Jillaroo
Bikes, beef and a world well beyond my own
In my 3 years Down Under, the best question anyone has ever asked me has been “Do you want to take your bike?”
I’ve spent a lot of time on bicyles. I’ve cycled / pushed my bike from one side of England to the other and spent 10 excruciating days torturing my backside on 1,000kms of rutted, grassy canal towpaths.
But this wasn’t a push bike. This was a motorbike. And not only that, I was being invited to ride it in the most magnificent Australian outback countryside.
I’d been taught to ride my bike by my beloved “Aussie brother” at his family’s cattle property. He wasn’t a real relative, but we had had a meeting of minds that made us inseparable for two and a half years. Among the comfy and more importantly, creature-free, surroundings of his Madrid apartment I had spent many nights listening to his tales of this mythical land. I had marvelled at Google Earth maps that revealed its remoteness. I had gazed in awe at pictures of its peculiar flora like the perfectly named Bottle Trees whose trunks bulge with the precious water they fastidiously store over years and the Emu Apples whose seeds are only ready to germinate once they have been passed through the digestive tract of, you guessed it, an emu
Back then I didn’t even dare dream that one day I would see this place. It belonged to a different life, so different to the one that we were living and a life I never pictured myself in.
But things changed and shortly after he returned to Australia, I found myself living there too and that meant that this legendary life was no longer a world away — it was a state away. Yes ok, it was still an hour’s plane ride and a 9 hour drive away, but in Aussie terms, that’s just a trip down the shop for a pint of milk.
My first visit was with a merry mob of foreigners including my mother. On the way there I was tested on what I’d learnt back in Madrid. “Can you remember what those trees are called, Jen?” “Are those iron bark gums? “YES!!” When we got to Roma to fill up on petrol and XXXX, I introduced my fellow travelling companions to the Bottle Trees that lined the street.
After 7 and a half hours, the road changed from asphalt to dirt and took us into the National Park that neighboured the valley. Here we stopped at the lookout to take in the views of our home for the weekend. It was utterly breathtaking. As far as the eye stretched, green trees and bush ran between the red escarpments. “That’s the neighbour’s property there,” my pal explained brushing his hand over what seemed to be a third of the valley. That’s the other neighbour’s property,” he said pointing at the valley’s far end. “And that’s ours, in the middle.”
Agog and crazily excited, we got back into the car and drove down into the valley, dodging skittery roos who’d come out at dusk to play chicken with us along the route.
The sun was just setting as we entered the property so it wasn’t until the next morning that our discovery tour really started.
The whole place was even more magnificent in scale, more stunning in beauty and more awe-inspiring in its abundance of nature than I had imagined. To top it all off, it was home to the kindest and most generous hosts.
I knew my friend’s Mum from our own adventures in Spain. Together we had visited art exhibitions, some fancy and not-so-fancy bars in Madrid (I’m thinking in particular of the bar with the budgerigars flying about), mooched along the streets of Madrid and Granada cooing over the architecture and even squeezed in a night of salsa dancing. It was absolutely wonderful to see her in her beautiful home, with her beautiful garden (complete with OCD bowerbirds and their bejewelled nests) and her stunning property.
That first visit was like a real-life adaptation of “Out of Australia.” Mum played Meryl Streep. She was chauffered around the property and introduced to pretty-faced wallabies, families of emus and most unforgettable of all, a carpet snake, that watched us enjoying dinner in the garden from up in the branches of the overhanging tree. Instead of barricading herself in the house, which was the reaction I expected, (I also wondered if I would do a runner), Mum ooooohed and aaaaaahed and sprinted off for her camera.
It was during that trip that I also learned to ride my bike. To the total surprise of the gathered crowd, not to mention me, it went miraculously smoothly. No falls, no stalls and before you could say “throw another snag on the barbie” I was going at the same breakneck speed as the sprinting chooks in the yard (and they can run, let me assure you).
10 minutes later I was doing laps around the yard and carrying my very brave / blindly trusting bestie pillion (a very precarious gear change led to his very loud exhale of “OOOOH GOD!!!” as he braced himself for a unexpected wheelie, but sensing this may lead to immediate confiscation of the bike and possible eviction from the farm, I managed to right it).
The following September I was invited to join a full week’s expedition. Once again, this was beyond my wildest dreams. Me — a Pommy chick with no success at gardening, DIY or animal husbandry — was going to be allowed to play at being a real-life Jillaroo.
The first thing I thought of when I arrived was my bike. The memory of that exhilaration not only stayed with me but motivated me to, at the very least, try to become the perfect outback guest. Every day I was up at 5am(ish), proudly dressed in my best Vinnies cast off shirts, jeans and Big W steel toe cap boots. And like a dog waiting for an instruction that it knew would lead to a biscuit or bone, I waited for any small job that could lead to a trip on the bike.
Now, the main problem with jobs is that I’m not very good at them — especially jobs on a cattle property. Small jobs like coffee, toast and cereal for breakfast I could do, but that was just common courtesy. Dinner would be a stretch as I’m a terrible cook — no guarantees of success there — and clearly, fixing anything on the farm was going to be out of the question. I couldn’t even feed the chooks on my own because I was uninitiated in how to check for brown snakes in the chook pen and the recommended subsequent action to take (which presumably was just, get the hell out of there). There was definitely a very thin line between being helpful and being a total liability, so I stuck to dishwasher stacking, food carrying, plant watering, a bit of gate closing and bided my time.
And my time came. It came many times - not because of my ability to contribute really anything of practical use, but purely thanks to the incredible patience and generosity of my host and my friends.
“I’ve got a couple of jobs this morning. I think we can start by moving the cattle in the paddock by the yards up past the air strip. How does that sound?” “Yeah, good. No worries,” the boys all casually responded before grabbing their akubras and heading off to the shed. My heart started to pound.
“Do you want to take your bike, Jennie?” There they were. The 8 most magical words ever uttered to me. “Yeah, OK” I replied breezily and quickly jogged over to join the others.
As I swung my leg over and kicked the stand, my heart continued to race. “OK, now steady — it’s ok. You do know how to ride this thing. It’s all ok. You can do this. Move cows. Yes — it’s completely normal and everyone does it — all the time. You can do it too.”
Engine on, bike successfully in gear, off we went across the green grass, onto the gloriously wide dirt track and up to the paddock where the cows were milling around, chewing the cud — you know how cows are.
Actually, you don’t know how these cows are. These are the happiest, best treated cattle you could image. Reared for the organic beef market, they are not only chemical free, but prod, whip and stress free too, especially when it comes human interaction, such as moving paddock.
The mere sound of a motorbike or Land Rover approaching is like the “last orders” bell to these cows — they know that this establishment is closing and it’s time to check out the place down the road. A few additional honks of the Landy horn and booming “COOOME OOOOOOONs” (i.e. “Drinking up time, folks”) is usually enough to get the crowd well en route and then it’s just a matter of rounding up the stragglers and reminding them that it’s no fun drinking, or rather, eating on your own, so you should get a wriggle on and join your mates.
This day was typical. Most of the bovine gang had headed through the gates and we were pushing the rest along the fence. I say “we.” I of course mean, the boys. I trundled along at the back and watched as they quickly and deftly whizzed across the paddock picking up errant steers using nothing more than eye contact and a growly engine to coax the stubborn beast along with the others.
Most of my previous herding experience had come from trying to get drunk female rugby players to board a bus. This hadn’t quite honed my intuition for mustering cattle, but after watching the boys, I thought I’d give it a bash. I spotted a cow who apparently had decided that it preferred this hostelry to the next. It had circled back and was now loitering behind a tree.
Off I headed. At a clearly, unstartling slow speed, I approached the cow yelling my best Aussie “COME ON.” No response. “COME ON!!” I yelled again. This time the cow gave me the once over — it looked at my smooth hands, my Hugo Boss shirt (it was from Vinnies in Paddington, darling) and probably smelled my townie stench and quite rightly deduced I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And to prove just that point, walked around me.
Equipped with skills that only enabled me to manoeuvre a bike in a straight line or around a sweeping corner, so began the sorry — but to the right audience, no doubt hilarious — show of me being heckled and taunted by a farm animal. Any time I managed to get near it, it swished up its tail and plodded off in the opposite direction to the one I wanted it to go in. Time after time, I performed a huge lap of the paddock so I could approach the beast for another reprimand and time after time it glared back, then stuck its cloven hoof up at me and headed back down the paddock.
About 5 minutes later this humiliation was finally brought to an abrupt end when I disappeared down a wild pig hole. It didn’t happen in slow motion — it just happened really slowly. I saw the hole, I thought “Oh look there’s a big hole. I wonder if I can poss-i-b-l-y g-e-t a-r-o-u-n-d i…. No.” I just kind of toppled into it and my bike did the same, on top of me. There I was pinned down, in a pig hole. Search and Rescue didn’t take long to locate me thanks to my loud “ufffings” and “aaaahings,” and de-bike me. It was, I think, an inevitable end to my mustering attempts.
No physical damage was done and my hosts were way too gracious to let me dwell on a bruised ego and miss out any further opportunities to expand my Jillaroo skills. My bike and I continued to be invited along to fix troughs, check pig traps and select heifers for breeding. (I was very pleased that so many of the cows were chosen to go through my gate in the stock yards until, eventually it dawned on me that I was, in fact, aiding and abetting their judge and eventual executioner. And while, over the next 12 months, they no doubt would have a swell time enjoying the gorgeous view and chatting about diet and coat colour, they would never know the touch of a raging bull or spend sleepless nights worrying about their unruly children roaming about on their own.
We even pregnancy tested the cattle. I can’t decide whether being covered in cow crap up to my armpit was a highlight or a lowlight, but I do at least now know to avoid hypothermia in the outback.
I think the lowlight was probably the fencing. I took on the job with trepidation but thinking that I couldn’t mess it up that much. It’s putting a post in a ground, it’s pointing in front of you and working out where to put the next post in the ground, so it’s straight. Easy right? I began to get the niggling doubt that I wasn’t doing such a great job when we reached the new path the my pal had just beaten out with his tractor. The fence wasn’t quite parallel but I told myself “Just because he’s a man doesn’t mean that he can drive in a perfectly straight line,” I looked at the doubtful faces of my helpers but being the polite boys they are, they muffled their doubts and carried on planting the poles. “The end of the fence goes there,” my friend instructed after about 20 minutes. I peered behind him and then looked up at his arm that was pointing off at a 90 degree angle.” “Oh right” I gulped. I had created not so much a fence but the farm’s very own Nazca Line. I shuddered with shame as I imagined my first fence as seen from the air. “Oh well, it’s only a temporary one,” my lovely friend consoled me.
My grand finale came over at the neighbour’s property. Ladies were lunching on the veranda of the beautiful house and boys were frolicking about in the dam out front. We unhooked the jet ski we’d trailored over there and the large inflatable doughnut which was introduced to me as the method by which I would have a lovely old time skimming over the water.
Sinking our bodies into the holes, I grinned at my pal alongside me as I waited for the jet ski to fire up. Within 2 seconds that grin turned to grimace and giggles turned to spine-chilling screams as we were whipped and catapulted to and fro across the water. I managed a few “woo-hoos” but 5 minutes later, for the sake of my lungs and the sanity of all those gathered for a pleasant afternoon of tea and scones, my friend, thankfully, gave the signal to loosen the throttle and deposit me safely on dry land.
It was with a certain amount of sheepishness and a number of apologies that I was introduced to the lovely residents of that beautiful property — but then began to relax when the home-made cannon came out and attention was diverted to launching frozen lemons across the dam.
My last ride on my bike was the best and most exciting ride of all. It was way out at the back of the property up to a point, near an escarpment called Battleship, that gave the perfect vantage point from which to enjoy sundowners.
As I helped pack up the Land Rover back at the house with drinks and nibbles, my friend’s Stepdad turned to me and asked “Do you want to take your bike?” I must’ve had a grin like the Cheshire Cat.
I got all the way up to the point — somehow. We headed down the flat, dusty dirt track, out past the old, disused air strip and beyond to the windy track with the dips and turns and a few rocks here and there. The shadows were lengthening across the tracks and I could hear the Land Rover’s engine approaching from behind. Up ahead was the final ascent — about three times longer than any I’d ridden up before. I whinnied with fear at the bottom. And then, like Luke hearing Obe Wan Kenobi guide him into battle, I heard my friend’s Stepdad’s immortal words — “Just stick it into first and fang it.”
I slipped and slid as I hit some of the rocks on the way up, but I did it. To the sound of my Mum’s muffled screams from the Land Rover behind, I made it to the top. In shock, I lost my bottle on the next couple of parts of the track but eventually, I made it.
My bike and I said our farewells right there. Like a trusty steed he’d protected me from myself, tolerated my clumsiness and absolutely thrilled me as we’d belted along the wide dirt track but he was never going to be able to carry me down a narrow, bumpy tree-lined track in the dark. It didn’t matter. With the adrenaline still coursing through my veins and my heart flooding at the spectacular sight of the pink sun setting over the valley, I looked around at the people who had once seemed to me to belong to another reality - part of another world that I would never step into. They had let me loose to ride into their world. And it had been utterly sublime.
