Sitting on a horse in the South Australian outback, I watched 500 head of cattle shuffle ahead beneath a haze of orange dust as a participant in the Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive.

Handsome tanned young cowboys (they prefer to be called ringers) with battered hats and faded jeans were in abundance. So too, however, were their fit and capable female equivalents, who had already staked claims on the ringers who weren't so shy that they were only ever seen as distant figures on the far side of the herd.

Instead, I talked to the leathery older guys such as 78-year-old Whitey, who has had a lifetime of experience moving stock through the unforgiving landscape of the outback.

‘She's a hard country,' he said, stopping to cough up a fly. ‘But it's where I feel at home.' He was happy to be back on a cattle drive with his old horse and added, stroking Blackie's nose, ‘If they made more of these and less of us, it'd be a better world.'

 

Bringing back tradition

Real cattle drives ended in the 1960s when motorbikes or even helicopters began to be used in mustering, and trucks drove livestock to the city.

Before then, on the Birdsville Track alone, 60,000 cattle were driven hundreds of kilometres through Queensland and South Australia by men and horses, to the railhead at Marree. It was a unique and quintessentially Australian way of life, and when the tradition was reinstated for the Year of the Outback in 2002, it was such a success that the Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive has become an eagerly anticipated event for would-be drovers.

During my five-day taster of the month-long drove along the Oodnadatta Track, I met a huge variety of people from a range of different backgrounds. Among them were a midwife, a marine ecologist, a dog walker, two Scottish farmers and three childhood friends from Adelaide who were celebrating their 60th birthdays.

The careful matching up of riders to the horses, plus the fact that the horses had to keep to the walking pace of the herd, meant people soon forgot their fears. They began to enjoy playing cowboy, hustling up behind the cattle and driving them on.

One unfortunate woman, however, was too slow to pull her horses head up when it fancied a roll in the sand. She had to be flown in to Adelaide by the Flying Doctor with a suspected broken ankle. Sad for her, it was a thrill for the rest of us, and we felt quite intrepid as we clip-clopped on through the saltbush, over red gibber plains, past flat-topped mesas and around unexpected pink puddles.

‘The world's too fast,' Daryl Bell, the boss drover said. ‘You see much more moving at the pace of a beast.' And he was right. The scenery in the outback is full of surprises. Expecting arid desert, I was astonished to see mound springs, small green hills built up
by mineral deposits as clear water bubbled up from an artesian basin.

There were human discoveries too, such as the historic ruins of the Strangways repeater station. This was part of the overland telegraph system that in 1870 could take a message from Adelaide to London in only six hours.

Back at our base camp was the internet, but more importantly, hot showers, real toilets, comfortable beds and excellent food. There was also a campfire to toast marshmallows over while singing under a sky full of stars.

 

Gate-crashing

One night we made the journey to the William Creek Hotel. We overwhelmed the eight residents, crowding into a bar decorated with caps, bras and jockstraps. The walls of the back room were built with sleepers from the old railway track, and the menu offered such treats as kangaroo curry pie.

The clock was stopped at 5:43, in a nod towards the days of the six o'clock swill, but landlady Adriana reassured us, ‘We're open till we close.' Luckily we didn't take her at her word, and managed to get a few hours of solid sleep before being jerked awake in the middle of the night by billowing tent walls, crashing night stands and the pistol-shot cracking of guy ropes.

It was a sandstorm, driven by 30-knot winds that rampaged through the campsite. It set off a flurry of activity as trucks and buses were moved upwind to protect the tents leaving red sand over everything.

Glad not to have been caught out in the open on the horses, we huddled over cups of tea in the marquee, a colourful sight in our crumpled nightwear, until the wind passed over.

 

By Pamela Wade

For more information,visit the South Australian Tourism Commission website at www.southaustralia.co.nz.

Air New Zealand offers daily non-stop flights from Auckland to Perth, with connections available from all around New Zealand.

For the best deals on airfares and Australian holidays visit www.airnewzealand.co.nz.

Planning is still under way for the 2010 Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive. For updates on its progress, visit www.cattledrive.com.au. For more travel destinations visit www.nznewidea.co.nz