Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company
Owner: Sam Chisholm and James Christian
Managers: As above
Region: Central Australia
Nearest town for shopping, doctors etc: Alice Springs
Nearest roadhouse: Tilmouth Well Roadhouse
Number of cattle: 800
Number of staff: 2 – 5
Size of station: 110 square kilometres
How often and how the mail is delivered: Once a week
How often and how the stores shopping is done: Once a month
How far off the bitumen you are: Little bit long way (100km ish)
Rainfall: 10 inches
Mustering pilot and part time vagabond, Sam grew up on Napperby Station 200km North West of Alice Springs. The early years were spent barefoot and feral on the station attending school with sister Georgie in the worlds largest classroom, Alice Springs School of the Air (SOA). Following SOA was boarding school in Sydney, then onto a helicopter license on the Gold Coast which led to a job in Kununurra, WA, where Sam spent the next 6 years chasing cows round the Kimberley. After the glory days Sam attended Marcus Oldham college completing a Diploma in Agribusiness, and then worked as a desk jockey on Queen St in Brisbane, gaining a wealth of corporate experience which he then threw away to return to the Territory to chase cows again – this time for Kadaitcha Pastoral Company, a budding cattle empire and soon to be superpower in the beef game. Sam’s nomadic formative years and cunning sense of adventure have led him on many ridiculous journeys around the world including overland from London to Russia, horseback across Kenya and currently a motorcycle trip from Argentina to Alaska. In his spare time Sam enjoys taking photographs, surfing and writing about himself in the third person.
James grew up in the leafy streets of the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Having finished school he took a gap year and worked at a school in the UK, backpacking the continent in the holidays. Upon returning to Sydney he simultaneously kicked off an undergraduate degree at UNSW and a career at GrainCorp. Choosing to work at GrainCorp full time instead of completing his honours year (when the thesis topic given to him was “analysis of clay mineral content of the soils of Bourke, NSW”) James was given two periods of leave without pay where he travelled overseas again but managed to end up working for his uncle and aunt on their cattle station in the Tanami Desert. James left GrainCorp to pursue a career in the beef industry, working as the Operations Manager for Precision Pastoral, a company engaged in the manufacture of and data analysis from walkover weighing and drafting livestock equipment. Now James works full time in the desert with the main aim of turning Kadaitcha Pastoral Company into a household name (for the right reasons).
Rain man
Written by James Christian There’s nothing more satisfying than having a property owner leave you in charge for a bit while they take off on holiday, and when they return you can honestly report that nothing is broken or lost, and that the livestock are healthy and fat, the dams are full and the grass […]
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Commuting
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian Since moving from the station to the bustling metropolis of Alice Springs I’ve had to adjust to a number of lifestyle changes. Some of them are probably for the better, some of them make my mother happier, and some of them I could do without. My commute […]
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Solving puzzles
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian We’ve been solving puzzles in the beef industry since the first caveman rolled his first beast and tried to drag it back to his campfire. What’s the best way to use the animal – eat it or use it to breed more? How do you grow it […]
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Lost
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian Once I was given the not-too-difficult task of driving a truck and trailers out to a set of yards on a station I’d blown into for a month or so’s work. I’d been to the yards a few days before, though only as a passenger, and naturally […]
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The Battle of Balaclava – ringer style
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian Though they are clearly worlds apart, there are faint parallels that can be drawn between mustering wild animals on horseback or motorbike, and the Charge of the Light Brigade as immortalised by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in his poem of the same name. It was during the Battle […]
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What am I missing?
Host: Kadiaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadiatcha Pastoral Company. It’s a difficult thing explaining to people what it is that attracts me to the bush, and why I’ve been out here for the last couple of years. As identified in earlier articles for Central Station written by both me and others, […]
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Bones are for dogs
Host: Kadiaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadiatcha Pastoral Company. We’ve had a busy time at Napperby recently. So busy, in fact, that we ran out of meat in the cool room. Usually we would have another beast hanging as the shelves get bare, when only mince or the suspicious off-cuts plainly […]
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Beefbots
Host: Kadiaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadiatcha Pastoral Company. I moved back to the Territory in 2012 to work for Precision Pastoral, a company now partnered with Tru-Test, that makes remote livestock walk-over weighing systems (Remote WOW), which are solar-powered, NLIS tag-recognising, bathroom scales for cattle, to which draft gates or […]
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Heli-fishing
Host: Kadiaitcha Pastoral Company Written by Sam Chisholm – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. With a fresh breeze, bag and swag on the passenger seat, and the dust fading into the distance by the Avgas drums. The life of a mustering pilot in its prime, never in one spot for too long, hungry for long days, […]
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Sharpening the saw
Host: Kadiaitcha Pastoral Company Written by Sam Chisholm – Owner, Kadiaitcha Pastoral Company. One day an old man was walking through the bush when he came across a frustrated jackaroo. The Jackaroo was trying to cut down a Mulga tree, to build a yard, and was swearing and cursing as he laboured in vain. “What’s […]
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Keep calm and eat your beans
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. Back in February 2006 I travelled out to Napperby Station from Sydney to visit my aunt and uncle and have a “working holiday” for two weeks. With the benefit of hindsight I’m now aware that meant they had to do their jobs plus […]
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Stockroute to Sydney
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. I have an exceptionally grand plan for marketing Australian beef to the rest of the world. It would require a vast amount of planning for huge levels of resources: tonnes of hay, fleets of trucks, a pub full of confident ringers, willing producers, skilled […]
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Meat comes from the shelf
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. Due to the agenda of animal rights activists and their deplorable, contrived footage of extremely uncommon events, the former federal agriculture minister had an unimaginably bad knee-jerk reaction and put the kybosh on the northern live export cattle trade. This catastrophic decision had […]
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The origin
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. My cousin Sam and I got talking about ways to prop up our wages and decided beef cattle production was the best way forward. Kadaitcha Pastoral Company had the simplest of origins. I was staying in Brisbane overnight with my cousin Sam, en […]
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Farming theory
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by James Christian – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. It is very easy to over-analyse what farming is about. Here is a simplistic, unveiled look at what we really are aiming to do. The theory behind being a beef farmer in central Australia isn’t particularly difficult, in my opinion anyway. All you […]
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‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ – A maxim for life
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by Sam Chisholm – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. There is something about a cattle station that evokes a primitive disposition from everyone who is lucky enough to step foot over the boundary grid. The rawness of the environment has an enchanting power that casts a spell, which can never be broken. […]
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Going Walkabout
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by Sam Chisholm – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. I was born a rambling man, there’s no two ways about it. I’ve been living out of a bag since I went to boarding school at 10 years old. After school, becoming a mustering pilot was a natural progression, not that it came […]
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Alice’s Story
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by Sam Chisholm – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. As a helicopter mustering pilot working on cattle stations in Northern Australia you are constantly operating in a dangerous unpredictable environment with hot days, rough terrain, long hours, tough cattle, and wild weather. Aviation is inherently high risk and pilots are at the forefront […]
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10 reasons to work in Central Australia
Host: Kadaitcha Pastoral Company Written by Sam Chisholm – Owner, Kadaitcha Pastoral Company. Everyone loves a good top ten and Central Station is no exception. Given the lack of voice coming from the middle of Australia, this list will fill you in on everything you’ve been missing from the Outback’s best-kept secret. 1. Bloody Good Beef […]
