Outback Stations

I just finished reading a book about Outback ranches, which are called stations here in Oz. “Outback Stations” is written by the Australian author Evan McHugh. The book is filled with interesting facts about the stations, but also the history of how each of them was set up and changed ownership and wealth in time. The common thread in the history of all stations is the resilience of what I would call Outback explores, as they travelled the desert extensively to find the right places where cattle could graze. The stations are placed hundreds of kilometers inland from the continent’s edges around the system of water streams (I cannot quite call them rivers) and the Queensland Channel Country. Grasses such as Mitchell grass that grow around these rivulets are what sustains the cattle’s and sheep’s diet in the unforgiving hot Outback. But without water, these animals cannot survive, so the stations highly depend on wells dug down in the earth and that bring up precious artesian water. Rainwater is also stored, but with droughts of 15 years, rain is not the most reliable source of water. Number one fact that amazed me when I read this interesting book was the impossibly large number of cattle bred and grown in the Outback. Each station has tens of thousands of cattle or sheep. The second fact that amazed me was the size of these outback stations, with many of them being three times larger than the largest ranch in Texas. Although the author travelled from station to station and met people working on them, the book fails to present the real feeling of how it is to live in such remote places, where neighbors, grocery stores, and hospitals are hundreds of kilometers away. How are the homes of the jackaroos and jillaroos, how is school really done via radio for the little kids, and how is daily life on a station? The other issue I had was that the book does not explain a lot of the terminology used, such as agistment and mustering. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and I learnt a lot, especially the history of the cattle industry in Oz. I will try to read other books that maybe detail daily life on one station.