Transcription
If you think mustering, drafting, and loading more than 4,000 head of cattle on 24 road trains over just three days sounds ambitious, well you haven’t met the Wave Hill mob. So we loaded nine yesterday, six today, and we’ve got eight tomorrow. That seems like a busy, busy agenda. Yeah, but it's a pretty efficient way to get it done. So if you’re going to load two trucks, you may as well load eight.
They’re long days for the women and men that make up the stock camp here on the 1.25 million hectare property, 750km south of Darwin. Ask anyone. When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do is work on the world's largest cattle station. At just 16, Ricky Lynn Coates might be the youngest on the books, but she makes up for her tender years in enthusiasm. I just love to learn everything I can, which is impossible, but I'd like to try.
The stock camp has spent the year sharpening their stock skills and refining their reflexes. [We’re just getting some out so you fit them all in.] You do learn then. So once you do, you know, you just pick up on when they're going to snot ya and when they're not, I guess. Everybody's being snotted, so . . . Including yourself. Yeah. Well, proper. Look at it and watch videos and yeah, read about it. But once you're a part of it, it's just a whole nother thing. My new normal is just still unbelievable for everyone back home. Yeah, it's just incredible. Knowing everything that’s going on down here, it's like you're sort of a part of something that's gone down history, sort of thing.
And what a history it has. If these yards could talk, they'd tell some tales. Wave Hill is the territory's biggest cattle station, 5186mi², in fact, the biggest in the world. Not just famous for its size, it was also the place where Gurindji stockmen walked off in the 60s because of poor conditions and pay. Their action led to the Aboriginal land rights movement in the 1970s. More than 1200 square miles of the Wave Hill property were involved in the handover. The Gurindji’s plan to expand the herd on their new pastoral lease from a couple of hundred to some thousands. Vincent Lingiari I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof in Australian law that these lands belong to the Gurindji people.
But dirt is seldom changed hands out here. The infamous Vestey Brothers company had it to 70 of its 140 years, until Western Grazing took over in the 90s and ran it until recently. Wave Hill was purchased in 2021 for $56 million. It came with 40,000 head of cattle, taking that price closer to $104 million. It was the single biggest transaction in the Northern Territory's pastoral history at the time. Stumping up the cash was a collection of businesses and farmers under the banner Wave Hill Holdings Proprietary Limited, which includes Jumbuck Pastoral partners Callum and Jock McLachlan, parent company Commonwealth Hill Proprietary Limited and three introduced investors.
And manager Matt Wood has lofty expectations and ambitions for the property. We'll need to develop it very economically, you know, efficiently so that we can sort of do an efficient job on a large area. They've got plenty of get up and go, but there is a lot of strategy underpinning the development. Doing a big cull of the herd into a red hot market —sort of the strongest market we've ever had in this game — the timing was all sort of perfect. And then we were able to lighten off the country, sort of get the herd heading back in the direction that we wanted to into a red hot market to finance the [capital expenditure] that needed to happen to make the job easier.
Wave Hill also experienced the best two wet seasons on record back to back. But times aren't always so flush. Matt Wood says they’re factoring in a missed wet season roughly every decade. Before the Wave Hill group came here, the region had just come out of the worst dry spell in 50 years. That meant investing in water was a priority. You can't be too complacent and assume things because it will come back to bite in the ass real quick. You know, you've got however many tens of thousands of head of cattle to keep alive. So that in itself, I think is the biggest challenge to us day to day is.
90 new troughs, 50 new bores sunk and 50 new solar pumps were put in. Matt Wood says putting up capital to get reliable clean water has paid dividends in reducing the overall management costs. It also means they aren't running from one impending disaster to the next. It's funny, like, yeah, if you can just try and spend find enough time to fix your worst 10 problems properly so you don't have to touch him for 40 years, you bloody — it suddenly buys you back so much more time to deal with the next 10.
Facing down the long list of challenges from the beginning has been their loyal boreman Shane Thackerer. Across his job, extended to fencing and safe to say, he's probably fairly sick of the sight wire after laying 200km over since 2021. Blink of an eye for us. It's been that busy and flat out that it sort of three years has passed by like nothing. It sort of. You do forget what it looked like before but when you get a bit of time to reflect on, like, what's happened in the last few years, it's something pretty special, really.
They've been able to bring on an extra 1500 square kms in the eastern desert that wasn't being grazed by adding water yards and fences, and they're eyeing off another 4000km² of country they could also develop. Only about two thirds of Wave Hill is being currently used. Oh well a little, a little over two thirds now.
Genetics are a cornerstone of the vision too, namely returning to the original grey brahman cattle that were run on the property very successfully up until the early 2000s, when other lines were introduced. They've invested $3 million in bulls alone and have been rigorous with cleaning up stock that came with the place through regular day desexing and pregnancy testing. As a result, weaning rates have jumped from 50% to 76% during their management. The first manager I had in North Australia when I was a 19 year old kid, he told me something I've never forgotten. He said: you run the cow for your country and the bull for your market, and we feel that grey brahman ticks both boxes and we think that the indo job’s sustainable.
It's a lot to take on. But Matt and his wife Connie have form. They're well known in the Kimberley and worked hard for 10 years on one of Jumbuck's properties before being asked to manage Wave Hill, a property three times bigger than the previous one they’d run. And it was quite the challenge for their young family. And so we came to Wave Hill with a four-year-old, a two-year-old and an eight-week-old baby. So, 500km from Katherine. That's out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. And just. Yeah. You think okay, let's do it. Why not?
Connie took on the load of solo parenting while Matt got stuck into developing the place, but they knew it was a once in a lifetime chance. If we'd been much younger, we probably wouldn't have had the experience and the confidence to be able to do this job. And if we'd been much older, I don't know if we would have had the energy. And when an opportunity like Wave Hill comes along, you'd be mad if you didn't think or at least throw your hat into the ring. Well Callum had already taken our hat.
They’re first to say none of it would have happened without a solid team beside them. Yeah, I think that, like, I don't think we can really do this with, you know, passengers. Despite nearing end of mustering season, there's no waning of enthusiasm. And it clearly comes from the top. During peak season, around 30 people work at Wave Hill. That can stretch to 50 if extra contractors are brought in.
Sometimes we’re boarding house masters, police and psychologists and relationship counsellors, nurse, mum — we joke that we have like 33 children at some stages, and I hear stories from people in other stock camps, and they're scared to go to the manager's house after hours. But I don't ever want our staff to feel that way. While they're modest about praise, there's a respect and admiration in the stock camp for Connie and Matt. Matt and Connie have helped shape my life into what it is. Like they backed me in, and held faith in me, when I was still young and immature. And you know, I hope I've come out all right for them. What I do to get by and achieve this. But I was a young pup from the city once as well. But. And I didn't even know that this job existed. He loves giving me pretty big challenges to test me out, but that's what I want. I want a big challenge just to keep building my skills and working hard.
Headstock woman Jess Riddell has followed the Woods from station to station. I know how hard they work, so I want to be working just as hard as them. And all these younger kids that are following me along the way. Like I need to set a good example, and I want them to be trying as hard as they possibly can. A job that demands a lot, but also gives a lot. I don't know what exactly gets me out of bed, but there's something to it. Just. Yeah, just this whole life. Oh, honestly, I forget there's another world outside of Wave. It's just you just do what you do. I try my hardest every day. And these are all my family. To be honest. So I’m where I am with the people I love. So it's. I can't really whinge.