My dear friends,
Currently it's 14 May 2015 and I am in the library in Broken Hill, Central-West New South Wales. I have spent the last 2,5 weeks on the Theldarpa Sheep Station located between the historic town of Milparinka and Cameron Corner where 3 states meet (South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales). Unfortunately I have not been able to go there, but you cannot have everything. Sometimes you are not just that lucky like I have discovered in these last weeks. I went to the Theldarpa Sheep Station to help out with the mustering of the sheep during shearing. I also would help with drafting, back lining, etc. Everything from mustering the sheep, getting them into the sheep yards and the wool shed and getting them back to their paddock where they could live in peace for at least a few months. For me when I read the ad in Travellers At Work it sounded so good (and it really was minus a few 'things gone wrong') because it was 'mustering'. It is what you thing about when you hear the word 'Australia'. The outback with its red soil, golden grass and sheep and cattle running 'freely'. I say 'freely' because of the enormous size of the sheep and cattle stations in the outback. There are cattle stations in the Northern Territory and West Australia which are the size of Belgium and, apparently, even a few times the size of Belgium. Of course Belgium is only a fraction of the size of Australia (it is more than 250 times smaller but only has twice the population of Belgium). The Theldarpa Sheep Station is relatively 'small'. Its 125,000 acres, 50,000 hectares or 500 km2. To give you a more clear image: it is more than 3 times the size of the city of Antwerp or 60 times smaller than Belgium. In comparison: Brindley Park (the sheep farm where I worked in Merriwa) was only 7,500 acres so about 17 times smaller than Theldarpa. When I was there I thought it was quite big. If you think about it... It is awesome.
When I left Walgett I had two options: Taking a short cut to Theldarpa which would be Walgett-Bourke-Wanaaring-Tibooburra-Milparinka-Theldarpa. The 400 km between Bourke and Tibooburra would consist of mainly unsealed, quite rough, 4WD roads (so gravel and sand) where there was no cell reception and because of that quite unpopular. In other words: a recipe for disaster. The second option would be a detour of 400 km: Walgett-Bourke-Cobar-Wilcannia-Broken Hill-Milparinka-Theldarpa which was the safer route with lots of cell coverage and mainly sealed roads. I, of course, was sure I would be able to drive on the gravel roads and I was sure my car (a Holden Commodore VT Executive Station Wagon from 1997) would like it as well. It was a bad call as I would find out. Everything went relatively well. I passed Wanaaring which was half way the gravel roads. The road between Wanaaring and Tibouburra, however, was closed (actually it was open but somebody hadn't done his or her job and changed the sign) so I had to take a detour via White Cliffs which meant more gravel and dust roads. And then disaster struck about 50 km out of Wanaaring. I came over a hill and because of the sun and the white gravel I noticed a big rock in the middle of the road too late (it blended in really nicely with the rest of the road) and I run straight over it which resulted in a horrible sound. I stopped immediately and sure enough oil started pouring out from underneath. I got a hole in the sump and a big dent in the gear box which meant 'stranded'. After a lot of swearing, shouting and hating myself I thought by myself: Relax you will be able to laugh with it in a few years. Imagine: you buy a car and a bit over 2 weeks later you kill it. Makes you think: why didn't I get a full comprehensive insurance on this car? But anyway, what's done is done. Life goes on. Deal with it. So after 2-3 hours finally a car passed which towed me back into Wanaaring. As there was no cell reception there I had to use a payphone to call Theldarpa and Tiphaine that I was stranded and was trying to figure out what to do. I first wanted to replace the sump with a part from another commodore but this would mean takig out the enigine which was not really possible. Then I wanted to fix the hole with a kind of plasticine which you mold into position and after a few hours it becomes as steel. There is, however, no guarantee that it will work if the surface isn't 'factory' clean. The shop was closed so I had to wait until the morning. In the morning I called Ruth Sandow from the Theldarpa Sheep Station who arranged that the police officer of Tibooburra would come to Wanaaring to pick me up (and preferably the car as well). So, while waiting, I fixed the hole with the plasticine. However, when Glenn (the police officer) arrived it hadn't fully set yet so I couldn't test it which meant I had to abbandon the car at the police station where it still is today. When I got to Tibooburra it was too late to proceed to Theldarpa so I spent the night there in a hostel and in the morning Glenn drove me to Milparinka where I got picked up by Ruth. Finally, after more than 2 days travelling, I arrived at the Theldarpa Sheep Station which would be my home for the next few weeks.
I arrived during shearing season which meant that all of the Marino Sheep on the station would lose their wool which would be sold. We had to get 8,000 sheep through the wool shed. These sheep, however, were scattered over a few different, huge paddocks. When we had to muster such a paddock, John would take his plane to fly over the paddock that had to be mustered and tell over the radio to the people on quads (myself included) and cars where the sheep were. In total the team consisted of 4 quads (David, Ashley, Sarah and me) and 1 car (Ruth and the kids). You needed a very good sense of direction because John would say things like "There are some sheep north of you, Thomas, on the east side of the Three Sisters". As the sun is in the north at noon, for me as a European at was sometimes quite hard to figure out where he wanted me to go. But overall I managed. Mustering often took 2 days as you cannot expect sheep (which in some cases had lambs that were only 1-2 days old) to walk 20-30 km in one day. Mustering was awesome but sometimes a bit stressful as well. When the sheep got into the yards they had to be drafted (separte males, ewes, etc.) and shorn before they would be backlined and guided back into their paddocks. This we did for a full week. The second week all the sheep were back into their paddocks and I mainly did some fencing with David which is work I don't really mind doing, but I don't really like it that much either because it's very repetitive. I decided I would leave Theldarpa a bit earlier than the end of June. I spent a great time there with some really nice people.
What I will remember most is the landscape. It is everything I wanted it to be: Red soil, golden grass (outback-style), amazing sunsets, the most beautiful night skies I have ever seen (black filled with stars, lots of shooting stars (so many after a while I ran out of wishes) and the Galaxy was always visible) and lots of kangaroos and Emos (you have lots of kangaroos elsewhere but in this scenery it adds something special. Yeah, it really was the trip of a lifetime in every way (good and bad).
To get to Broken Hill I got a ride from Bill, a guy who picked up the 223!!! bales of wool (+/- 200 kg each). He drove a very big road train with a big bonnet and a sleeping cabin behind the front seat. A really cool experience. During the trip we hit a kamikaze kangaroo that crossed the road. The only thing you heared was a very soft 'tok'. If you would hit that same kanagroo with my Holden (RIP) it would almost certainly be 'per total'.
So now I'm here in the library waiting for my Tiphaine who will pick me up tonight. We plan on being back in Walgett Monday (now it's Thursday) and while driving back we'll do some sightseeing and we will go (very carefully) to Wanaaring to try to get the Holden working again and get it back to Walgett so we can deal with it there.
So that's all for now. I know reading this story will be a comfort for the people who haven't heard from me in the last few weeks because I was, most of the time, out of cell range in the Australian Outback living the REAL Aussie life!
See ya later alligator!
Thomas
