Balfour Downs Cattle Station

Balfour downs cattle station, what an experience. I stayed at the cattle station for just over three months. I did six weeks working with cattle called mustering and six weeks working on all the machinary at the station. Ill start with the mustering. Mustering is when a group of people gather up cattle fro one of the paddocks and process them. The fun part of the work is the actual mustering. As i said in one of my previous posts, the cattle station is 1.7 million acres. Which if you dot know is pretty big. The 1.7 million acres was split into four main paddocks,with a few slighty smaller ones. Traditonally mustering was done horseback, you would trot through the outback, catching the cattle one by one as you came across them. This was a lenghty process and was often inaccurate. As the paddocks are so big we used two R32 helicopter, small and very maneuverable. These would be sent out at sunrise, to begin gathering the cattle. They would fly really low to scare the cattle into a run, which would then be guided to yards. The choppers usually took a few hours to do this. While they are in the air,the mustering crew would drive out vehicles to a set point. There were usaully 3 bull catchers, 2 quads, 2 motorbikes, 3 utes. Also there would be a road train, there is a pic of one somewere on the site, check it out, 5 trailors, 3 cattle, 1 panel trailor and 1 with a bulldozer on it. F*@k driving that ha. Once at the right spot we would begin to unload the panel trailor, which is basically a trailor with panels on it. It is a mobile cattle yard. It would normally take 2 or 3 hours to set up, depending on how many guys are working on it. It was really hard work, the panels are fairly heavy and awkward to carry. Once set up, it was a waiting game for the cattle to arrive. Once the helicopters had gathered all the cattle and pushed them to our position, we would all get into or onto our vehicles. I was manly on a scrambler or cross bike. We would circle the cattle and hold them here for at least an hour, we did this to give the cattle chance to calm down, as they had been running for upto 2 or 3 hours. This was the best part of mustering. The majority of the cattle would stay in one place and be fine, but there was always several out of maybe a thousand that would try and break free, make a run for it. Cattle tend to follow each other, so if one went a few would go. Team work was important here. Some of the guys normally those on the bikes and quads would chase after the cattle, either retuen them back to the mob or follow them till they are tied and weak and belt up there feet so they couldnt go anywhere, once the majority of the cattle was in the yards we would return and collect them. Those in the bull catchers would cut off the rest of the cattle trying to follow those who broke away. The bull catchers are old land rovers with no roofs on, they have a roll cage, they also have bars all around the buggy to protect it froom the bulls and cattle. You might get two or three maybe even more trying to get away at anyone muster. Great fun, i loved it flyin around on the bikes, i would sometimes spook the cattle to try and get them to run off, ha, it was awesome. Really want to get a bike now.
Once the cattle had their rest we would then push them into the yards, once again this requird alot of team work. Onc the cattle were in the yards we would park the motors up begin the drafting process. The cattle all get split up into groups, male, female, young, calfs and bulls. This is really hard work as most of these cattle are fereal, think thats how you spell it. Fereal basically means wild, never been in contact with humans and dont have a clue whats going on. They are scared and very erratic aswell as angry, towards us. The drafting process could take a full day, depending on how well the cattle behave.The cattle all get ear marked, well i say ear marked, basically the punch a hole in the ear, usaully an ential of the farm, pretty horriable really as normally it involves a chunk out of the ear. All the horns get cut off, really close to the head, this was pretty grusome when i first seen it, blood flys everywere, in all different directions, you get covered, it was definitely a big shock to the system. Alot of the smaller bulls, which arent breeding bulls get there balls chopped off. Sick just sick,ha couldnt watch it, was horriable. ha ha. something ill never forget. Once they had all been sorted out the majority would be released, either in the same paddock or moved to a different for mating reasons or for sale. They also record the amount of cattle that has been delt with, this is so they know how many are on there land. The cattle staion last year around 23 thousand cattle, but this muster was nearly there already and we were only half way through the muster. While mustering we would stay in the outback, camp. We would be up at 4 in the morning and prob be in bed by 8. The food at camp was steak, steak, steak and more steak, i alomost forgot mash aswell. Not the best but it filled the hole.I would stay out for maybe a week depending on how big the muster was.
The second part of my stay on the cattle station was repairing vehicles on the farm itself, after a muster the bullcathers would need work almost everytime they came back, new shock absorbers, radiators, springs and plenty more. Also i was working on bulldozers, fork lifts and the trucks they had onsite. I really enjoyed this, as i love hands on things repairing and building. I was driving the forklift alot which was really good fun. The other good thing about workin on the farm was that i wasnt getting up at 4, it was 6 and i would finish at 5 not when the sun goes down. I would get an hour for dinner which was a god send and i could have pretty much what ever i wanted for dinner, brilliant. The rooms in which we were staying werent that good, well some were and some werent. First off i had a bad room, no tv , one light, a bed and a wardrobe. Pretty grim really. When i started working on the station after 6 weeks of mustering i managed to get a good room. Colour tv, with a digital box, was a big thing at the time, ha ha lol. Nice walls draws, desk , it was like the hilton. lol. The shower was well how can i say this, a bucket with holes drilled in it. The hot water came from a thing called a "donkey", dont know why they call it this. We would sit around a fire heating the donkey which inturn heated the water, now thats central heating. lol. Balfour downs has been a real eye opener, it has made me realise how lucky i am. I have had a good experience and im glad i choose to do it. I have meet some great people, and some not so great people, cant get on with everybody.