Host: Mel McDonald – Rangeland NRM Written by Mel McDonald – Kimberley Project Manager, Rangelands NRM. It is amazing how an experience can give you a new perspective on life. For me, the early arrival of Trent gave me new appreciation for humanity. In the months after Trent’s birth, we received an overwhelming bout of support […]
Host: Mel McDonald – Rangeland NRM Written by Mel McDonald – Kimberley Project Manager, Rangelands NRM. After two years with Rangelands NRM in a job where you create your own work, I had created myself a mountain! Not only had to finalise a series of projects before the end of June (because it was the end […]
Host: Mel McDonald – Rangeland NRM Written by Mel McDonald – Kimberley Project Manager, Rangelands NRM. How true is the saying that as one door shuts another opens? I have been lucky enough in life that whenever things haven’t quite worked out as I had hoped, I have always been able to look forward to something […]
Host: Liveringa Station Written by Karen O’Brien – Manager, Liveringa Station. The family. Visitors often come during the dry and stay for a few days/weeks and tell us how lucky we are to be living this life. But I often think that they fail to remember that they are on holidays . . . and […]
Host: Liveringa Station Written by Karen O’Brien – Manager, Liveringa Station. My husband Jed can often be heard coining the phrase “living the dream” when talking about our life and work up here. I, on the other hand won’t repeat the phrase you’ll usually hear me use when describing our life! Yeah, yeah, yeah – it’s […]
Host: Liveringa Station Written by Karen O’Brien – Manager, Liveringa Station. Zarrah, one of our new staff members this year, writes about her move from NZ where she worked as a stock agent, to become a ‘ringer’ in the unforgiving north of Australia. Similarly, Jake, who is back at Liveringa for a second year, gives us […]
Host: Liveringa Station Written by Lisa – Cropping Crew, Liveringa Station. Because we wrote about most aspects of our working life here at Liveringa last year when we hosted the blog, we thought that we needed to come up with a new idea this year. We decided to focus on the ‘extremes’ of life up here. […]
Host: Liveringa Station Written by Jed O’Brien – Manager, Liveringa Station. Last week we embarked upon our first muster for the 2014 season. We usually start with the paddocks closest to the homestead yards; we are on high ground here, the access is good. We do a few paddocks here while we wait for the […]
Host: Liveringa Station Written by Karen O’Brien – Manager, Liveringa Station. The 2014 mustering season for us has just kicked off. The ‘season’ refers to those months of the year when it is cool and dry enough to muster, draft, and truck cattle around and off the station. Over the wet, jobs which we don’t […]
Host: Yougawalla Station Written by Eve Graham – Backpacker, Yougawalla Station. Well I’ve swapped my Comme des Garcons shirts for R.M. Williams ones, despite mocking the self proclaimed ‘bush outfitter’s attire as an outback-newbie. After completing an arts degree and working in an office-based graduate role for a luxury fashion retailer, I came to Australia […]
Host: Yougawalla Station Written by Jane Sale – Manager, Yougawalla Station. How do you know when to take the right risk? In some cases you don’t have a choice. Others, you have to ask what the worst that can happen is. When the risk pays off you feel amazing, and when it doesn’t, well we […]
Host: Yougawalla Station Written by Andrea – Station Hand, Yougawalla Station. “So what are you doing after graduation?” “Um . . . err . . . I think I might go chase some cows.” He looks at me in disbelief; I can see his brain ticking over. This girl has just spent four years at […]
Host: Yougawalla Station Written by Jane Sale – Manager, Yougawalla Station. “The story of how a city boy ended up in the outback” When most young boys are growing up they want to be a fireman, policeman, builder or astronaut, not me, since I was six years old I wanted to be an accountant. Rest […]
Host: Yougawalla Station Written by Jane Sale – Manager, Yougawalla Station. ‘This is the life’, I thought as I walked onto the tarmac at Broome airport heading to my ‘private’ plane with pilot and good friend Haydn Sale from Yougawalla Station. I was thrilled to discover I would be collected from Broome after initially thinking […]
Host: Yougawalla Station Written by Jane Sale – Manager, Yougawalla Station. The Green Green Grass of home. Well it’s over a month on but feels like yesterday that I was madly trying to meet the blog deadlines at the start of March and here we are all over again. We have had to fill in […]
Host: Eversleigh Station Written by Jenny Underwood – Owner, Eversleigh Station. As a teacher my year was organized into four terms of about 10-11 weeks with school holidays in between each term. During the year there were various public holidays as a bonus. As a grazier I basically work seven days a week, 52 weeks […]
Host: Eversleigh Station Written by Jenny Underwood – Owner, Eversleigh Station. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see a new-born calf with its mother, especially if it a first-calf heifer (i.e. a first time mum). Her innate mothering skills kick in not long after the birth of the calf and she is rapidly transformed […]
Host: Eversleigh Station Written by Jenny Underwood – Owner, Eversleigh Station. The majority of cattle properties throughout northern Australia naturally mate their cows – bulls are put into the paddocks with the females and then nature is allowed to take its course. A lot of cattle operations use controlled mating – the bulls are joined […]
Host: Eversleigh Station Written by Jenny Underwood – Owner, Eversleigh Station. They say that “Life Begins at 40”. I still had one year to go to reach that milestone, but certainly my life changed completely, and for the better, in 1998 when I resigned from the Department of Education and became a full-time grazier. I […]
Host: Eversleigh Station Written by Jenny Underwood – Owner, Eversleigh Station. “You’re mad! Why do you want to go to live and work way out there?” This was the reaction I received from friends when I announced that I was heading west to take up a teaching position at Cameron Downs, a one-teacher school on […]
