Trilby - a month on a sheep station

This past month has seen us living and working at Trilby Station, near Louth in outback New South Wales.

We left Victoria mid-April and made our way slowly up through the country towns of the Riverina and the South-West Slopes, stopping along the way to enjoy what the towns had to offer and also one special stop in Narrandera, where I was able to catch up with a friend who I'd grown up with in Sydney.

Carcoar Dam - outside Blayney

We also called in for a few days to visit some relatives in Sydney, propping up on Uncle Neville's 5-acre property in Dural.  It was lovely to see them again, but we certainly did not miss the city and all its traffic and hustle-bustle.

On the road again on May 1, we travelled up through Bathurst and Orange, and stopped for a day to explore the historic town of Hill End.  It's a fascinating town that has been almost entire brought under the protection of Parks and Wildlife and stands as a great example of early settlement life in the gold rush era.

Hill End store

We moved on, heading slowly north-west, stopping at Mudgee and at Ponto Falls, and spent a great day in Nyngan, taking in the local show for a day.

Ponto Falls - outside Wellington

Cattle judging at Nyngan Show

From Nyngan we travelled through Cobar to Louth and stopped at the historic pub there (for research purposes only, I can assure you!!!)

After a weeks' slow dawdle up, we arrived at Trilby, ready for whatever was to come.  It was a bit exciting, but also a bit sad to see how dry the country is up here.

Trilby Station is an enormous sheep station, covering 320,000 acres with the Darling River forming part of its boundary.  Gary and Liz Murray own Trilby and have lived here, raising their 4 children since 1981.  Gary is part of the Murray family who have been farming this area  since the 1860's.  His kids are the 6th generation of Darling River farming Murrays.  Trilby was once part of the mighty Dunlop Station, a million acres in the 1880's.

Trilby from the air - note how far the floodplains extend

Dunlop Station homestead

The outback of NSW, and in particular the area around Trilby, hasn't had any significant rain since September 2016 and the area is officially in drought.  Due to the extreme drought, they have reduced their stock to 17,000 sheep and are hand feeding them all with barley, lupins, cotton seed and hay at a cost of $1 per sheep/week - $17,000 per week!!!

They've been hand feeding now for the past 6 months and they find it hard to remember what they did to fill in their days prior to the hand feeding routine of 2 days feeding, 1 day doing whatever else has buggered up in the meantime.  Hand feeding doesn't sound too bad, until you take into account the huge distances this property encompasses. We took a drive one day to the far end of the property to deliver some equipment, and we drove about 70km to get there, never leaving Murray land.

When the lads feed sheep, it involves moving the feed about over these distances, checking feeders haven't been emptied by feral goats or roos, checking water points and so on.  They leave before daylight and get back after dark.

Although the feral goats are a nuisance, they are also a very important income factor for the Murrays, and most sheep farmers around here, being the most widely exported meat out of Australia.  And there's plenty of them out this way!  A female goat begins breeding at about 7 months, has 2 kiddings a year and often bears 2, 3 or 4 kids at a time!  They graze on scrub rather than grasses, so are ideal for this scrubby country.  Being feral, they wander, going straight through fences, and are only considered yours to muster when they are on your property - if they go next door, they're no longer yours.

We have been really lucky to be working at Trilby during their busiest, and most exciting time of the year - shearing.  This began the week we arrived, and finishes this week.

Due to the size of the station, they have 5 shearing sheds, and the sheep in the vicinity of each shed are mustered and shorn there.  The shearing contractors moved into the quarters out at the far end of the property for a couple of weeks and travelled to the outer sheds, but have moved down to the shearers bunkhouse at the  main farm now for the final week.  The Murrays contract a shearing team, which consists of 6 shearers and about the same in roustabouts and wool classers.  They have a cook who travels with them and makes enormous amounts of food for them each day and tries to keep them all in line.

Waiting their turn at New Chum woolshed

Shearers at New Chum

Mick doing his thing

It's expected that, at the end of the shearing, they'll have around 450 bales of wool.  A bale weighs around 186kg, containing the wool from 32 grown sheep.  Wool prices are currently high, with 80% of Australian wool being exported to China, so that helps while the current drought makes it hard in other ways.

Trilby is a really well equipped station, with vehicles for every purpose.  There's the usual Toyota utes, bikes, quads, tractors, an excavator, a tipper truck, a prime mover, a low-loaders and my personal favourite, the 4WD buggy - I've had great fun running around on that.  Doug gets to play on tractors and with forklifts and we both enjoy a late afternoon drive around the river loop, checking on the campers - making sure they're settled and have everything they need.

Trilby also has two planes on the property - Gary has his workhorse Cessna and the oldest son, Tom, also has a plane for commuting when he needs to.  Gary uses his for mustering and checking stock - considering the huge distances that can be travelled it makes things a lot easier.

The planes also come into their own when the property is under flood.  During a flood the homestead and immediate surrounds become an island, isolated for months at a time, so with the planes, the Murrays are able to stay in their home and use the plane to fly to a higher airstrip on another part of the property where they can drive to "work" or to get supplies.  The last flood at Trilby was 2012.

To diversify a bit, Trilby offers accommodation to tourists - everything from lovely self-contained cottages (old Overseers and Jillaroos cottages), lovely secluded riverside campsites, some powered sites and the Shearers Bunkhouse.  The tourism side of the farm is busy and keeps Liz on her toes.  To help, she has teams of volunteers who come to help for a period of time over the busy months of the year.  That's where we come in.  In exchange for our powered site and lots of lovely lamb from the freezer, we were to offer 2 hours a day of helping out.

While we've been here, our main duties were, for me to keep the bathrooms clean and help with making up rooms etc and for Doug, to empty the bins around the campsites and make sure everyone had firewood etc.

What's happened, in fact, is that we both were enjoying our time here so much, and didn't want to sit about doing nothing, so we were doing much more than our key tasks; helping out in lots of other ways and enjoying being part of station life.  It's great to be able to help Liz out, as she is constantly on the go and hopefully we make things a bit easier for her.  And Doug has been kept busy doing lots of tree work - tidying up the trees around the cottages, homestead and campsite.  Because we had so much extra work to do, our time here has been extended from the original two weeks, to a month.  This meant we were able to spend some time with our friends Leanne and Paul.  They were the next volunteer couple and were supposed to back onto our time here.  As we've stayed on for an extra two weeks, we've now overlapped.

Morning muster

Shedding the sheep before shearing

Our time here will come to an end this weekend when we, sadly, have to say goodbye and move on.  We're only moving up the road initially, as the word has got around about the "Tree Guy" and he's now got a gig at the Louth pub, tidying up the trees in their campground and beer garden.

But for now, we're looking forward to the "cutting-out" party tonight, to celebrate the end of the shearing - it should be a big night!!!

Farm Rescue - what can I say? Amazing!!!

After being back in Melbourne for 6 days, and getting lots of things done (catching up with family and friends, appointments, car maintenance etc etc etc), we were on our way again on the Saturday after Easter.

This time we were heading to something a bit different.  

Late in 2017, we had signed up for a weeks’ volunteer work with an organisation called Farm Rescue  - http://www.farmrescue.com.au/farm-rescue  

We were to be posted to a farm in the Ballendella area of northern Victoria, near Rochester and although we’d been given our job list, we were still a bit in the dark about what was involved.

Farm Rescue is a branch of the Rural Aid charity which organises trips each year to areas where farmers/rural families are in need of help.  For one reason or another, these people are struggling and a team from Farm Rescue is organised to spend some time with them and hopefully get something achieved that will help them.

Our first week was spent on a dairy farm in Ballendella owned by M&S with their two boys B(17) and C(7).  We arrived on Saturday afternoon and set up camp in the paddock near the house.  We were going to be right at home.  There was 6 volunteers in our team that week and Charles, the CEO of Rural Aid, who co-ordinated the whole event.

Camped in the horse paddock

Things officially got underway on Sunday evening, when we all met for dinner and an introduction at the pub in Rochester.  There was a lot of chat around the table and we were all looking forward to the week ahead. 

Our main task for the week was to convert a 4mx5m shed in the garden into a bedroom for B.  The family live in a tiny, 2 bedroom house on their farm, and now with B doing some serious study, he needed some space.  It was a complete transformation, with a floor needed over the dirt, insulation, window and door put in, electrical work, sheeting, painting and carpeting.  It was a big week.

As there was limited room for everyone to work at the same time in the shed, there were other jobs that we got stuck in with also.  Doug, being the tree man, made quick work of tidying up some trees around the property, Rosie (one of the other volunteers) and I tidied up the garden and did a huge burn off and Doug and Neal did some work around the cattle yards to improve the fences.

As volunteers, we all stayed on the farm, all meals were catered for and we all formed a really tight little band.  We were lucky to have Rosie, act as camp cook for the week and she (with the help of S) turned out some fabulous meals.  Time was spent round the fire after dinner each night and a lot of the worlds problems were put to right, believe me.

Team Ballendella

By spending time with these people and hearing their stories, a whole new understanding opens up.  The milk crisis that hit a couple of years ago was just something we’d heard about in the media and we made the token effort to try and not buy the cheap milk offered in the supermarkets to try and support the farmers.  But to hear exactly how it had affected this family and still affects them was astonishing.  Such a beautiful family getting their world pulled out from under them, with absolutely nothing they could do about it.  

They were so happy for us to be with them, and so generous of their time.  We learned so much.  M was happy for me to visit the dairy one morning to help with the milking and S and I went out on the quad bike to feed the calves.  The world of dairy farming was patiently explained to us novices, and we loved hearing how much there is involved.  Never underestimate what’s involved in your litre of milk.

The dangers of milking!!

Our week quickly came to an end.  Saturday morning saw B playing in the local footy league at a home game, and we all trooped along to support him (much to his embarrassment, I’m thinking!!).  It was a great feeling to have that local connection at something as grass-roots as a country footy match. 

Cheering on B

We had only signed up for one weeks’ rescue, but Charles told us there was another one the following week at nearby Girgarre.  Although it had been a hard week, we decided that we’d benefitted so much from the experience, we would go on to the second one.  It was sad to say goodbye to our host family, but we were happy knowing that B now had a bedroom that was useable and we had made a difference.  We felt like we had gained great new friends, and were sure we’d see them again.  Well, it’s a given really, since we were all given a voucher (expiry date infinity and beyond) to return and visit any time!

B couldn't wait - the bed was moved in that day.

The little band of volunteers packed up, hugged everyone goodbye and moved on to another dairy farm, this time owned by S&C with their four children, G(9), C(8), T(6) and J(2).  The group was getting bigger this week too, with the addition of 3 more volunteers and Grant, the new project manager hired by Rural Aid.  The charity hopes to increase the number of rescues done each year, and as such, Charles needed someone on the ground to manage things, and Grant was the man! 

Cosy camp around the derelict house

Camp from the air

The work was a bit different this week.  There was some work to be done at the main farm house (moving some plumbing in the bathroom and a new vanity and lots of fencing), but what kept most of us busy for the week was the derelict house across the road.  This was part of the farm and the owners had had some bad luck with bad tenants in the past; the house was trashed.  With a bit of help from Farm Rescue, it was hoped that the house would be made available for a farm labourer to live in.  S worked the dairy farm himself, and had a much bigger herd than the farm the previous week (about 300 cows).  If he was to have any family life at all, he needed someone to help him on the farm.

Our week was spent cleaning, scrubbing, sanding, painting, fixing and generally doing a “Block” reno, with tools down being called on Friday afternoon.  The house looked amazing - so much different from the shambles we saw when we arrived.  Doug and Lee (another volunteer) spent most of the week over at the main farmhouse, Lee transforming the bathroom and Doug fencing off a large area and making a playground for the kids.  Now C had somewhere to let J play without worry.  And when all that was done, Lee and Doug set about erecting a colour bond fence across the front of the farmhouse to keep all the kids safe from the road.  This job wasn’t finished by the end of the week, however, its given S a great start.

Rosie and Allie in sync

Who's the nonna?

The playground taking shape

S and C and their children joined us for dinner each night at camp, which was lovely and Allie (volunteer) had the kids organised into a super-dooper washing up team.  It was lovely the share time with them and hear about what they’d been doing at school.  We had our celebration final evening on Friday and were so touched by the lovely cards and messages the kids had made for us.

Dinner for 22 each night!!

By the time the end of the fortnight came, there was 6 very, very tired people.  But there was also 6 people who had gained so much from our time together on the rescues.  We have made some great new friends, we have learned so much, we have gained an insight into the struggles of others and we have tried to help.  Would we do it again?  In a heart-beat.  In fact, we’ll be signing up for more as soon as we can.