Blog #8 Nardoo Station Blaze Aid Part 1

We headed North from Cloncurry after Ian from Blaze Aid had stocked us up with supplies for the Station. We stopped briefly at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse, our destination was another 100 kilometres north.

Below is the Roadhouse, which has its own caravan park.

Long road trains of every type stop here.

Apparently it’s under new management and seems like a tourist attraction with the counter staff from Columbia and Spain.

53m is the maximum length on the Road Trains and these truckers want and expect real “he man” tucker. 

This is a horse trailer carting 10 or more horses maybe from the Cloncurry Stockmans Challenge.

At Nardoo Station we were met by Jacqui the station cook, and we were soon to realise this was a full working station.

Ann & Peter run this 250,000 acre station, saying theirs is one of the smaller stations, and their neighbours are on a 1million acre block.

Depending on the season they run between 6,500 to 7,000 head of cattle, a mix of Brahmin and Droughtmaster breeds.

We parked up beside a lovely couple of units complete with toilet and showers and connected to power, so we had a sweet little parkup.

After a very hearty breakfast in the cookhouse we were out into the job at hand, standing up fences that had been flattened in the Feb 2019 floods.

My first job was driving out to the fence line with one of the station Toyota Landcruisers, a Turbo V8. I couldn’t help but notice the rifle above the dashboard. I can see (now) the fascination and reputation the Landcruiser has with the Australian blokes.....it’s rugged and can handle the rough conditions.

Here are some of the flood photos from this station back on 5th Feb 2019.

Below is around the homestead, luckily the main buildings were not flooded, but they were within inches.

 The only bit of high ground near the house is the helicopter landing pad.

 Peter’s tour of his property by chopper was the only way to see the extent of the flood.

In some places the flood was over 8ft as Peter points to the flood level.

Now back to our job, first pull off the scrub and trees washed up onto the fences, then stand up the fences. 

Cattle fences are 3 barbed wires, sufficient to catch drift wood and flatten the fence over several kilometres.

We only broke the wires once, and it was quite a tricky job to get them re-strung and vertical.

I found this frog (dead) in a hole in the ground. The Outback is ever-changing and throwing up the weird and wonderful that nature has to offer.

An electric rechargeable chainsaw is a very handy thing out here.

This kangaroo didn’t make it and got stuck on the top wire.

There are three sets of yards like this on Nardoo Station.

Christine with fly net (which wasn’t very effective) views the whole yard....

And this is the same set of yards back in February 2019..... that is some flood .... over a huge area.

This is Pig Weed ..... for me this was one of the amazing things about the Outback. It looks pretty harsh and barren at first, but one soon realises it’s teeming with life and is changing all the time.

The ground cover is changing constantly with different weather conditions, soil types and various plants.

Jacqui, the Nardoo Station cook, turns on an impressive spread breakfast with sandwiches out in the field for lunch and the evening meal at 7 p.m. We even had nightly desserts which I did indulge in.

The margarine container ... everything’s big in Australia mate!

It’s chow time... Peter and Ann on the left side of the table and Andy at the head of the table.

Andy’s from Sydney and could out-eat and out-drink the Australian rugby league team I reckon!

This is the station larder ... more like a supermarket.

Pasta by the cement bag size.

The station freezer with prime station beef waiting to be cut up and converted into station tucker.

These two guys Scotty (at the front) and Andy are butchers as well as painters, as you can see by Andy’s shorts.

I took a fair bit of ribbing from these guys...being a kiwi...so this is my chance to get a dig in without reprisal!

Late afternoon after work I would go down the creek about 200 yards away to play my whistle and ukulele. What a view with, wallabies (the one below has a joey on board) and cattle cruising by .... not to mention birds.

Wallaby tracks ...the lines are the tails dragging in the powdery soil.

So this is a little snapshot of our experience on a real working Queensland cattle station.

We enjoyed it so much with more material so the next blog will continue on with Nardoo Station Pt 2..... we did have a day out at Lawn Hill National Park, so as usual there is plenty to blog about!

Till then...stay safe ... be creative .... and have fun!

Jimu & Christine.