Love on Forrest Downs Page 9

  We worked out later that Skogy would have heard Monty on the radio saying that he’d dropped off Heidi at the homestead, and instead of refuelling where he should have, with us on the claypan, he flew in and refuelled at the homestead – where he found Heidi.

  There was a helluva blue when Skogy finally turned up at the end of the muster – but they paid him what he asked and never mentioned the incident again.

  *

  There was a time on Oobagooma in the early 1960s when the crotalaria plant had more dead horses walking than horses surviving. The killer weed had virtually destroyed the station’s entire team of good and faithful working horses. McCorry had only recently taken over managing Oobagooma, Waterbank Station and a real frontier block of country on the Prince Regent, the Mitchell Plateau, for his friend Dr Snyder, a heart specialist, whose life centred around a thousand-acre property in the beautiful Adelaide Hills in South Australia. This was just before I first went to Oobagooma.

  Several months earlier, McCorry and Dr Snyder had chartered a fixed-wing aircraft to fly over the Mitchell Plateau and Oobagooma Station. As their aircraft flew in a grid pattern on Mitchell Plateau, McCorry spotted sixteen head of reasonably good-looking working horses. While instructing the pilot to fly low one more time above the horses, McCorry had already made his decision: he would return to the plateau and muster the horses for Oobagooma.

  Dr Snyder returned to the Adelaide Hills and McCorry to Oobagooma, to prepare the packs and saddles, and also the station’s five remaining horses, for the trek that would take McCorry, Malki, and Jack and his two sons into what really was the Kimberley’s last frontier. The boys were extremely good horsemen; McCorry said they rode a horse equal to any stockman.

  McCorry’s plan was to leave Oobagooma homestead as soon as he thought the wet season was nearing an end. This way there would be sufficient water and grasses about for the horses and plenty of fresh water for the men accompanying him. McCorry always seemed to find his way throughout the Kimberley’s great frontier, rugged mountain ranges, raging rivers and deep gorges.

  The two pack mules were loaded with salt beef, damper, flour, tea leaf and, of course, tobacco and matches. Packed into the corners were several tins of bully beef and a bottle of vitamin C tablets. Jack had a small old Flying Doctor radio on board and a pack of batteries. Swags were kept to a bare minimum and strapped behind each rider’s saddle.

  ‘You ready, old man?’ asked Malki. He was as enthusiastic as the others to be going on this trip to muster the horses from the Plateau.

  McCorry and his offsider were mounted on Little Arab and Lychee; Jack and his young sons followed suit, and the horse trek towards the Plateau began. McCorry estimated that the trip would take them somewhere between six to eight weeks – but it would end up taking nearer to three months.

  The horses and men were travelling well, although some were suffering shocking saddle-sores from riding in wet clothes and on wet saddles all day long. Only days after leaving the homestead, a low-pressure system had come in from the west bringing low, heavy cloud cover and constant rain that hammered man and beast. The rainy days left them miserable and soaking wet, and the nights were no better. There was no protection from the elements, although Jack tried to make a bit of a shelter for his sons by using his swag cover to form a barrier between them and the heavy rain. But they still got soaked.

  The group had trekked by Mount Humbert and arrived at the Isdell River to watch dingoes hunting fish from a log along the river’s edge, something McCorry had never witnessed before. That night, the men and boys sat around the brightly burning campfire, drinking black tea and noting a good-sized croc or two floating close by, down the river from the Walcott Inlet. McCorry and Jack were debating where to cross the Isdell and it was only natural that Jack talked of turning back, as the younger of his two sons was not well. Weeks of being soaked through by the late monsoons of the north-west, living on only salt beef and damper, while in the saddle from sun-up to sundown, was taking its toll on the lad’s health.

  The following morning the men found it near impossible to hear the weather report given by Mrs Kesey at the Flying Doctor base in Derby, and that got them worried. The radio’s battery was running low and reception was patchy in the mountain ranges. McCorry could see that Jack was a worried man and soon they would have no contact at all with the outside world. But McCorry carried that arrogance and steely determination with him. He was not turning back – he needed those horses on the Plateau, and he would get them.

  McCorry would leave Jack to make his own decision on whether or not to pull out. At that point, Jack could follow the Isdell River up to Mount Hart Station where old Len and Sylvie Connell were caretakers. There he could make radio contact with the Flying Doctor and organise a light aircraft into the station to lift his sons and himself out.

  Jack kept a watchful eye on his boys’ health and after a discussion with them he decided to stick with the original plan. They would all stay together until they got the horses from the Plateau. McCorry dug out the bottle of vitamin C tablets from the saddlebag and Jack fed his boys a tablet a day, hoping to keep away the beri-beri that could strike when you were run-down and malnourished.

  They swam the Isdell River with their horses, fearful that at any time man or beast could be taken by a crocodile. While the riders and their mounts struggled in the river, the pack mules really battled. With the horses’ saddlebags already very heavy, once the bags started to take in water the old grey mule began to roll in the middle of the river. Frightened, the pack mules floundered and lashed about.

  As Malki and McCorry battled with the pack mules, Jack kept a close eye on his sons while crossing. The Kimberley’s great wilderness was filled with ancient gorges and waterfalls, mountain ranges and rolling blacksoil plains, but it was the rivers that caused McCorry, Malki, Jack and his sons to be trapped out in the wild. After crossing the Isdell River they were hit by what McCorry later swore were three cyclones or rain depressions in a row, leaving the men trapped between the Charnley and the Calder rivers. It was an unusual weather pattern – the rain should have all gone from up there at that time of year, around March. Everything was drenched, including the swags and matches.

  For weeks they lived off kangaroo and an old bull that McCorry shot with the station’s .303 rifle, which he carried in his swag. The bull was the only real beef they had sighted since leaving the homestead. Malki’s bush skills came in handy. He got a fire roaring by patiently rubbing two sticks together. The smoke came, they fed it, and then they had the fire. The men then took turns carrying a firestick with them until they lost it in the mouth of the Calder River.

  With the river still running over its banks, the heat and humidity were unbearable – but nowhere near as bad as the attacking sandflies and mosquitoes, or the buffalo flies that were breeding in the damp grass by the thousands. The horses’ tails constantly switched and flicked away the angry, biting little bush flies. But the men and horses moved on regardless.

  Once they were across the Calder River, Malki picked up on Aboriginal rock totems that McCorry soon realised led them through the ranges by taking the points of least resistance. The totems were neat, pyramid-like piles of rocks stacked one on top of the other. The men followed them through many valleys and gorges.

  It was while they were riding through the ranges that McCorry noticed Malki was uneasy at times. He even seemed spooked, so McCorry asked him, ‘What’s wrong, Malki?’

  Malki said, ‘Spirit country’, and pointed at a totem, and McCorry realised they’d have to move away from the totems to camp at night.

  By now Jack himself was covered in a red rash and sores. His health was in a bad state, as was that of the younger of his boys, while McCorry, Malki and the older boy were okay. As they rode closer to Pantijan (or Panter Downs, as it was called then), Jack said he thought there might be a hut somewhere with a two-way radio. If so, he had decided that he would call for an aircraft to lift his boys and himself out of
the place to get medical help. But McCorry thought that Pantijan was just an abandoned block of wilderness and there would be nothing there. Besides that, this piece of wilderness was surrounded by the Elizabeth and Catherine Range, the Edkins and the Hardies, while the valleys and gorges were filled with springs and waterholes and tropical paradise: hundreds of tall, skinny cotton palms and prickly pandanus. Ferns and elephant ears and succulents thrived in the valley crevices.

  After spending a day looking around for some form of civilisation, Jack found an old lean-to, a corrugated-iron shack, while McCorry and Malki found the horses close by. The horses had moved from the Plateau and were much closer than the men had expected.

  With his radio battery completely dead – and, yes, it was stuffed, McCorry later discovered – Jack hunted around and found he had luck on his side. Once upon a time someone had used the shack for a radio room – how long ago, no one could know. Jack found an old car battery lying in tall grass. He thought it might have been used for a Flying Doctor radio. He connected his radio console to this battery, although the group couldn’t believe it would have even the tiniest bit of charge left in it. But not only had Lady Luck been riding with these tough stockmen, they surely had an angel riding with them too.

  Jack kept at the battery and found that it gave the radio only the faintest reception. The atmosphere, conditions and disturbances in the area were certainly not helpful. It was out of radio sched time – meaning it wasn’t the scheduled time for them to get through to the Flying Doctor no matter how much reception they had – so to preserve what life was left in the battery he shut off the radio immediately.

  By this time McCorry could see that making contact with the Flying Doctor could be a case of life or death, as Jack and his younger son were now covered in beri-beri and were as sick as dogs. They had to make contact with the Flying Doctor somehow – it was paramount that they be rescued, as they needed medical help, and quickly.

  McCorry was anxious, and he and Malki wanted to take the mustered horses and start the return journey towards Oobagooma immediately. But leaving Jack – who was becoming cranky with the beri-beri – and his younger son was unacceptable. What if they’re unable to make contact? McCorry thought. Then they’d really be up the creek.

  As they were staying they had to work out a way to hold the mustered horses while they waited for help. So they made yards out of greenstick (young) gum trees. McCorry and Malki, and Jack’s older son – who was well and asked to remain with McCorry – would spend the night at the shack until radio contact could be made at 7 a.m., sched time, the following morning.

  At sunrise McCorry hung close to the Flying Doctor radio with Jack. They chipped in early on sched time, calling with a mayday – it was an emergency. Mrs Kesey had trouble hearing them. She asked again and again for Jack to repeat his request for help.

  With the battery close to being totally stuffed, and the surrounding mountain range and atmospheric conditions all fighting against them, they tried one last time.

  ‘Mayday, mayday – aircraft to Pantijan for sick persons.’

  Amazingly, the words ‘aircraft to Pantijan for sick’ registered with Mrs Kesey. With his ear glued to the radio, McCorry picked up on a ‘Roger’ from the Derby base, indicating that their call was acknowledged.

  Their saviour had been an old battery left behind some time before – and it then died. All communication with the outside world had come to an end. With the knowledge that the Flying Doctor was on the way, McCorry, Malki and Jack’s boy saddled up, put the new mob of horses together, loosened the hobble chains on some of them, saluted Jack and his son (who survived the ordeal and returned to good health), and started their return journey to Oobagooma.

  *

  After my steep learning curve over many years on Oobagooma, McCorry and I settled into married life together running vast cattle stations in the Kimberley.

  When I first became a mother, to Kelly in April 1976, McCorry and I were living on Napier Downs. It didn’t occur to me to slow down or take a break from running the station – I had a job to do, and I was going to do it. The same applied after Leisha and then Robby were born. Having the children with me while I worked, well, that was just the way it was: the children were part of whatever I was doing. In that respect I was really lucky with our employers – obviously they wanted me there because they supplied us with a cook, nanny and governess, which, of course, made it easier to work and be a mother. I always said that I would never work unless my children were 100 per cent safe and secure, and having those dependable helpers made sure of that.

  While I trusted my governess and nanny, I still wanted to see the children for myself to make sure they were safe. Having household helpers meant that I could keep my children with me on jobs like bull running; this might sound dangerous, but the kids were never in the bull buggy with me – they were always in the truck with Katie, my Aboriginal housegirl. Aboriginal women take your children over, because they love children and just look after them. The kids loved them in return, and it was really nice to see them together. Mind you, I used to feel a bit put out when I caught these women checking the children’s hair for lice! But I knew it just meant they were looking out for the kids.

  On those days out working, we would pull up for smoko or lunch under a shade tree, by a creek or river, and the kids got out and ran around. Katie always had one or two other children with her, and all the kids would have a great time playing together. Then we got back into our truck and buggy; if the children got tired they stretched out on the seat of the truck, and if they weren’t tired they watched us chase bulls or whatever else we were doing. The children were as excited to be out there as we were and I guess that’s why they didn’t grow up with any fear of this lifestyle, or of animals, or of the land.

  The funny thing is, though, that both Leisha and Robby don’t do anything like this with their own children nowadays. Leisha’s boys are both riding horses now and they love it – they seem to be naturals – and Leisha herself is still riding – but Cohen and Brock certainly don’t have the sorts of adventures my kids had. Then again, they’re not living on the same sort of property so the experiences they have are different. But Robby, even though he was a natural rider as a child, has never been one to want a horse around or anything like that. Since his daughter, Lilah Marie, was born, Robby has turned into a complete homebody. He is incredibly protective of his little girl, so I can’t imagine him letting her do the things that I allowed Leisha and him to get up to.

  *

  Life on the cattle stations was never dull. I could never predict what was going to happen next. In 1986 I received a request from the Australian Army asking for permission to conduct a training exercise on Kimberley Downs Station, which I was managing at the time as well as running Napier Downs. When I discussed the request with neighbouring station managers, I was frowned upon for seeing it as a good idea. As a woman, mother and cattle-station manager, I felt I had the responsibility of looking to the future and see beyond tomorrow. What if our sons and daughters were recruited and sent to war to defend our country? Wouldn’t I feel better knowing they had the opportunity of training in the rugged and harsh environment of the outback?

  The following week the army flew into Kimberley Downs in two small camouflage aircraft. Over a cup of tea on the veranda of the cookhouse, the officer-in-charge, a major, outlined the intentions of the training exercises to me. I read the army’s agreement relating to repairs and replacement of damaged property and environment and signed it.

  It wasn’t just the land that would be used by the army, though – the station staff and I would become part of these exercises without even necessarily realising it. I was never told what type of exercise was taking place or on what particular day it would happen. In some ways it was hilarious but at times quite frightening. I did learn that it was hard to distinguish between a ‘goodie’ and a ‘baddie’ in the bush – and we knew that whoever we came across during these exercises had to
be one or the other.

  At the time the army arrived, life on Kimberley Downs and Napier Downs was flat out as usual. For one thing, we had the mustering and testing of all station cattle for TB, which led to a significant fencing program of new paddocks to hold the tested animals for a three-month period before releasing them back into the station’s paddocks. With three teams of fencing contractors on the go, I had vehicles, bull buggies and men moving about the station in all directions.

  On one particular day I had to slip into Derby to collect parts for the station’s power plant. My children’s American governess, Sandy, decided to come for a ride into the little pastoral town with me. Only months earlier, while McCorry, the children and I were on our annual holiday in the ‘big smoke’, McCorry had bought me a beautiful blue-black 420 SEL Mercedes saloon. It was in this car that Sandy and I took off for Derby, and we were running late.

  I left the homestead in a helluva hurry, flying up over the plateau, when on my way to the front gate I came upon six well-camouflaged army tanks parked among the wattle scrub. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement – I’d never seen so much armour in my whole life.

  Did I give permission for all this? My God! I thought. I pulled the car over on the gravel road with the full intention of questioning someone in authority. But as soon as I stopped the vehicle these huge grey-green tanks moved in and hemmed in my Merc. I was surrounded.

  I hurriedly wound down the driver’s-side window, stuck my head out and bellowed, ‘What do you think you’re doing? Get those tanks away from my Mercedes!’ Shit, I was thinking at the same time, If one of those tanks sideswipes the Merc, old McCorry will kill me.

  Despite my bellowing, though, the tanks edged closer and closer to the car. And there I was, in a hurry to get to Derby, but instead hanging out the window of my beautiful Merc, unable to locate a soldier – or anyone, for that matter – who could help. Sandy, on the other hand, was laughing her head off, enjoying every minute of it.