was not the thing to occupy the last months of a pregnancy and could she do something else like reading or painting.

  Marlee promised him she would slow down, but he was worried about Marlee’s definition of slow down. But she did listen … and went ploughing.

  December was busy with ploughing and planting hay. We had the crop planted before the end of December which was unusual, but possible because of the early heavy rains in November and December. All the staff left at various stages during the month. And Cupid had struck again. So we had another starry-eyed couple wandering off into the sunset holding hands.

  Christmas Day was quiet and enjoyable. It was the first time we had stopped during the year to take stock of all our work. The fact that we had achieved all we had planned for the year made it a very enjoyable pause. And this had all been made possible because we had a good team.

  And so yet another year was at an end. Marlee and Franz went to sleep early on New Year’s Eve and I again found myself sitting out under the stars, sipping cold beer out of a champagne goblet, with the dogs faithfully at my side. Boots joined us and slurped beer out of my glass while I reminisced. I let him continue to make a mess of the glass and I drank from the bottle.


  I finished the year with the thought I think passes through most of our minds at this time, ‘I wonder what the hell life will throw at me this year!’

  CHAPTER 11

  January 1996 – June 1996

  The first entry in my new diary was, ‘Home all January! Yahoo!’

  We started the year in style, eating wild duck for dinner on New Year’s Day. The next day was Danielle’s birthday. I arranged for flowers to be delivered to her and as usual told her a birthday present would be sent just as soon as one of us got to a shop and could buy her a gift.

  Our sorghum crop was growing nicely, so there were constant cocky patrols to discourage them from pulling the entire crop of seedlings out of the ground. With the good rains that were falling we were confident the patrols would not be for much longer as the crop would soon be at what we call, ‘Can’t take-off height’. This is when the plants are about ten-inches tall and the cockatoos don’t land because they have no room for take-off. We waited eagerly for the approach of the end of cocky patrol, but knew they would be back as soon as the crop developed heads of seeds.

  Franz was working on the roof over the new round horse yards. We had no cook. Again! So Marlee was cooking in between building a small paddock for the stallion off the new horse yards. I was, as usual, writing.

  As the roof over the horse yard took shape Marlee was also mustering and drafting horses—against doctor’s orders—but she assured me the horses had already been handled and were quiet. She said she was just advancing their training and that Franz would be there with her.

  Marlee and I flew to Darwin for her doctor’s appointment. She was now having trouble reaching the control pedals due to her growing tummy and decided she would not fly again until after the birth of the baby.