The new quarters looked slightly out of place—modern and sparkling new—standing next to the old rusty red tin shed which still housed the bathrooms, toilets, kitchen and dining area. It was next on the replacement agenda, but had to stay put for the moment, propped up with many supports. It would be on next year’s schedule, maybe …
The hay was baled, stacked and fenced in by mid-May. Then we were ready to start our first horse muster in the close paddocks before bringing in the cattle from further afield with the helicopters.
We had very late, quite heavy rain and the weather remained unsettled. A few days later I received a phone call from the police at Timber Creek. They called to inform us that a Qantas pilot flying over the Indian Ocean heading for the north-west coast of Australia had spotted a tidal wave about 120 miles offshore. It looked large from 42,000 feet and it was heading in a direction that would have it hitting the tip of the north-west corner of Western Australia. The police had no idea when the tidal wave was expected to hit the coast, how high it was, or how fast it was travelling. But they said we should take precautions for massive tides—seeing we are on the Victoria River and close to the sea we were sure to be affected. What precautions one takes for a tidal wave I was not exactly sure, but the word ‘high ground’ kept coming to mind!
As is always the case, I was home alone and no-one would be back till mid-afternoon. They were out of reach of the two-way radio and just happened to be building yards down near the Victoria River. I waited by the phone for more news. There was a rough estimate given that the tidal wave would take around twelve hours to reach the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf then had forty miles to travel up the Victoria to reach us.
So I was sure we wouldn’t have a hundred-foot wall of water descending upon us, but I was still worried.
I decided if I didn’t receive some news in the next few hours, I would drive down to Bull Creek and tell Marlee and Franz we had a tidal wave on the way. After a few more hours of worry and no news I called Darwin. I was relieved to hear the tidal wave had fizzled out and had simply disappeared.
The following day we had to put our darling Bootsie down. What a terrible day that was! He had hurt his shoulder, doing what came naturally, namely being a stallion. Sarah had come out to the station to look at him a few weeks earlier, when he first had the accident. She thought the shoulder might only be cracked because he could still walk fairly well. So we persevered and tried to bring him through his latest injury.
He was a good patient and he had the company of his favourite mare, Goldie, who was also in sickbay with a bad cut. They spent their days in the covered horse yard, eating and lapping up all the attention. Boots limped around for weeks and seemed to be progressing well. Marlee gave him painkillers while the healing process was going on and he seemed quite happy. He was eating well and that was usually a good indicator of Boots’s health as he loved his food. But after weeks of TLC he lost interest in his food. We tried everything we could to get him to eat, but sadly had to admit there was nothing more that could be done.
I couldn’t bear to say goodbye, it was just too much to handle and even Marlee chickened out on this one. Franz, bless his heart, laid our darling Boots to rest under the old bottle tree with our other loved pets.
After a few days of tears I wandered over and had a chat with him, thanking him for being such a wonderful part of my life, and telling him I would never forget him.
A few days later I saw the silhouette of Marlee’s hat against the setting sun as she made her way through the paddock to Bootsie’s resting place. She didn’t get back to the homestead for quite a while as she had a lot to say to her old friend.
Early the next morning as I walked out onto the lawn after a brief heavy shower of rain I saw two rainbows stretching right across the valley. It was such a beautiful sight it cheered me a little and I thought maybe Bootsie was saying hello in his usual notable way from his new home.
It was just going to be one of those years. I could feel it in my bones. ‘Well,’ I told myself, ‘You have had a lot of practice at living through problem years.’ So I decided to get on with it and get the year over as fast as I possibly could.
Apart from our new staff quarters, the biggest event this year on Bullo had to be the new roof on the homestead.
The roof on the homestead was on a par with, if not in worse condition than, the old staff quarters. Each year, for longer than I care to remember, I have been waiting for the roof to either blow away in a violent storm or simply fall down on top of us. Ten years ago Uncle Dick welded two large steel frames under the ceiling in the living room after he had been up into the ceiling to repair an electrical cable. What he saw had convinced him if he didn’t put supports under the ceiling, it would soon be on the floor.
These temporary supports were still there and doing a good job of keeping the ceiling in place. But one year during a very turbulent storm, a twister came whooshing through the living room and the entire ceiling lifted up in the air. I watched it float high in the air, a few feet clear of the supporting beams, and waited for it to come crashing down on the floor. Instead, it just settled gracefully back into place on the supports. Builders years ago certainly knew how to put a building together. The ceiling may have sagged eighteen inches, but it has stayed in one piece.
I can’t say the same for the additions that were added to the old tin shed over the years. Every join in it leaked and it was still raining inside the house ten minutes after it had stopped outside. Every year we rearranged the furniture to avoid the leaks.
I was so looking forward to a roof that didn’t leak, but I knew this was not going to be an easy project. First to go were all my trees growing up through the roof. I lost a lime tree, a bottle tree that was taking over one of the guest rooms and my very favourite coconut tree that went up through the roof in the living room.
This was the most difficult tree to remove because it was extremely tall. It was the first tree I planted when I came to Bullo. Being a complete gardening beginner, I planted four coconut trees around the children’s swimming pool for shade! I had no idea at the time how long these trees needed to grow and that they still would not provide shade over the pool twenty years later.
During the expansion of the homestead this tree became part of the living room. It was quite a topic of conversation as people were fascinated to see a tree growing up through the roof in the middle of a room.
How to get the tree down was the big problem. If we just cut it and let it fall it would crash into the walls of the living room. But Franz worked out a system. The tree was to be cut down in three sections. Because of its height, there was too much danger in being up a ladder cutting with a chainsaw when the first section fell. So Franz cut halfway through the trunk with the chainsaw, then climbed down and he shot through the rest of the trunk with a high-powered rifle. The bullets cut through the soft trunk and the top of the tree toppled after only a few shots. Of course it does help to be a good shot to achieve this desired effect! The top of the tree gracefully fell and was stopped from crashing into the old roof and walls by rope and tackle.
The next fifteen feet went the same way. But being solid trunk this was heavier and the guide ropes slipped slightly letting the end of the tree crash into the roof with a resounding thud. It cut a massive slash through the tin roof, giving us a fair indication of what the whole tree would have done to the roof and walls.
The third part of the tree was cut in two sections, about five feet to the roof level and the rest of the ten feet inside the living room.
We still have a three-foot stump in the house. I can’t imagine how much floor would have to be dug up to get the root system out! So for the time being I have put a large reclining stone giraffe on the stump and surrounded it with ferns so it gives the pleasant appearance of the animal sitting in a garden.
When at long last I could finally see work starting and this new roof becoming a reality, I was very keen to get things moving. How different my thoughts were
in the following months when tonnes of dust showered into rooms as the men went about their demolition with gusto.
Phone calls were next to impossible, so I timed my calls between drilling, electric saws and jemmies reefing tin from the roof. Life somehow continued amidst the mayhem as Franz and his merry team pulled the roof apart above our heads. I found it was very wise to look up before venturing into any part of the house!
Marlee finished the road and not a moment too soon as we were out of cooking gas. The electric oven was up to its usual tricks, only working when it felt like it and amidst all this confusion, the new cook arrived.
We had planned to go to town the week before because we knew our gas supply was low, but Kununurra was out of cooking gas, so we waited for the new supply to arrive from Perth before we left for town, and we ran out the day before. Marlee left me with the new cook, Ben and Lita, Ben’s nanny, and was off to town for a fresh food order and cooking gas. The electric oven went on strike again, so I told the cook to make meals that could be cooked on the electric cooktop until Marlee returned with the gas.
I had my head in my writing and lost track of time. I realised by late afternoon that Marlee had not called to say what time she was leaving town.
I called the supermarket to see what time Marlee picked up the order, so I would know when to expect her, and my heart hit the floor when the girl said the order was still there! Two quick calls to the Kununurra and Timber Creek police made my heartbeat slow down slightly. They assured me there had been no accidents on the Victoria Highway that day. If she had broken down on the highway I would have heard from her. So the only place she could be was on our road … again.
When Franz walked in the door at 6 p.m. I had an esky ready filled with sandwiches, fruit, water and drinks and he dashed straight out the door. I had dinner and watched a movie to pass the time.
When Franz and Marlee hadn’t arrived home by 10.30—time enough for him to drive to the front gate and back—I sent out the back-up rescue team. Paul, our NZ stockman, and Lita set off in the other Toyota.
By now I was too worried to watch a movie so I took a chair out on the lawn and just stared down the road, waiting to see the first flicker of headlights through the trees about three miles away. Jennifer, our new cook, joined me and there we sat in silent vigil.
At 11.15 a great wave of relief washed over me when I saw headlights way off through the trees. We started chatting immediately. The vehicle had to go through three gates in the last three miles so it was a lengthy wait for their arrival.
The second Toyota had been making a funny clunking noise so Paul thought it best to come back before it broke down. The plan now was to drive out in one of the stockmen’s utilities which was new and much more reliable.
Jennifer and I sat back down with a hot cup of tea and the dogs gathered around. The cold night settled around us and we sat in silence, eyes glued to the road. Frightening images flashed into my brain and my only movements over the next hour were regular trips to Ben’s room to see if he was still asleep.
Lights! Our chatter started almost immediately and the dogs jumped around feeling the change of mood.
People streamed in every door, all talking at once and Marlee and Franz settled down to a midnight dinner. We all sat in the kitchen to hear the different sagas. At 8.00 a.m. Marlee had heard a whine from the gearbox about thirty-five miles down the road. On stopping the car she discovered the plug had come out of the bottom of the gearbox and there was no oil. She had the choice of either sitting and waiting or walking back to the homestead. Marlee knew we would be along eventually so she decided to wait.
In case Franz came looking for her in the plane, she wrote a message on the road with toilet paper and rope: ‘Gear oil, no plug’. She passed the day cleaning the station wagon, and with a few walks and a few naps. She also made a note to herself to keep a supply of reading matter in the car.
At ten o’clock she saw torchlight and along came Franz. Walking! A mile back down the road he’d had a flat tyre and someone had taken the wheel spanner out of the Toyota’s toolkit and not put it back. Franz knew Marlee was somewhere in the next fifteen miles of the road so he started walking to find her and get the wheel spanner out of her toolkit.
Together they walked back to the Toyota and changed the flat tyre. They then drove back to Marlee’s vehicle and picked up that spare in case they had another flat on the drive home. They met the rescue team eighteen miles from the homestead.
We all went to bed around 1 a.m., still out of cooking gas and lots of food. There would be no eggs and bacon for Sunday breakfast, but I didn’t mind, my prayers had been answered and everyone was delivered home safely. I went to bed thinking, ‘Just another day in the Outback.’
One piece of good news came my way in April: my first book was published in Holland. I received some copies and it was a strange feeling to look at my book in a foreign language. The Dutch title was Met Blote Handen, which roughly translated means With Bare Hands. A friend who lives in Holland called and said the translation was excellent. She had read my book in English and so was in a good position to judge.
This news came as we were sending our first lot of sale cattle to market, so I hoped that the bad start to the year had run its course. Good things kept coming and in one day I received calls from book readers in Tasmania, Queensland, New South Wales, Wiltshire, England and Long Island, New York.
We sent another load of steers to Darwin before the gloom settled over not only our lives, but over the lives of all the cattle people of the North.
Overnight the markets to South East Asia disappeared. When Marlee called to sell our next load of cattle in July the exporter said our main markets—Indonesia and the Philippines—had temporarily suspended all purchase of cattle. Our questions of ‘Why?’ and ‘For how long?’ received no satisfactory answers. No-one seemed to know why.
We had sent off only half of our usual cattle for the season, so we decided to turn to culling our herd and selling to the local abattoir. We put a decent line of fairly well-covered cattle into the yards and when the abattoir buyer arrived we were speechless when he offered us ten dollars a head for two hundred. We would usually receive about $150 per head.
Marlee controlled her temper and smiled at him sweetly, but burst into my office wanting to ‘do him in’! She asked me what I thought and I said I would rather let them live out their life on Bullo and go to sleep under a tree of old age than sell them for that price.
So she politely told him, ‘No sale’!
After this shocking offer from the only abattoir in the district we had nowhere else to sell our cattle, so decided to cut back on staff and wait till the next season. The experts said everything would be back to normal by the end of the year, so we decided to pull in our belts for the rest of the season and wait till then.
Mustering was put on hold and we concentrated on the homestead roof. There was a bit of urgency for this project as we had a group of thirty people arriving a few weeks later. They were interested in Bazadaise cattle and Bernie O’Kane had organised for them to come and spend four days on Bullo. When I reminded Marlee we had no roof she assured me it was all right. These people, she told me, were self-sufficient and wouldn’t be bothering us at all and would probably camp at six-mile. From experience I knew this to be completely wrong so my aim in the following weeks was to get the roof finished and the furniture back in the house, ready to receive the guests!
What a few weeks it was. As the old roof was pulled off and thrown on the ground, memories came flooding back of the building of that roof. I couldn’t help but notice the speed and ease of building the new roof compared with building the original back in the seventies. Then it was done with 44-gallon drums balanced on the trays of Toyotas, lots of manpower and much swearing. Now I stood and watched the new roof go on with Marlee driving the front-end loader and Franz driving the backhoe loader, lifting forty-foot steel beams into place with no fuss and then held there as the welding wa
s done. What a difference a few machines make!
I’m sure by now you have guessed that the roof was still being finished as the guests were driving down the last mile of our road. It wasn’t so much the roof that was bothering me but the mess inside! We had all been sweeping for days and when the staff left I would continue well into the night. But dust seemed to come from everywhere and after sweeping and vacuuming more dust would appear.
As the convoy of vehicles drove into the garden we were still dusting, sweeping and putting furniture back into the living room. Marlee’s famous words of them being self-sufficient and camping up at six-mile came back to haunt her. They camped in the garden and the first thing they did when they arrived was head for the homestead, straight into the pandemonium of the living room.
That night when we were alone in the living room still dusting and arranging furniture, Marlee said, ‘Don’t say, “I told you so”!’
As the cattle crisis worsened, Marlee, Franz and I all felt this was going to be a long-term thing. Not a few months, or even a season, of no sales as the experts believed. So I thought this would be a good time to diversify again. Australian Pacific Tours had been asking us to consider having bus tours come to Bullo for a few years. We had been putting this off, mainly because of the nightmares I had of buses getting bogged along our road, but with doubts of any cattle sales for the next year or more, we now had to look at this income opportunity more seriously. I called Dino Magris from the tour group and we discussed a few ideas. We ended up agreeing to give their clients the option of flying into Bullo once they arrived in Kununurra. We were committed to buses passing through our area from November 1998 on an average of twice a week. The people are on an around Australia holiday and when they reach Kununurra they have a few options. Coming to Bullo for afternoon tea became one of the options for 1998. We were back in the tourist business, and I hoped it would be in a big way as cattle were not looking like a good bet.
The Strength of Our Dreams Page 19