OUTBACK JOURNEY—II Shooting Donkeys In The Tropical North

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31588, 27 January 1968, Page 5

OUTBACK JOURNEY—II Shooting Donkeys In The Tropical North

(Specially written far "The Press” by

BRIAN CLEMENS)

“Things have changed in the station country since you were here last; even the Aborigines now use a pressure can of spray to repel flies.”

With these words I was greeted by the manager of the large cattle station in the tropical north of Western Australia when my Australian companion, Lin Harris, and I arrived for a fortnight’s shooting on our 8000-mile trip through the outback.

Progress had indeed come to this isolated area, we found. A beef road linking most of the huge stations in this region had been built in the last few years, enabling supplies to be taken in by road for the first time. Before this virtually everything needed on the stations —provisions, fencing, vehicles and other equipment—had to be taken in by aircraft, and the only air-beef scheme in the world operated at Glenroy, flying beef carcases supplied from this and other stations the 100 air miles to Derby, a north-west coastal town. And the aborigines on the station had forsaken their ancient ways of brushing the hordes of bush flies from their faces with their hands or leafy twigs and now used copious amount of aerosol fly spray in tins. “Medicine,” one old aborigine called it. The fly menace being what it is in the outback, I lost no time in becoming as civilised as the natives, and in the ensuing two weeks on the station, and for the rest of the journey, a tin of spray was always in my shooting pack or close at hand. In previous years I had spent two winter seasons employed shooting wild donkeys on the station, and had shot 2200. These animals, a serious pest in the Kimberleys, were the descendants of donkey teams used to haul waggons which carried supplies to stations and inland towns before aircraft and motor transport replaced them. There are now several million donkeys in the Kimberley area, and they are the biggest pest on the cattle stations. They seriously reduce the available feed, and scarce water supplies, for the cattle.

The whole of this northern region is subject to the tropical monsoonal wet season from about December to March, and negligible rain falls during the other eight months of the year. There is a riotous growth of grass in the wet season, but in the long dry season and tropical heat, surface water evaporates and rivers dwindle to a few water-holes. Only the larger of these, and a few gorges or springs in the hills, provide dependable supplies of stock water all year round. For our two weeks’ shooting we covered the country on both sides of the Hann river, a tributary of the Fitzroy. We are both keen on tramping and stalking our quarry rather than the accepted but much less effective method of driving round in a vehicle to shoot the donkeys. So we set out on foot before daybreak each morning to take advantage of the coolest period. In a morning’s shoot, in separate directions, we would each cover 20 miles or more before returning to camp about 11 a.m. to escape the searing heat of the middle of the day. The station homestead was more than 30 miles from our first camp, which was beside Moll gorge, the largest body of permanent water of the whole 2150 square miles of the station. From the sheer rock walls above the gorge, fresh-water crocodiles up to 6ft and Bft long could be seen in the water, barely breaking the surface. They would sink without a ripple immediately they sensed danger. The donkeys were en-

countered in mobs ranging up to 30 or more, and some of our best days’ tallies reached nearly 80 apiece because of our stalking the animals, taking advantage of ant-hills, bush, and all available cover to approach them. During the fortnight we worked steadily along the Hann, shifting camp after a few days at each site and thus covering on f oot circuits cf hundreds of square miles of country. The sudden change from the New Zealand climate to tramping in tropical heat took a few days of acclimatisation. After two days of hard shooting I felt out of sorts and in need of a rest. My Canterbury Mountaineering Club handbook, Mountaineering Medicine, which was always in my pack, suggested heat exhaustion. Fortunately the symptoms were not those of heat stroke which the booklet described as a much more serious condition in which the patient's temperature should be lowered by immersion in a river or lake, or snow field. In the tropical heat I would have welcomed the latter. The increased water conr mption in the tropics quickly lowers the level of salt in the body, and it was necessary to add salt to drinking water- regularly during the day. We carried nearly a gallon of water each in our packs rn these tramps, and it was essential for safety to refill at any reasonable waterhole along the way. To run out of water in this country could be dangerous. Even thick muddy water, mere wallow holes for cattle, could not be overlooked. Birds And Animals A wide variety of wild life was encountered when covering the country on foot, including venomous snakes, small kangaroo rats which bounded off from the long grass almost under one’s feet, rock wallabies, kangaroos, emus, bungarras, a large reptile-like creature but with great tree-climbing ability and speed, and myriads of lizards and ants. There was a multitude of bird life near waterholes, including screeching flocks of white cockatoos, budgerigars, galahs, flamingos, pelicans, and small finch species. The latter twittered busily in the trees, unafraid of human presence; some ever peered intently from a few feet away as I stopped at a water-

i hole to cool down. But there was a sudden clamour of . beating wings and frantic ■ chirping, followed by silence, , if an eagle-hawk soared over- , head. In the bigger waterholes > and gorges the tropical fish species included archer fish, which spat well-directed jets of water at flies and insects flying over the water. They which was snapped up as soon as it hit the surface. Tracks of crocdiles were seen seldom missed their prey, frequently in the riverbed sand, travelling from one waterhole to another, chasing better fishing and more space as the smaller holes diminished in the dry season. Beef Transport One evening we camped at a windmill beside the ruins of the Glenroy air-beef scheme. A few years before this had been a busy abattoir, using aircraft to fly carcases of beef from the station to the processing works at Derby. The ruins now marked the end of this pioneering achievement in which air transport enabled prime meat to be taken out of this isolated region in an hour, thus eliminating long droving treks through harsh country. The air-beef scheme began in 1949 and was abandoned after the Government constructed a $900,000 beef road from Derby to Glenroy and other Kimberley stations. Live cattle are now trucked to Derby in' a few hours. Along the Hann river, 30 miles downstream from the gorge, we ranged out for our last two days’ shooting, bagging 143 one day, our best tally of the trip, and 83 the next. Most of these were taken in country across the wide, sandy riverbed difficult of access to previous shooters in vehicles but ideal stalking country on foot. With 828 donkeys destroyed in the fortnight we had made some inroad into the numbers of this pest, which seriously restricts the carrying capacity of the country for cattle, as well as interrupting the mustering. We left the station after aborigine friends whom I had known from previous shooting trips there had staged a small corroboree for us to record and photograph. Our route passed through country steeped in the fiery history of early settlement of the Kimberleys. (To be continued)