Host: Heath and Kellie Stewart
Location: Bakers Hill WA (& traveling Northern WA)
Heath and Kellie Stewart make up Saltriver Horsemanship and Topstock WA Feed Services. We are close to Perth on 160 acre property where our businesses are based.
Saltriver Horsemanship conduct clinics, lessons and online modules. Since 2004 we have travelled to the Kimberley and Pilbara regions conducting station horsemanship clinics. We also take outside horses for starting and educating certain times of the year.
Topstock WA Feed Services was purchased by Heath and Kellie from Heath’s father Ian in 2001. Established in 1992, the business initially only serviced the Great Southern region with sheep products, but has gradually evolved to predominantly servicing the Kimberley and Pilbara with cattle stock licks.
They also breed horses under the banner Saltriver Performance horses and Heath loves to campdraft them when he gets a chance. Kellie is committed to quality horsemanship and has also studied human behaviour at great length to enhance her understanding of the horse/human dynamic.
Episode 61. Tylah Bonisch – Her first year as Head Stockwoman
Since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, Tylah Bonisch knew she wanted to work with cattle and horses. She didn’t travel to the north for a gap year, but to start her career in the pastoral industry. In this episode Tylah and I speak about her time in the industry so far, and how she […]
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Flying Shy
Most stations have a plane or a helicopter, and at some point you’re going to get offered a flight. Here’s how to totally ruin your chances of ever having a second go. 6am and we’re just pulling up to the airstrip – a wide gravel road a short way from the homestead. Inside the old […]
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Episode 60. Jess Di Pasquale – Equine adventures in Australia and abroad
Jess Di Pasquale is a born and bred Territory girl. Even though her childhood was colored with living on and visiting cattle stations, she went on the excel in the English equine discipline of Mounted Games, competing overseas 3 times while Representing Australia. In this episode, Jess shares her latests plans to compete in the […]
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Episode 58. Danyelle Haigh – Don’t judge this book by its cover
Let’s be honest, we love to judge. It’s second nature to take someone at face value and make assumptions about them. In social science, this phenomenon is called schema are mental structures that an individual uses to organize knowledge and guide cognitive processes and behaviour. So what that means, is that we use Schema to categorize objects and […]
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From brats to bovines
Written by Sarah Johnson It started off as a distant dream back when I was in high school. You know.. the good old year 10 subject “careers”, when it’s that dreaded time where you’re almost an adult and have to start making career choices. Everyone else was expressing that they wanted to become lawyers, engineers, […]
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Episode 57. Luke Hayes – Venturing off the pastoral pathway
Luke Hayes was born a 6th generation pastoralist on Deep Well Station in Central Australia. You’d be forgiven if you assumed that Luke was planning to continue in the same line of work as the previous 5 generations of his family – it just makes sense, right? However, that is not Luke’s story. As a […]
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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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Episode 55. Tanya Heaslip – An Alice Girl
Tanya was raised on a cattle station north of Alice Springs during the 1960s and 1970s. The stories from her childhood sound like something out of book – too wild and wonderful to be true. As it turns out – they are so extraordinary Tanya has published them into a memoir called An Alice Girl, […]
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First Impressions Count
When is it too early to ask your new boss about the existence of aliens? Day two, probably. So we’re out on a windmill run. The station owner might need a hand pulling a windmill (or is it pulling a bore? Not sure….) As he climbs the precarious ladder up the side of this rusty […]
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An Alice Girl
An Alice Girl is Tanya Heaslip’s extraordinary story of growing up in the late 1960s and early 70s on a vast and isolated outback cattle property just north of Alice Springs. Tanya’s parents, Janice and Grant ‘the Boss’, were pioneers. They developed the cattle station where water was scarce, where all power was dependent on […]
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When the boss bought home a wife
A copy by memory of poems by W. DeBeuzeville, who worked for Berte Wilkinson at Yallowin (a stock dealer in the years 1905, 1906, and 1907, before the days of motor cars). When the boss bought home a wife Yes, he’s married is the old boss now, And leads a quiet life A sitting round […]
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Episode 54. Steph Coombes – It takes a village
Welcome to the final Central Station podcast for 2020! As per usual, you’re listening to me, Steph Coombes, who is the host of this podcast and who also manages all of the Central Station platforms. Today’s episode has been inspired by Lucy Daley, who featured on Episode 52. When asked what message would she put […]
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When the warning signs aren’t there
Written by Lara Jensen, Wondinong Station I answered the knock at the door the night my brother and his two friends were killed. It was just before midnight when two local police officers arrived at our Murchison homestead. Shearing was due to start the following day. Around our kitchen table, we learnt that three beautiful […]
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International Contributors
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AGP Indonesia (2013-2015)
Host: Lisa Wood Company: PT. Agro Giri Perkasa (AGP) Business: Importer of Cattle to Indonesia Location: Indonesia My Role: Traceability Manager Short bit about myself: I came to Indonesia as a traceability officer on a steel fabrication project for a WA mining project. While I was working on this project The Ban occurred. I remember […]
