Do we all know a farm in Australia is called a station? Running either cattle or sheep they tend to be extensive as the land is so harsh you need multiple hectares per animal to keep them alive. The biggest cattle station – though sheep stations run bigger – in Australia is Anna Creek at 24,000 sq kilometres (9,400 sq miles). For the sake of comparison, Wales (not Whales, Donald, you numpty) is 20,779 sq Kms ( 8,023 sq miles). For the most part, large stations are pastoral leases where the land is owned by the Government and leased to graziers – they’re the ones slowly going bankrupt as a result of drought. Or flood.

Many station owners diversify by developing station tours, camping sites, and/or a variety of genuine outback experiences – some more genuinely outback than others. In any event, it is a privilege to gain access and some insight into the life of station owners, even if they’d likely prefer to not have to open their lives to strangers.

Near Barcaldine, a town with 1,500 people and no less than five pubs, we book a tour on nearby Dunraven Station. The night before something strange happens: it rains. This doesn’t happen often around here so all the locals are looking happy. We are at a pub quiz in town (we came third equal, thanks for asking) and the rain is thundering on the roof. I get a message from Roberta at Dunraven saying it is raining heavily there and if the track isn’t dry enough in the morning we may have to cancel, or at least delay until later in the day. Morning dawns in its usual bright blue sky and sunny way, and the call comes from Roberta. She’s thrilled they had 25 mm of rain, but the track is still very wet.

We drive out to Dunraven at the appointed time and Peter meets us at the gate. The tour follows the cluster fence and it’s easy to see why the tour may have had to be cancelled – the ground is very soft and boggy in places.

The cluster fences, which you can read all about here, are an initiative to fence out dingoes and wild dogs. Over the years the numbers of sheep had declined  by 75% as a result of both long term drought and attacks by wild dogs. As a result of reduced stock numbers, between 2011 and 2015 the population of western Queensland declined by 12.5% as people left the land unable to make a living. While they couldn’t control the drought they could work on reducing stock losses to wild dogs.  Cluster fencing has meant the proportion of lambs surviving has increased anywhere between 30-80%. Any dogs found within the fences are trapped and shot. They hang the carcasses to show people they are taking the effort to eliminate the feral animals – or maybe as a warning to others.

Peter, when he is not amusing himself by asking us to say sixty-six so he can laugh at our accents, is full of information about the station which has been in his wife Roberta’s family for 110 years.   He also informs us they are graziers, not farmers; farmers till the earth he tells us, making it sound like a slightly unsavoury act that could lead to 5 -10 in maximum security.

To us it beggars belief that the land can sustain life, it is so bare, but Peter points out various scrubby looking tufts and plants that contain nutrients for the sheep.  At one point we travel over a very sandy section, the equivalent of beach sand, before running onto what was once, millions of years ago, ocean floor: they find shells and fossils when they are digging out dams. 

At 64,000 acres Dunraven is pretty big, certainly by our standards.  Peter says they typically run one sheep to three acres but because of the drought they’re down to 3,000 sheep rather than the 30,000 odd they would like to have if conditions were more friendly.  Hardy doesn’t begin to describe these people.

In contrast, a couple of weeks ago we stayed with Scott’s cousins on their station outside Gin Gin – get a map. David’s directions run for paragraphs.  He mentions the detour at the closed bridge – there is no bridge – then carry on down the dirt road for about 8 kms. After the third cattle stop go down a concrete causeway across a creek and then climb up the other side. At the top of the rise there’s a broad dirt road to your right, turn here and drive another couple of km and find our driveway.

David and Liz have been living here for 25 years – they have about 5,000 acres and by Australian standards that is a hobby. There’s a long drop toilet with a great view, and an outside shower, with hot water through an on demand gas system. The kitchen is in/on the back deck of an old truck, but the tap (cold only) is a couple of metres away. The place is peppered with kettles so there’s hot water for dishes, cups of tea, hand washing etc. The electricity comes via multiple snaking extensions all leading from one main power pole. All of this is testament to the investment and hard work that has gone into the farm and not into luxurious living, although bit by bit they are building a house. Those aspiring to the current zeitgeist of minimalism and tiny homes could learn a lot from these guys.

We are keen to see the property, and pile into their very well used 4WD ute to deliver molasses to the cows.  We drove a very long way over very rough ground, needing low ratio much of the time.  Bear in mind, here paddocks are hundreds if not thousands of acres, lumpy, rolling, steep, gullied, covered in bush, lantana – a particularly vicious tree shrub – scrub and everything except delicious grass to feed the stock. The last rain was a couple of centimetres in March, and no-one expects anything more until October – if it comes. To say it’s a tough life is laughably inadequate.

Deep gullies where flooding in previous years has carved steep banks make it very exciting. People would pay good money for this experience if it were a tourist attraction, however I suspect health and safety regulations would make it a non starter. We find stock at a dam well into the acreage: the cattle hear the ute and respond to David’s and Liz’s calls and more arrive for their treat. Given how dry the land is, they look in very good condition. They are known by name and lineage and are much loved and cared for by their owners.

The cattle are bred for the conditions and are well named as Droughtmaster, a cross between Brahmin and Short Horn.

I am sure we will experience more station life over our upcoming travels, but we’ve loved spending time with the cousins on their “small” property, and also seeing something of an entirely different size and scale. In both cases we are full of admiration for everyone’s perseverance, energy and passion. But we’d have to say, it’s too hard a life for us.