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27 August, 2024

Retired drovers look back on the good old days

It was a hard life, but a good life, the old drovers say.

By Troy Rowling

Macka McCullough and Ian ‘Darl’ Saltmere remember their days moving cattle on the Barkly Tableland.
Macka McCullough and Ian ‘Darl’ Saltmere remember their days moving cattle on the Barkly Tableland.

Sitting at the back of the Camooweal Drovers Festival were two retired stockmen discussing old times.

“We have been mates for 32 years, even though we only see each other once a year,” Macka McCullough says as he looks across at Ian ‘Darl’ Saltmere.

“So, it’s good to catch up and laugh about some of the old times.”

The pair met when they joined a droving team transporting more than 3000 head across the Barkly Tableland from Austral Downs to Brunette Downs and Rockhampton Downs in two separate journeys in the final months of 1992.

“There had been a big flood on the Playford River and there was 100 miles of water up there and plenty of feed on the ground – you could smell the green grass for three days before we got there,” Macka explains.

“I was working in the Channel country and was told not to bring our own horses for the trip because they had plenty for us to use in the Territory. I don’t know who drafted the horses, but no one seemed to know anything about them because there were a lot of rough edges on them.

“We were using Austal horses that no one knew – I thought Darl knew the horses, but it turned out he didn’t because he got the worst of them all.”

Mr Saltmere said the horses made for an uncomfortable journey.

“My horse just bucked all that first day – I didn’t get thrown off, but it wasn’t a comfortable ride either,” he laughs.

“But, by the end, with some work and bit of patience, we turned all those horses into good workers.”

“It was not a bad life except for the mad horses; it was interesting times.”

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