Skimming no more than a two feet above the water McGoo Little darts his tiny Robinson helicopter into a pocket of underbrush along the edge of the legendary, crocodile infested Mitchell River. He prods out a Brahman bull with the skid of his “heli” while simultaneously leaning out of the cockpit and firing rubber bullets at the rump of another recalcitrant bull — welcome to a typical day in Northern Queensland’s Outback.

By Thomas Wilmer

It took a while to comprehend just how big a 1.4 million-acre cattle station is…. actually I don’t think I will ever be able to properly comprehend just how big, big is in the Land of OZ.

My second day on the Wrotham Park cattle station in Northern Queensland (350 km west of Cairns), I awoke groggily to what I first thought was the sound of a gargantuan mosquito buzzing above my head. As the gnat like drone intensified, I realized it was the sound of an approaching Robinson R-22 helicopter.

I understood the economic viability of utilizing helicopters (“helis” as they’re fondly referred to by Aussies) to muster (round up) cattle. But it wasn’t until I stood on a bluff top with the cattle station manager and surveyed the surrounding terrain and the mountain range in the far, far distance that I began to comprehend the size of space out here, and the helicopters’ invaluable role in Australian Outback cattle operations. My host casually pointed to a distant, smudged mountain range delineating the horizon and said, “the boundary of our station is way beyond the far side of those hills.”

That’s when I realized that without the aid of helicopters the station would have to employ a battalion of ringers (ranch hands). Walking along the banks of the Mitchell River, a heli buzzed out from behind a towering row of eucalyptus. It hovered overhead for a moment like a raptor, then arced and nose dived. At the last second the craft careened above the bluff-top and gingerly descended to within inches of the Mitchell River. The pilot, McGoo Little, nimbly danced his flying machine–skirting around and then under an overhanging canopy of gargantuan trees at river’s edge.

In pursuit of four recalcitrant Brahman bulls, McGoo drew up real close to the rear guard. He then nursed his craft right up to the rump of a two thousand pound bull and pushed and prodded him with the helicopter’s starboard skid. McGoo’s target was pissed but reluctantly ambled on out from underneath the overhanging branches and lumbered across the river. The other recalcitrant bulls stood fast. That’s when I saw McGoo lean out of the canopy, clutching a shotgun. With a flash and a blast he fired off a round of rubber bullets at the rumps of the holdouts—it worked.

The station manager radioed McGoo, announcing that I would like to meet him. Next thing I knew the heli skittered across the Mitchell, zoomed up an embankment and hovered over a holding pen. The craft spun 180-degrees, like a frantic dragonfly, and dropped to within an inch of the fence. That’s when I witnessed an incredible sight…. a gate had been left open and McGoo was gently closing it with the helicopter’s skid.

He then set the craft down atop a small gravel-bar in the middle of the Mitchell. He hopped out, sloshed ashore, barreled up to me, stuck out his hand, smiled like a happy pirate and said, “Real good to meet yah mate!”

McGoo explained that even with the aid of a helicopter it averages three months to complete a mustering at Wrotham Park. The total heard of 35,000 head would eventually be corralled in 23 separate “yards”. Station personnel include approximately 23 Stockman, ringers and jackaroos and jillaroos (greenhorns) at the main camp with another six or seven ringers working remote stock camps. “Two ten-hour days heli-mustering and we might be able to bring in 3,500 head.” McGoo proclaimed proudly. McGoo added, “Mate, by any other means it would take a mob of ringers a hell of a lot longer to muster ‘em.”

There are ringers on horseback and aboard ATVs but McGoo pointed out the two-story-tall matted-jungle masses of Rubber vines that form sometimes acre-wide swathes of brush and bramble that serve as superb, impenetrable cattle hideouts. And then there are sheer cliff sections along the Mitchell that also make river access impossible by horseback or ATV.

Even though the entire time I was on the cattle station, the skies were blue and the weather sublime with daytime temps lingering in the low 90s, the more I listened to the stockmen’s tales, the more I appreciated the brutality of the “wet” season in Queensland’s Outback. When you consider the fragile ecology of the soil and the often-sparse plant-life, combined with the intense monsoonal weather that can produce months of virtually non-stop rainfall, the world out here can quickly transform from sublime to downright treacherous.

In the Land of OZ, an exceptionally rainy season is recalled as “The Big Wet”. Soon after the monsoon season arrives, the Mitchell River rises from a benign stream to a raging serpent that relentlessly scours the riverbanks. When the rains come, rivulets rapidly turn to raging creeks and the Mitchell’s sandy riverbanks start eroding at a sobering rate.  The delicate hardpan bluff-top surface is often less than a half-inch thick, and once it’s penetrated the water starts eroding the sandstone like a hot knife cleaving through butter. By the end of the wet season more than 44 inches of rain has furthered its never-ending process of etching the Mitchell’s cliffs into miniature Grand Canyons.

“The ringers who make it out here,” says McGoo, “are the ones with cheerful, can-do anything-goes attitudes. Those are the blokes who make it. The others last a season, if that, and then they just slither back to The Big Smoke—Sydney or Cairns or wherever they came from.”

The distance from one end of a cattle station to the other is one thing, but the distance from one cattle station to the nearest town is an entirely different matter. For many of those who choose to live in the Outback, it can be a five-hour drive to the nearest town and an hour or two to reach your nearest neighbor.  The village of Chillagoe, 80 kilometers away, is Wrotham’s closest.

Paradoxically, the remoteness and isolation serves to strengthen the camaraderie and hones the socializing skills and verbal banter amongst local folk when they do manage to get together for a rodeo, a dance or festival.
I repeatedly observed a tenacious work ethic among the Outback’s denizens that is formidable, but simultaneously there remains a relaxed pace and a readiness to smile and laugh as well as an innate inquisitiveness about others and life in general.

McGoo’s reading and writing skills are minimal, but that didn’t stop him from struggling to escape his minimum wage job as ringer. He spent $30,000 and four years studying and taking flying lessons before receiving his helicopter pilot’s license. When I met him he’d been flying for seven years, but to watch his acrobatics, you’d think he’d been airborne for decades. I met McGoo and his fellow pilot, Matt Wright, sitting at the bar after a ten-hour day mustering Brahmans from the air. We’d just downed a couple pints of beer when McGoo and Wright ask if I happened to watch them bull wrestling early that morning. “Missed it,” I replied.

He noticed my intense curiosity, and continued,  “What we do”, McGoo explained, “is when we spot an errant bull, we’ll land our helis and run behind a tree. And then we’ll start to taunt and goad the bull into charging us. Our hope is to tempt the bull to veer left or right at the last moment–as we’re ready and waiting with a noose rope.  We’ll snag them around the horns and try our best to quickly double-wrap the other end of the rope around the tree before we get gored. Not much roping of bulls from the saddle in these parts.”

I asked McGoo if he’d ever crashed. “Does fixed wing count?” he responded quizzically before adding with a grin and a chuckle, “”If it does, why yes, I stuffed one last Wednesday. It stalled out while making a tight turn. And then I suppose I’ve stuffed about three helis.”  He confessed his mishaps with a sheepish smile, and no more concern than if I had been inquiring about parking tickets.

After dinner and another pint we walked outside and hung out in the moonlit night sitting atop a high bank above the meandering Mitchell River. As we gazed across the slithering water, McGoo said, “Yah know, in addition to giant barramundi, there are crocodiles down there. During mating season they’ll swim all the way up from the ocean, about 400 kilometers downstream from here. Why we’ve even seen sharks swimming around up here during the wet season—they too meander up from the sea.”

As McGoo ambled off to the bunkhouse, he turned and advised, “Remember mate, there are two rules in Australia, never go near the edge of the water—whether a river or the ocean.”

Wrotham Park Station

PMB 24

Cairns MC, Queensland, 4871

Ph: 07 4094 8333
Fax: 07 4094 8326
Email: wrothampark@pastoral.com

We interviewed key personalities from Belfast who talked about the anniversary week, the new Titanica Museum as well as the 9 story tall Titanic Museum presently under construction, scheduled to open March 31, 2012.

I’d like to thank writer Susan Stewart and Journal Plus for featuring me in the August, 2011 issue. I was honored to be profiled along with other locals, all people I admire. You can see the entire issue here. You’ll find the story about yours truly on pages 10 and 11.

And since I’m expressing my gratitude, I’d also like to extend my sincere appreciation to the Outdoor Writers Association of California for awarding my latest book,  The Wine Seeker’s Guide to Livermore Valley, with the Best Guidebook Award, 3rd place. Visit the Wine Seeker’s Guides website or Amazon.com for more about the book.