The Push to Find the Mysterious Missing Sheep

By Rebecca Snow

Hello family and friends,

After several days without internet out in the bush, we’ve finally returned to civilization. At the moment we’re in an adorable little beach town called Port Elliot, but first you must hear about our last day out bush at Chowilla sheep station. We awoke in the morning to a delicious breakfast and the day’s studies began with learning with how to toast bread – bush style. They don’t have toasters at Chowilla; instead they have these neat little devices which are basically two separated mesh grids on which you place your bread to toast it directly over a burner. I think the amount of group toast consumption increased due to the fun factor that morning. It’s amazing how different things are in a place as isolated as the shearers’ quarters are. Their running water comes straight from the river (don’t worry – they have separate potable water to drink), they have a generator for all of their electricity, and the water is heated by a fire in a stove. Those things in and of themselves were just as educational as what Jock, the station owner, showed us later in the day.

We hopped on a bus and headed off across the 325,000 acre sheep station, of which we had seen only a small portion by the end of the day. Not only that, but we didn’t actually see any sheep! They’re so spread out across the gigantic property that the only sighting we had was from a great distance, and some of us doubted whether they were really there (not really, but that was our joke to Jock). Although I suppose it’s not all that surprising that we didn’t see any sheep; the property is rated to have up to 12,800 sheep, though at the moment it only has 10,000, which is still an average of 1 sheep per 32.5 acres. What’s more, despite the fact that we drove around the property for around 5 hours, we only drove through a tiny fraction of it. It also turns out that most of the sheep were in the north paddocks while we were on the south side of the station.

As we drove, Jock told us about the native plants as well as government management of their property. Chowilla is on a floodplain of the Murray River as well as Chowilla Creek, which at the moment is highly inundated. There were quite a few places Jock was planning on showing us but couldn’t because of the floodwaters. Indeed, a few days before we arrived he still wasn’t sure if the tour would be by bus or by boat.

The government is very interested in the floodplain for myriad reasons. Water distribution is a huge issue in Australia, and most of the rivers are very tightly managed by dams, weirs, and locks in an attempt to get water to the towns and cities as well as to the farmers who need it for their crops or animals. The government wanted to put a dam into Chowilla Creek to utilize its water supply but couldn’t because of building issues, so instead it is trying to build a weir. Chowilla station has also lost some of its original property because the government has decided the wetland is too valuable to be grazed. The station has used the compensation provided by the government to buy more property along the edges. This is how Chowilla has come to straddle South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria, when originally it was entirely in South Australia.

The government also has some control over the lease of the station’s property. The conditions of the lease state that the grazing of the land must be sustainable (which is also in the best interests of the station owners so that their business can continue for a long time). To ensure that the practices are sustainable, there are 50 monitoring points spread out across the station. Someone from the government comes once a year and takes photos from the same places at the same angles to see how the landscape is changing and makes sure everything is progressing acceptably. One of the points that Jock really stressed with us was how the landscape is changing but not dying. Many of the eucalypt species, such as the Black Box, which is a very prominent flood species, are becoming more rare, while salt tolerant species such as (you guessed it) the saltbush, are flourishing. Because tree species in particular are disappearing, some say that the floodplains are dying. However, Jock made it clear to us that it is simply a natural process; as the soil changes, so do the plants which grow on it. Similarly, the Australian cycle of drought, flood, and burning is natural and normal. This is not to say that humans haven’t exacerbated the environmental changes occurring in the country. It is certainly true that humanity has caused a great deal of destruction on this continent just as it has across the globe. However, Jock showed us how the land is resilient and can recover in its own way from the changes human land management has caused.

Speaking of the cycle, I need to stress how incredible it is to be in the outback during a flood season. First of all, this current flood is massive. The last notable flood occurred in 2000, and it was not even very large; many do not consider it to be a break in the drought that began after the last major flood in 1997. The inundation is very widespread and has regenerated the vegetation to a great extent, making the vistas spectacular. What is normally a vast expanse of red sand has become completely covered in vegetation. It has also caused a spike in the reproduction of the local fauna; we must have seen over 50 kangaroos and nearly 100 emus as we traveled around the station. We even had a few of each species run across the road while we were driving, providing us with truly picturesque moments.

We stopped at quite a few places along the way, though we were riding in the coach for the majority of our tour. At one point when the road more or less disappeared on us, we got out and went for a short walk. We headed out to a midden site, a place where different Aboriginal groups would congregate over time to eat. It was interesting because there were pieces of stone all across the ground that had been brought by the groups over the years. While we examined the midden site, Jock gave us a whole different perspective on the history of the Indigenous people. We have so far been largely educated by the Aboriginal elders, and to hear how the history is interpreted by the other side was very eye opening. To say that it is different is an understatement, but hearing about Jock’s perspective was educational. His family has been on the land for 5 generations over 100 years, so the history is there, but after learning from people who have generational knowledge that goes back thousands of years, just 100 seems so tiny.

We left the midden site and headed to the bus, ready to head off to our lunch site, but the bus was not going to move all on its own. It had sunk into the sand just enough that it needed to be pushed. So about half of us jumped behind the bus and pushed it out of the sand. In fact, by the time the bus had turned around and reached the road again, we had pushed it at least 6 times. It was incredibly satisfying. All of us who contributed to pushing the bus agreed that doing so touched a full range of emotions. After we had freed the bus, we headed off to one of the lakes on the South Australia-New South Wales border to have our lunch. After lunch we went to Todd’s Obelisk, which marks the official border between the states. A few of us jumped across the border a few times and then decided to stand with one leg on each side of the border. The best part of that was that half of our bodies were a half an hour ahead of the other half (because of the time zone differences between the states)! Then we headed back to the quarters.

On the way to the quarters, Jock told us a story about a man named Possum. He was a recluse who lived along the Murray River for most of his life, so he spent considerable time on the Chowilla property. His story is that he came from New Zealand to Australia to make money so that he could get married to a woman back home. However, he sent her the money in her parents’ care, and the woman’s father ended up stealing the money. When he returned to marry her, she had gotten tired of waiting for him and had married another man. So he returned to Australia, down on his luck, planning to shear sheep in this country because it is more profitable here. On his way to a station, he accidentally left his wallet on a train, becoming penniless. He tried to get jobs shearing, but wasn’t able to because he wasn’t in the union. Because he had lost his wallet, he couldn’t buy a membership, so he just decided to leave traditional society behind. He went out bush and never returned. He was reported to have a wonderful relationship with the animals in the area and was known to walk up and down the Murray for entertainment, living wherever he stopped for the night. Jock only ever saw him once, but heard that others had seen him on occasion in hollow trees and tall grass. In desperate times he would ask for food or shelter from the stations, but he would never accept charity and would always work on the stations for a few days to repay his debt.

Back at the quarters, Jock’s son, James, came to talk to us. He is currently the manager of the property, and he answered our questions about the inner workings of the station. He informed us about rounding up the sheep, how they’re sheared, and many other details. Most interesting was the crutching of the sheep, which involves shearing just the faces and rear ends of the sheep 6 months after the main shearing that occurs each year. Crutching the sheep keeps fecal matter and urine from collecting on the wool, improving the quality of the wool the station eventually collects for sale. It also prevents a disease called “fly bum.” Flies collect and lay their eggs in wool matted with substantial fecal matter and urine and when the eggs hatch, the maggots that emerge will not only eat the wool of the sheep but also will consume the sheep itself, killing it. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the manager to make sure that crutching happens and is successful. James told us fly bum can be one of the biggest killers of the sheep if not taken care of.

After dinner and an evening hanging out in the kitchen avoiding the voracious and numerous mosquitoes, we headed to bed. In the morning we packed up into a bus much smaller than the one we’ve been accustomed to and headed towards Port Elliot. The drive was about 6 hours including our stops and we were mighty cramped, so it was great to get into town. Along the way we stopped at a lock. There are 14 along the Murray and we stopped at the first one. A lock is used to control the water level above it and the flow below it. At the moment it’s not having much of an effect because the river is at full capacity, but the locks are a vital part of the water management system in this country. The government also has huge fish nets strung across the whole river to manage where the fish are able to travel in the river.

We finally arrived in the quaint town of Port Elliot mid afternoon and checked into what we’ve all agreed is the nicest hostel we’ve ever seen. It’s right on the beach and not too far from the center of town. We had the rest of the day free to explore as we chose. Some of us headed to the beach while others headed directly to the laundry machines. There was internet to be bought for $10 a day and good restaurants to be found. Tomorrow we have a river tour where the river meets the ocean, but I’ll leave it to one of my compatriots to tell you all about it, for I have gone on long enough. So that’s me signing off.

--Rebecca

Our fearless leader Jock and his companion Spot 

showing us around on the coach.

(Photo by Kathryn Wlodarczyk)

 Straddling the New South Wales - South Australia border!

(Photo by Allison Perry)

The most satisfying experience of the day -- bus pushing.

(Photo by Nat Hardeman)