Tim owns a panel beating shop in Monto, so once a week he and his daughter make the two hour drive to work at the shop. But this week would be a bit longer because there were cattle that needed mustering (rounded up). The Craigs own a share in a cattle business. Since I was here, I had agreed to go help out. But first I needed some proper clothes for the job.
The sun in Australia is very intense and as a result the country has one of the highest rates of melanoma in the world. Though some believe this is because there is a hole in the ozone over the country, this theory has since been debunked. More likely is that Australia simply has a higher degree of solar irradiance and less dust, moisture, and air to absorb that UV radiation. Only Eastern China and Central Africa rival Australia in this regard. This is great for solar farms, but not so good for skin. So one of the first things I had done in Sydney was buy SPF 50+ sunscreen as a precaution. But I still didn’t have a hat. That would have to be remedied before going out. Tim dug out some old work clothes for me to use and then we went over to Ian’s house where I was loaned a pair of work boots. (Ian is Tim’s dad and an elder in the Monto cong). Having secured boots, the final stop was the panel beating shop at the front of the property. Here I was given a straw hat to wear and the dirt bikes were loaded onto the truck. This muster was to involve motorbikes rather than horses, you see.
We spotted an echidna on the way to the paddock and a goanna once we got there. We drove though a gate directly off the road, which was then shut behind us as we looked for cows, but there were none. In this paddock there were a lot of trees and that made mustering difficult anyways, so we went across the street to the other paddock, parked the car, and unloaded the bikes. Before setting off in search of the cows, I was invited to wander around if I wanted, but there were two important things to remember; the ‘Rules of the Bush’, as Tim called them. The first was never cross a fence line. As long as I didn’t cross over a fence then they would know where to find me if I got lost. The second rule was never to cross a body of water. One boundary of the paddock was a large creek. Again not crossing the creek would assure I could be found in the paddock somewhere. With that, Tim and Khiara rode away and I was left to search for red backs or wander around as I pleased. In addition the frozen water bottle in the cooler was designated mine and I was told to have more Tim Tams if I wanted (a local delicacy) and Naked brand dried pineapple chunks covered in Belgian chocolate (amazing).
In time T and K returned on the bikes, driving the cows in front and corralling them into a pen. At this point I was told that I would have to ‘worm’ them. This involved strapping on a container of poison, leading to a sprayer which would administer a preset dose of the stuff onto the back of each animal. To do this, however, each cow would need to be driven into a narrow pen to restrict their movement. A series of gates would need to be opened and closed in sequence to work them through the process. Khiara and I were given the task of manning these gates. This went fairly well except that the hose leading from the backpack container to the sprayer had a leak and I got worming fluid on the backs of my pant legs. Tim suggested that this might not be good and suggested I take a dip.
We drove to a little camping spot with a rope swing over a creek which was often used by the family for swimming. Here I was instructed to take off everything but my pants and wade into the water to wash away any poison that could potentially irritate my skin. This then turned into a swim across the creek after a dare from Khiara. Tim assured me that the water was safe and his family had never had any trouble there. Even so, it was a leap of faith to slip into a murky body of water in a country known for man-eating crocodiles. But I trusted Tim, so I went in. I swam robustly to the other side with no problem, but on the return lap my body remembered how much exertion swimming required. Somewhat out of breath, I mainly back stroked to the shore. It was only after I climbed out of the muddy water and was retrieving my dry clothes that Tim thought to tell me about the man-sized lungfish and snakes also inhabiting the creek.
I was a bit nauseated after the exertion and so didn’t get to eat much of the Ramen noodle sandwiches that were being passed around. (Don’t give me that look. Just try it.)
The nausea soon passed and we went to pull some of the calves off of their mothers. One cow in particular had bleeding udders, which indicated that, although having no milk, the calves were biting her udders. If the calves weren’t separated from such a depleted cow, the mother would eventually die. In all, five calves were isolated so that they could be taken away and fed and nourished elsewhere. With that finished, it was back to Ian’s house to retrieve the cattle truck. As the truck was being readied, the possibility of a small fire in the paddock was brought up and it was decided that we would need to put it out lest we risk a much bigger fire resulting through inaction.
We returned to the paddock and loaded the calves, after punching their ears with identity tags. They had me do the last one. I felt bad to have to do that to the little cow, but I was quickly learning about the realities of cattle farming and knew it had to be done. If nothing else, it was a less painful alternative to branding them. That finished, we had a look at the fire. While there were some patches of actual flame, much of it was simply smoldering. We had grabbed a pump and hose from the swimming site and carried it down to the waters edge next to the fire. The plan was to pump water out of the creek and douse the fire with it. But there was an issue and Ian had to go find something to get the pump working.
In the meantime, Tim told us about a dead kangaroo he had found in a billabong while trying to locate their bull earlier. He wanted to remove it so that it wouldn’t pollute the water as it decayed, so we went to have a look. On the way over Khiara suggested that we do a video in the style of Russell Coight involving the roo, as it seemed the kind of thing he would have in a video. And thus‘Mo Coight’ was born. The video speaks for itself. This character was to recur at intervals during my time in Australia.
Ian finally returned and we began to pump water from the creek. I was given the hose and told to put the fire out. This I did. We doused it for quite a while to make sure everything was out and that smoldering bits wouldnt reignite later.Tim and Khiara drove the cows back to Monto and Ian took me for a tour of the paddock before leaving.
There was a large hunk of metal that had been pointed out to me earlier and something had been said about the foundations of a house that was no longer there. Now I learned that in 2013 there was a devastating flood. The water had risen and washed away a very old house that had been on the property for years, in addition to a number of vehicles and many of the sheds and small buildings that were on the property. I earlier saw a van a van parked a quarter mile from where we were now and thought someone else was on the property. Now I was told that this vehicle had apparently been washed over to its current location from the spot where we now sat. A concrete slab on which a shed had sat had reportedly also been moved several feet by the waters. It was terrible. One particularly large shed was basically just a twisted pile of metal now. The farm had rebounded, but it had been a disheartening setback six years ago.
By the time we left the paddock, it was getting dark and half of the ride home was in the dark. Ian seemed unconcerned, but I had this irrational fear that a roo would jump in front of the car or launch itself through the open window at any moment. Ian was a lovely brother, but he had a hard time hearing due to a bad ear and a lot of road noise. He would begin a conversation on a subject, ask me a question, and when I responded he would apologize and tell me he couldn’t hear me. Minutes would pass and then another subject would be introduced or question would be asked and the process would repeat. I felt bad about his difficulty hearing, but found the interchange quite amusing.
The day ended with another barbecue and a breezy chat (or as the Aussies say ‘we had a yarn’) out on the veranda. Tim is only a little bit older than me and so we grew up with some of the same things. On the outside he seems like he’d be a tough nut to crack or at least hard to relate to, but at the same time he wears Star Wars and Popeye shirts. I quickly found that he was extremely personable and friendly. He showed me a comedy routine by an Australian named Colin Carpenter, which I am now reminded of whenever I hear the word ‘chairs’.
One last treat was the site of large birds flying through the darkening sky overhead and off into the trees. I asked what kind they were and was told they were actually flying foxes (or fruit bats). There were quite a few. They all hung in a few trees on the other side of town by day and then flew off to feed each night. I had first heard about these animals in Sydney, and now here they were! It was an exciting way to end the day.
