Transcription
It's a story as epic as a Hollywood blockbuster, and it's playing out right here in our own backyard. The greatest cattle drive in more than a century has been snaking its way from Northwest Queensland deep into southern New South Wales.
This mass migration evokes the glory days of our pioneering stockmen, those droving legends who would risk everything to move their mob. Today's characters are just as compelling and just as willing to take a punt. It's one of the greatest gambles the bush has ever seen.
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Against the big skies and empty vistas of the outback, this great journey has been quietly unfolding, a meandering marathon down old and forgotten stock routes.
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It's a story that begins with a call to arms for seventy of the finest drovers in the country. A bold plan would need every ounce of their grit and determination.
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"What sort of people are drovers?" "The drovers that are tough rated. They are top rate, and the better ones are the tougher ones." "Everyone tells me you're the best drover in Australia. How do you answer that?" "There's some pretty good drovers out there, Joe."
Bill Little is a drover straight out of central casting. Man in charge of the most ambitious movement of cattle in more than a hundred and thirty years. Eighteen thousand head of cattle, to be precise. That's five and a half thousand tons of meat on the move, two and a half thousand kilometres through the heartland of Australia.
"What's a day like? I mean, you're at ease with yourself. I see you in the saddle. Everything is automatic. You're going with a flyway." "Yeah, and the smoother you can get it, the less stress in it. That's what it's all about. And when everything's smooth, we're all happy." "You've done a lot of riding. You can understand why we've got corns on our ass." "Serious, we have. Have you seen a billy goat's knee?"
Yes, it's the sheer scale of this endeavor which is absolutely mind-blowing. Let me give you an idea of what they set out to do. The first mobs of cattle are gathered up in the northwest of Queensland to set off from the little town of Winton on their journey south. They're joined by more mobs, forming a mighty trail across the country. It was always going to be tough, but in New South Wales, it becomes a logistical nightmare. Here, water and feed are in short supply, so the drovers have spread out across the state, each of them navigating their own way to the final destination. You're Audrey Station on the Murrumbidgee River. Truly one of the great droving exploits. You are seeing one of the wonders of Australia here. This is the Olympics of agriculture. To move this many cattle over this geographical area is nothing that's been seen before.
Ron Rutledge is a stockbroker in the truest sense. His operations chief for the stock and station giant Elders. Ron has overseen the eight million dollar deal behind the big drove. "I don't think the world has seen a mob of cattle of this size and this scale being something from one vendor to one purchaser ever in the world before. And I don't think there's too many more visionary people in Australia that's prepared to take on a task like this."
There is one man prepared to take on the task, and he's as unassuming as he is ambitious. Up to his neck in the cooling waters of the Murrumbidgee, we found Tom Brinkworth. "I'm only doing it as a piece of male bonding with one of the biggest landowners in Australia, right?"
Tom is the reclusive mastermind of this great drove. A big farmer turned cattleman, worth more than 200 million dollars. He's a big-time punter in the high-stakes world of agriculture. "You know, I mean, you've started with bugger all and you're one of the biggest landowners in the country, right? But you still enjoy the simple life, don't you?" "It's the only life I know. As long as you can survive over all and make it all work." "Well, you've made it work for the rest of us. I mean, we love the fact that you've done this." "Yeah, I didn't realize what I was doing. It's a magnificent folly, if that's what it is." [Laughter]
It's a folly born of hardship. The drought gripping northwestern Queensland, as farmers struggled to feed their herds. Tom Brinkworth saw an opportunity to buy cheap and in bulk. And in the seven months it would take the 18,000 cattle to walk to his You Audrey Station, he could grow a mountain of feed.
"He snakes in here, Tom, and and it. Big ones, right? Waiting." "His new arrivals. Million tons of corn. Isn't it amazing that in this, what looks like totally intractable country, but in fact, it's actually fertile? I mean, I've been out in this forty-five-degree heat, through certain, seem to be bothering you. And I've been traipsing through the dust, and I thought, this is miserable country. You can do anything with it. Now, this is heaven on earth. So we'll have no trouble feeding the cattle." "Ah, it'll be help."
But to get to Tom's Field of Dreams, Bill Little and his band of drovers must struggle through drought and record temperatures. While mobile phones and motorbikes might make things easier than a century ago, modernity brings its own problems.
"We deal with landholders, which sometimes, you know, they've got the feeling that we're eating their grass. So, I mean, and we deal with ranges, and we deal with traffic, and we do, and le, every day." "I could get to that way. I'll get that wife. I see a car come on, thinking, what's this fast one, you know? But that's what's the gun and the hair and the back of neck stains off a bitten, because you're very single-minded about what you're doing." "Yeah, and you think that they're gonna be someone we can get at something in the world." "Yeah, and I will be here."
If Bill is fulfilled, Marshall in this brand endeavor. John and Rhonda Wilson are the foot soldiers. "What did the agent say? What was it? Do you think you're up to it?" "He said, 'These were outside ain't for the faint-hearted, hey?' He was right."
He was right. This husband-and-wife team have been driving for 36 years. And Banjo Paterson's iconic words still ring true, as a stock is slowly stringing. Clancy rides behind them, singing. For the drovers, life as pleasures, but the townsfolk never know.
"Tom does get away on you, and you think, well, what the hell day is it today? Is it Monday, Sept day, or Friday, or whatever?" "It's a good question. What day is it today?" "And I've forgotten. I don't know. Is it Wednesday?" "You put money on it?" "No, I wouldn't, because I'm just trying to see it. Tuesday? Let me work out. What did I do yesterday?"
"It's an opportunity to really experience the quietness of the bush and the stillness. It's our heritage, and cattle drives likely has helped to keep that alive."
Jane Reed has droving in her blood. She's a great-granddaughter of Australia's original cattle king, Sydney Kidman, whose epic drives of the 19th century are legendary. This modern-day migration gave Jane an opportunity to follow in his footsteps.
"After a few days, you start to get into the rhythm. There's a rhythm of the cattle, the rhythm of the grazing, and the rhythm of the day. The sun up, the sun down, and everything that happens between it. There's no distractions." "While I was riding, I thought often about my great-grandfather, about what his experience of being out in the long paddock was, wondering whether that stillness of mind that I experienced, whether he got to feel that too."
"How exciting was it for you to relive the great ancestral trick?" "Driving is something that I wanted to do from my earliest memory, so I could say that it's probably been on my bucket list longer than anything else."
And today, triumph, relief, a mission accomplished. After seven months on the hoof, these cattle are finally at the end of their two and a half thousand kilometer walk.
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They file through the gates of You Audrey Station. Tom Brinkworth's multi-million dollar gamble is paying off.
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"Tom, I feel that I'm part of an epic moment here." "Oh, I agree. It is historic." "Yeah, it's an awful long walk." "They can't tell us exactly." "Yeah, we're not out front, but they have stories to tell, wouldn't it?" "Ah, absolutely. Some of these have seen polka dots, and we're nearly into Victoria."
"It is a spectacular finish to a spectacular journey, the likes of which we might never see again. And you, sir, have done what few living drovers are done." "Yeah, yep." "But you can't be too sentimental about it, can you? Because we know where they're going to end up." "That's it. On your plate." "Yes." "Would you do it again?" "Absolutely. Wild horses couldn't keep me away." "Yes, it was just fabulous, you know." "Flash. Ah, in a heartbeat."
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