April to June 2013 - Home to Bourke

Well here we are 8 weeks into retirement and absolutely loving every minute of it, so we thought it was time to catch everybody up on the past 2 months.

It took us the whole of the first week to finish off packing the house and the usual finish off things that have to be done.  The sale of the house went through without a hitch on the Friday and we moved into one of the local Geelong caravan parks to get used of the caravan and find out what we still needed before we headed off.

We got going on the Wednesday of the first week of retirement and went to Moama to spend the first week on the Murray river with family and friends. Leann coaxed the Kookaburras down out of the tree with some raw meat. 

Since then we have moved on to Corowa to catch up with some of Judy's side of the family where we stayed in a bush setting caravan park, almost right on the river. We had a night out at the RSL Club and were lucky enough to win one of the Friday night raffles which kept us in meat for the next week or so.

Swan Hill was our next stop for a couple of nights and then on to Mildura where we stayed for a week.  Buronga caravan park is right on the river, just across from where the paddle steamer pulls up at the wharf in Mildura. 

The site we had was only 30 metres from the river so we had the Zodiac (inflatable boat) in the water almost every day.  Luckily I had time in Moama to build a little dismountable trailer to get the Zodiac to the waters edge and back without having to let it down at the end of every day.

We fished up and down the river, but couldn't even catch a carp.  The weather was fantastic for this time of the year until the second last day when it rained.  Being used to living from tank water at Sheoaks, we made up a water catchment system from an empty jam tin and a couple of hose fittings and caught the rain water off the roof of the awning which filled up the fresh water tank in the caravan so we didn't have to drink the horrible chlorinated water.  Saves buying bottled water for drinking.

We moved onto Broken Hill and had a good look around the mines and the galleries.  Pro Hart's gallery stood out the most to us.  This man had a wonderful talent for painting outback scenery.  There is also a gallery that houses a painting that took the artist 2 years to complete and is 12 metres high and 100 metres long.  This is the world's largest acrylic painting on canvas.  It depicts scenes of the outback from all around the larger Broken Hill area.  We took a day trip to Silverton where the Mad Max films were produced.  A lot of the old bits and pieces that we say out there on our last visit 25 years ago have now been moved into a museum of such and has deteriorated a lot since we last saw them.  Silverton is now more "touristy" with 2 cafes, the old pub (now without the horse that used to walk into the bar), and 3 or 4 galleries.  There is a guy there who carves coins.  He takes a real coin and carves away all the flat areas of the coin, just leaving the raised sections.  A $2.00 carved coin ends up costing over $100 but quite unique.  Not sure if it is legal to deface the queens currency?

The Mundi Mundi plains just out of Silverton is just awesome.  You come over a rise and there is this huge plain spread out below you for about 180 degrees and as far as the eye can see. The RFDS base at Broken Hill is also well worth a visit as it gives a lot of the history of the early days of the flying doctor.  Next time you have a $20.00 note in your hand, have a good look at it as it shows the body chart that the RFDS doctors used to help people diagnose illnesses by description over the radio.  You will see that the body is divided up into numbered sections so that people could describe where their pain was.  Once the doctor knew what numbers they could then advise the patient to take so many of the tablets in the numbered first aid kit.

Broken Hill is trying to promote tourism more and we came across a lady painting this painting on the footpath in the main street.  The lady is very talented and did this 3D painting in just 2 days.  It just looked like a hole in the ground that you could walk down into.




While we were at Broken Hill, we picked up a pamphlet advertising a station stay at Trilby Station which is about 400 kilometres north east, and decided to head there. 

The last day in Broken Hill saw 20 mm of rain which was nice to fill the rain water tank up again, but also closed the road out to Trilby, as the last 200 kilometres is a gravel road which follows the Darling river up from Wilcannia.

Not to be ones to back away from a challenge we headed off to Wilcannia which is a sealed road all the way.  Everyone had told us that Wilcannia was a rough town and all the windows were bared up to stop the native people from busting things up, but we were up for the challenge as we are not phased at all by what other people tell us.  The old caravan park had just been resurrected by this very enthusiastic fellow who works with the aborigines and has cleaned it up with their help and made it habitable again.  It is right on the banks of the Darling River with huge river red gums growing all along the river bank.  We booked in for 2 nights but ended up staying for 4 nights and had a very relaxing time.  No problems at all.  We got talking to the lady in the coffee shop and she told us a bit of the history of the place.  Back in the paddle steamer days, Wilcannia used to be one of the biggest inland ports on the Darling River.  They used to have a wharf that could load or unload 13 paddle steamers.  There are still some old sandstone buildings just begging for somebody to restore them to their original grandeur.  It's a pity that more people don't stay there as it is a wonderful place.  We have spoken to a lot of travelers since then who said they wouldn't even get out of their cars apart from at the service station to get fuel.  They were surprised when we told them of our time in Wilcannia. 

The road up through Tilpa to Trilby station was still closed due to the wet conditions so we decided that White Cliffs would be a good place for a day or so as it is still on a bitumen road and only 93 klm's away.  What a great little place with of course most of it being underground.  The caravan park had no trees or grass but we thought we would give it a go.  We ended up staying 4 nights we were that taken with the place.  The people we met were fantastic.  Talk about a different breed of opal miners.  Luckily we parked the van just 1 spot away from an older couple who go there every year for 3 months to fossick for opals.  We didn't even have the van set up and the female of the couple came over to find out what we were all about.  Luckily we gave Wilcannia a good rap and she adopted us from there.  She hates people who talk badly about Wilcannia so we were just about locals to her after staying there for 4 nights.  She told us all about the town and how and where to find opal.  I was pegging down our washing line right beside the caravan and picked up a bit of opal right there.  How exciting.  We showed it to our new neighbour and she laughed and told us it was "podge" which is opal without any colour.  She went on to tell us that fossickers pick it up out in the opal fields and then just throw it out when they get back to their caravan and sort through what they had picked up for the day.  Disappointing, as I was just about ready to stake a claim.

We did use our newly acquired skills the next day out on the opal fields and did pick up a few pieces with some nice colour in.  Nothing of any great value, but a good keepsake of our visit to White Cliffs.  We know some folk whose father has lived and worked in White Cliffs for 30 or more years so we looked him up.  It's not that hard to find anybody out there as everybody knows everybody else, the trick is to find which underground mine they live in.  You get instructions like "go round the back of this hill and he is 3 dugouts past Jock's place".  That's fine once you find Jock's place.  We finally found him and spent some time with him down his mine wandering through a myriad of shafts and tunnels.  He has a wonderful setup with bedroom, pantry, workshop and wine cellar all underground where the temperature is constant most of the time.  All I could see was a lot of clay that has to be dug out and only a small seam  of opal.  I could see how the bug could get you.  It's a bit like the pokies, just one more dig and you could strike it rich.  We spoke to one miner who bought a working mine and claims he only dug 6 inches into the wall and struck it rich.  Most other miners in town tell you that it is a load of rubbish.  I don't think much gets declared to the tax department.

The last day we were in White Cliffs it rained again and once again the gravel road to Trilby Station was closed.

Underground at Jocks Place

Opal seam in the clay

We moved on to Cobar on the bitumen.  Cobar is a copper mining town and it was interesting to have a look at the open cut copper mine.  Not much else that interested us around Cobar so we moved onto Bourke after a couple of days.

Bourke is a fantastic outback farming community.  When I worked for Transwest Haulage, we were owned by the Swire Group.  Amongst a lot of other things, the Swire Group own Clyde Agriculture at Bourke.  We were always told that if we went to Bourke we should visit Clyde which is the biggest cotton farm in Australia.  We went out there and had a chat to the folk but there wasn't much to show us as the cotton harvest was finished.  It certainly is a big farm which has their own cotton gin as well.

There is an outback show called Back-O-Bourke which we enjoyed.  They have camels, Clydesdales and a working bullock team which they put through their paces.  There is also an excellent visitor centre showing the history of the area.  A diesel driven paddle vessel takes you along the Darling river to see the bird life.  The Darling River is a lot slower flowing so quite different from the Murray.

The Bourke Council has had an old 1923 vintage Crossley oil fueled stationary engine fully restored to working condition.  They start it every day so of course I had to go along.  It was good to compare the old engine to modern day engines.  It is a twin cylinder engine that weighs 16 tonnes, it has a 6 tonne flywheel and produces 138 BHP at 260 RPM.  It is 108.6 litres capacity.  To make a comparison to the engine in our Landcruiser, our engine is about 20 times smaller, 40 times lighter but produces almost double the horse power.  The council spent almost $100,000 to rebuild this engine and are now about to have 2 new pistons built as one has cracked.  An excellent effort by the Bourke Council to keep this bit of history alive.

Clydesdales and Bullock teams working at the "Back - O - Bourke" show in Bourke.

PV Jandra on the Darling river at Bourke.

This boat was built in 2000 and is fitted with a diesel engine which drives a generator to power 2 electric motors which drive each paddle wheel separately so the boat can turn in it's own length.

Frogmouth Owl at Kidmans Camp in Bourke.

There were 3 sitting in the tree only about 1 metre apart  They were very well camouflaged against the bark of the tree.

Campfire and poetry at Kidman's Camp in Bourke.

The husband and wife team that ran this show had songs and stories that they had written about towns and things that had happened all around the district.

They served up and excellent meal and the entertainment was definitely different.  I learnt a lot of local folk stories from around the area from them.

Restored Crossley engine at Bourke.

This engine will run on waste oil mixed with diesel and is extremely economical.

It has 2 cylinders but is called a twin cylinder engine as apposed to a 2 cylinder engine as both pistons go up and down together and each fire on alternate strokes.  A 2 cylinder would have one piston going up while the other piston is going down.

The road from Bourke to Louth and then on to Trilby Station finally opened again so we took this opportunity to go to Trilby.  What a fantastic place.  This is a 320,000 acre property right on the Darling River.  There are bush camp sites along the river but the river banks are very steep so we are camped on the billabong where we are only 8 metres from the waters edge.  Of course the Zodiac is in and we manage to putt up and down the billabong which is about 250 metres long and about 80 metres wide.  We have already been here 7 days and as we got about 15 mm of rain 3 nights ago, so we will have to stay at least another 3 until the roads open again.  No problem for us though as we have plenty of food and time to enjoy the place.

The owners here have done a good job with laying out the story of the farm and made maps so visitors can find their way around the points of interest on the property.  We spent half a day driving around just one small section of the property.

I actually caught a fish last night, it was only a carp but a good size about 18 inches long so a bit of fun all the same.  Only 2 yabbies which is disappointing but we keep trying.

Judy caught a big carp today all by herself.  First fish on the new rod.  I have never seen such a big carp.

We decided to feed the carp to the pelicans to see what they would do.  I sat up a tree and took some photos of them as they swam down the billabong looking for fish.  I was amazed at what happened.  The 5 pelicans swam down together and every few metres they "duck dived" in unison very gracefully.  We weren't sure if they were hunting the fish along or still looking for fish under the water.  All of a sudden, one of the pelicans spotted the fish that we had placed in the middle of the billabong and it took off after it, picked it up and tried to swallow it.  It seemed to have lost it's grip on the fish or it was too big and it had another go at getting it in it's bill.  it finally got it down.

This the photo sequence.

The pelicans swim in unison down the billabong.  We weren't sure if they were actually herding fish along or just looking for fish.

Every 3 or 4 metres or so they would dive under the water in unison very quietly and gracefully.  Again we couldn't understand if they actually had fish all "herded" together.

One of the pelicans noticed the dead fish that we had placed out in the billabong and took of from the rest of them to grab the fish.

We originally thought that the 5 pelicans were working together to catch fish, but once this one grabbed the dead fish it was "every pelican for it self" and there was no sharing.

The pelican took a big gulp to try to swallow the fish, but the fish was too big and too slippery and it almost dropped it.

The pelican splashed the fish around in the water trying to line it up again...

Got it down this time and none left for it's mate. 

After the pelican swallowed the fish it swam off up the billabong and left the rest of them to catch their own feed.

The owners of Trilby Station supply their guests with some really interesting facts about their station.  We found this information very interesting so we have reproduced some of that information.  See the post for Trilby

That's it for now.  Tomorrow (16/06/13) we leave Trilby Station and start heading down the Kidman Way towards Hay and then on to Barham back on the Murray River.

Trilby Station

 We found Trilby Station very relaxing during the 10 days that we spent there.

We camped on the Billabong and enjoyed watching all the wild life.

This photo was taken from right behind the caravan where we were camped.
The Zodiac was great for traveling up and down the billabong and trying to catch one of those illusive fish.







The Trilby Station information below was supplied by the station owners Gary and Liz Murray.

TRILBY STATION POINTS OF INTEREST

Trilby Station itself is 127,721 acres (51,686 hectares). Approx .26,000 acres is Darling River flood plain with heavy, grey self mulching soils. The remainder of the property is red loam scattered with Leopardwood, Beefwood, Sandlewood, Rosewood, Ironwood, Bimblebox and good edible Mulga trees. The Mulga trees can be pushed with a bulldozer or cut in drought times to feed stock. They regenerate over time. The branches of the Leopardwood tree are also good drought fodder. In drought times the stock will come running as soon as they hear the bulldozer - knowing they are about to be fed!

Trilby is sub-divided into 18 paddocks, with 4 holding paddocks and is watered by the Darling River, ground tanks (you may call them dams) and bores - one of which is a flowing bore. Most of the bores are equipped with windmills, though we are gradually changing over to electric (or solar) mono pumps. The West Trilby block is bisected by Cuttaburra Channel Country, growing lignum and cane-grass and is subject to periodical flooding from the Paroo River. In 2011 we saw the Paroo and Cuttaburra in flood for the first time since 1990 and we are currently experiencing another smaller flood there this year. Although this has necessitated the construction of a levee bank around the West Trilby shearing shed and huts to keep the rising floodwaters at bay, we are incredibly pleased to see so much country now underwater. It will grow a magnificent volume of feed after the waters recede. It is 90km from the Homestead to the West Trilby shearing shed.

In 2008 we added 'New Chum' to our holdings, and last year 'Mt Mulyah' and 'Pelora', bringing our total area to just over 320,000 acres. These properties were all apart of the original Dunlop and adjoin Trilby, simplifying management.

Feral goats are a very important income factor for us, being the most widely exported meat out of Australia, mainly to Muslim countries. And, believe me, there is no shortage of them out this way, as you've probably noticed on your travels to Trilby. A female goat  (Nanny) begins breeding at about 7 months, has 2 'kiddings' a year... and often bears 2, 3 or 4 kids at a time!! Better than rabbits! They graze on scrub rather than grasses so areideal for our very scrub infested country back off the river. Being feral, they wander (into the wind), going straight through your fences. The goats are only considered yours to muster when they are on your property.

Sale price varies from around $14 per head to upwards of $50, depending on the supply/demand at the time. 17kg is the minimum going weight, and we can sell per head or 'over the hook' which is a cents per kilogram rate. If the majority of our sale goats are smallish to average, around 17-20k9 we take the per head rate, however if we have a big mob of huge billies (yep, the guys) we'll choose the over the hook rate. Early last year the per kg rate was $1.46.... making for around $60 for the big guys. As I type now, the rate is around 50 cents a KG...making the big guys worth only around $20!! This is due to the dry year we've had and an oversupply of goats. Farmers are spending more time rounding up the goats to get rid of them off the farm (more grass and feed for sheep and cattle).Sheep/cattle/wool prices have also fallen in the past 12 months so farmers are again relying on goats for increased income, and are therefore mustering more of them.  Supply has overstepped demand.

We sell live to the local Louth goat depot, who pickup from our yards at no cost. The goats are trucked to Albury Wodonga, on the VIC border, blessed and slaughtered Halal style for the Muslim market. Without a doubt, no grazier would still be viable here in the Western Division without the income provided by feral goats over the years.  In recent years we've constructed goat proof fencing (electric and ringlock wire) on a portion of Trilby to enable us to keep the nannies and kids, just selling off the billies. These paddocks have one way trap gates, allowing goats to enter but not leave. They are very effective indeed. We've also constructed small trap yards around watering points, with the same one way gates as well as ramps ( as goats love to jump), and use these over summer when there is no other water source for them to access... making the catching a simple matter and forgone conclusion.

Western NSW is lease-hold country and the Western Lands Commission rate us at one dry sheep to every ten acres (a dry sheep is one without a lamb at foot) on Trilby and one sheep for 12 acres on Newchum, Mt Mulyah and Pelora. Our stock numbers have been down for many years, due to the extreme drought. Until mid 2010 we have been consistently drought declared since October 2001. Over a three day period in January 09 we received 105mm (420 points) of rain - our biggest fall in 92 months!! However, with no follow-up rains, the grasses generated soon perished in the hot sun. The Gods have finally seen fit to shine on us and since around October 2010, when we received five and a half inches of rain overnight, we've been receiving reasonably consistent falls.

In drought years we hand fed barley to many of the sheep for a period of time, drought rations, but enough to keep them going... trying to hang on to our breeding ewes as long as we could. . . till the rains came. At a cost of about $ I per sheep per week, (Barley was costing us about $360 a tonne plus freight.)... this understandably was restricted to absolute necessity only.

Currently we're carrying around 20,000 merino sheep (up from 17,500 in2012). Approx 12,200 ewes are joined to Haddon Rig stud merino rams, due to lamb out in spring.

 Following the improved season in 2010 we marked 7,384lambs that year - an average of 92%. However in 201 1 we only marked around 690 , {6,400 lambs) and last year 6,041 lambs - 57% - very surprising considering the fantastic season we were having. Low lambing percentages was a common problem throughout Western NSW, resulting in a webinar to attempt to unravel the causes.

One property in our area scanned 120 per cent fetuses per ewe yet marked only 30 per cent - so it wasn't a fertility issue or lamb loss at lambing, thus authorities tried to uncover exactly where and how those lambs were lost.

Factors which could have contributed include: worms - a major problem last season, they reduce body condition making sheep sick and in severe cases causing death. A combination of heat and humidity can cause heat stress which can produce small lambs with less chance of survival at birth. Mosquitoes and other biting insects can transmit viruses and infections which could directly affect unborn lambs, or indirectly through their mother's increased body temperature. Increased fox, pig and wild dog populations due to the excellent season and flooding could be impacting on lamb survival.

Sheep spending extended periods in waterlogged pastures, leading to foot and skin infections.

In2004 we marked just 90 lambs and in 2005 we didn't join at all, as it was just too dry and the ewes too poor. The ewes often don't 'cycle' in a bad drought and if they do manage to lamb they often abandon them anyway... rain arrived in June 05 - which was too late to join ... but fortunately, thanks to a visitor who left a gate open.... we ended up with about 600 'immaculate conceptions'.

Roughly half of each year's lambs are whethers ( so, boy sheep that we castrate), and these are sold online via 'Auctions Plus'... which is like Ebay for sheep, Our 2010 whethers were sold for $ 1 18 per head ! ! We decided to hold onto our spring 2011 whether lambs until after shearing last year, hoping to grow them out a bit more for an improved price. That way we also got the wool from them. They sold for $80 to Country Fresh, an abattoir in Tamworth. An accredited assessor visits the station to inspect a cut (around l0%) of the mob to be sold. Each sheep is individually weighed and assessed for condition, wool quality (such as length, whether there is a large amount of burr and dirt in the wool for instance) and photographs of the mob are taken. These are then uploaded onto the livestock auction site and on the day of sale prospective buyers bid for your sheep. This system works very well for us as the nearest sale yards are Narromine, 440km away. It costs a lot per head to cart sheep to sale, meaning you are committed to sell, regardless of the maximum bid received... as you simply can't afford to truck them back home again. By selling online you have a reserve, so the sheep only sell once the reserve is met. If they don't sell there has been no cost to you (as the sheep are still in the paddock) ... and if they do, the buyer pays the freight to get his stock home.

We class our young ewes and cull off anything that doesn't have a good conformation or who's wool isn't fine enough for our flock, and while these are our cull sheep (rejects) they are top notch to others not quite so fussy. Obviously... as the buyer paid $214 per head in 2012, a price we've only ever dream't of in the past.

Our busiest (and most exciting time of the year as wool producers) is shearing, which begins mid May for about a month. We expect to get around 460 bales of wool when shearing is completed this year. A bale weighs around 186 kg, which is the wool from around 32 grown sheep. A grown sheep this year will produce about 6kg of wool, down just over a kg per head on last year ... due to the super good season, too much rain etc. ironic isn't it!! So for 17 ,686 sheep, which includes 6,152lambs - we expect to end up with around 446bales. Wool prices are currently falling due to the uncertainty in Europe, but we hope to achieve about $1200 bale.  lt costs us around $12 per sheep to shear. $7 goes directly to our contractor (he brings the whole team... so 6 shearers, shed hands, wool presser, wool classer, pen-er-uppers (a term our kids still use, denotes the guy who pens the sheep up ready for the shearers to shear them!!), cook and all the groceries they require. We provide a clean bed with mattress cover and pillow per shearer and a clean set of quarters and the team simply moves in for the duration. The remaining costs to shear a sheep include chemicals, woolpacks, cartage of wool to sale and staff wages.

Due to the size of our station we have 4 shearing sheds, each with its own shearer's quarters. The shed here at the homestead, one at West Trilby - about l00 km from here, one at Newchum - about 40 km from here and one at Mt Mulyah, about 65km from here.

As the sheep in the vicinity of each shed are shorn the team moves to the next shed and mustering continues.

During the flood last year and for a similar period in 2011 we were completely surrounded by water here at the Homestead for three to four months. We needed to either fly or boat to leave the island, a novelty to begin with but it wore quite thin by the end, believe me. The flooding resulted from the Dec 2011 flooding around the Moree area, and then the St George/Charleville floods in January 2012.. Most rivers on the eastern side of Australia, and west of the Great Divide, eventually end up flowing into the Darling River. Flooding here is not overnight/instant... we have weeks to prepare, allowing us time to move all of our stock onto higher ground, replenish the gas bottles, pantry etc and be organized.

I leave my 4WD on the Louth airstrip, (20 kilometres away) so that should I want to go to town Gary would fl me there, where I couldn't drive to Bourke, as that road floods, but I could head Cobar way and beyond. With the Toowoomba floods tagging onto the previous one, and the river not dropping enough in between to allow us to resupply, we needed the assistance of the SES on one occasion - they slung some drums of avgas fuel in for our aeroplane with a chopper ... enabling us to remain self sufficient and not have to rely on them totally.

We have 3 working dogs. Plugger is the black and tan Kelpie/huntaway, Rudi is the brown kelpie and Tannie, the smallish black/tan Kelpie Huntaway with the square house. During the floods last year a huge buck roo on our island lured Chikka (Rudi's sister) into the rivervand drowned her. Kangaroos are a very dangerous animal when cornered.

Huntaway's are a New Zealand sheep dog, very affectionate and great workers - but enormous. We normally cross them with the Kelpie to control size (can't fit too many huge dogs on the motorbike with you and they take up too much room in the plane!).

We took a few photos of some of the history items around Trilby

Steam engine used to drive various machinery.  The engine is mostly intact but like most others like this one, the boiler is rusted out.
The engine was built by R Hornsby & Sons Limited, Engineers, Grantham. England.

Two fencers that worked on Trilby full time started out with these 2 old Holdens.
This is where they stayed when the broke down

They then advanced to this old Chev truck and when it broke down......

...they advanced to this double decker bus.  Unfortunately, they hit a low bridge with it and wiped the front of the top section off