Loadin Cattle

Loadin Cattle

When I was around 13 or 14 it became the standard thing for a couple of years for me to go to Nellyvale for the Christmas School Holidays. I followed in my older brother Keith’s footsteps as he also spent holidays under the caring mentoring of our Uncle Athol. Keith learnt to ride a motor bike, drink beer, shoot and smoke. I was very keen to follow in his footsteps.

Before getting into the tale of loadin cattle I best give an outline of both Nellyvale and Uncle Athol. Nellyvale is a mixed sheep and cattle station some 60 miles north west of Bourke, just short of Queensland. Its still a rough dirt road all the way and to me this was the real country and I was sure the Marlborough Man was out there.

The place was first settled in the late 1800s by my maternal grandfather and grandmother Joe and Katherine Pearl Cronin (nee Mathews). After Joe's death the property which was in the order of 10 miles by 10 miles (a proper property) was passed into my Uncle Athol’s care. It has subsequently passed into the hands of my cousin Jeff Cronin who is a similar age to myself. Jeff still runs the property

Now about Uncle Athol - where to start? Well this is how a young impressionable youth saw his favourite uncle.

Athol was one of those unique characters who was larger than life and lived life by his own rules and by his own whims. In a very loveable way he was always right. I watched his every move even down to how he loaded and lit his pipe.

A tough hard working mans man. He didn’t mince his words and didn’t say much, particularly when you took out the expletives. What was left were gems and of great value and by the way if they were instructions you had better listen, listen carefully and do it now.

But under all this was a big softy who helped anyone who asked and he was dependable even if that was in his own time. A man of his word.

Athol was his own man and on Nellyvale the world ran to his command, he was the man in charge, no question.

As a kid I certainly felt (and I suspect many others) secretly wanted to be an ‘Athol’ when they grew up. He was the patriarch we all wanted to be the good Athol.

But now back to the Loadin Cattle tale.

It was in the middle of yet another drought. It was a hot summer afternoon and having spent the day working cattle in the yards, marking and branding calves we started loading the cattle.

The remains of the Nellyvale cattle herd that had not starved was being moved in shifts with two trucks. We were moving them to the back of Nellyvale in an attempt to give them enough food and water to keep them alive till the drought broke. Trucking is stressful but we had no option. Their condition was too poor to be walked: it was their last chance.

Not only was this real mans work but it had a life and death edge. You could almost hear the great western movie tunes playing in the dusty air as we toiled in our moleskins, Akubra hats and our RM Williams riding boots. I felt truly alive.

We had loaded the semi trailer which was a big V8 International, a mans truck and the pride of the vehicle fleet on Nellyvale. The International held probably 50+ head and Athol was keen to get them out to the back of the property and off the truck ASAP to minimise their stress.

But before we could head off we had to load an old Austin truck, a rigid unit with and old metal tube crate that held around 10 head.

The old flat nosed Austin was backed into position at the end of the ramp and readied to move beasts up the chute.

Now this whole scene was the stuff of my boyhood dreams. Here I was doing real mans work side by side with my cousins and being directed by my favorite uncle. Athol was not a god but to me he was the closest manifestation I was ever going to see. He was rough, tough and swore like no one I had ever met and he was often very naughty. But he was approved by his sister, my mum who was chronically catholic and Athol was not.

So mum’s ticks of approval came from places much more important than the Heart Foundation or Food Standards’ Australia. This approval made him the perfect role model for a young impressionable boy. I wasn’t in love but I was in awe and bloody hell it felt good to be there and fully involved. Life does not get better.

So the pressure was on, with the semi trailer loaded time was running out to get a few more head onto the Austin.

I was positioned along the chute leading up to the Austin. Jeff and Kevin, my cousins were in the yard pushing the cattle into the chute. Athol and the station foreman Keith Roberts were up on top of the Austin‘s crate.

My job was to make sure the cattle moved smoothly up the chute into the truck.

Now often the cattle walked up the chute calmly and smoothly but some times and generally it was the first beast, would go partly up the chute, balk and come back down.

Now on this particular day the first beast up the chute was this bloody great steer. A bloody great big bastard with a set of horns that would not have been out of place on a R M Williams poster.

So this fire breathing monster refused several time to complete the trip up the chute into the truck. Athol was getting frustrated and was yelling words of encouragement from the top of the Austin. Some of that encouragement involved the instruction for me to use the ’cattle tickler’ on this devil of a beast to encourage him to complete the trip.

I digress for a moment to explain a ‘cattle tickler’. This is a device that produces several thousands volts of electricity at a very low frequency. It provides a very nasty but non lethal electrical shock. A very handy device to encourage cattle to do what you want. The delivery mechanism on this particular unit was two six inch nails mounted on a broom handle. A very nasty looking device.

Back to this big brute of a steer who by now was somewhat agitated and banging around in the chute. Unwilling to go forward and unable to go back.

Following Athol’s instructions I gave this Beelzebub a few tastes of the cattle tickler unfortunately without success. Whilst the beast moved forward it still refused to enter the back of the Austin.

As you may imagine the tension was increasing and the focus was on me. I clearly recall the voice in my head saying ’Terry this is your big chance - Athol is watching and depending on you - Can you do a man’s job and deliver? - now is your time’. I could not ignore this voice. I knew I must act and act decisively.

Later in life I studied electrical and electronic theory but at this point in my young life I only had a rudimentary understanding of basic electrical fundamentals. However this knowledge of insulators and conductors was enough. I quickly realised that the hide of the beast was more like an insulator than a conductor. What I needed and what I needed quickly was a conductor on the beast and ideally a conductor area that could provided a motivational imperative that was in the critical direction ie towards the truck.

Very quickly and under immense pressure I identified two excellent conductor areas. The first was the nose of the beast which by now was covered by a beautiful salty mucus as the beast was getting more and more agitated by the minute.

However I figured that the nose whilst providing an excellent electrical delivery site was going to give a result that would be in the wrong direction.

The second site was ideal, soft and moist. It would efficiently deliver the shock and hence the motivational imperative but most importantly the imperative would be in the correct direction. In addition the site was accessible from the safe distance of the other side of the railings.

Yes you guessed it, a nice hairless, pink and moist clacker was staring at me. There it was, all I had to do was reach in and lift up Beelzebub’s tail and carefully place the two six inch nails attached to the tickler onto this sensitive and ideal conductive site.

Without announcing my cunning plan which I fully expected to have spectacular results I moved swiftly to the implementation phase. Wow the results were beyond my young and impressionable imagination.

Beelzebub expressed his shock in several ways. Not only did he emit an unholy bellow from his mouth but every other orifice chimed in to produce an amazing effect including the desired directional motivation to go up the chute and into the Austin.

So far so good, I had delivered and as a result demonstrated my right to be a man in a mans world. I had demonstrated the mastery of man over beast in the environment of my dreams and in front of Athol. I was well chuffed.

Unfortunately my bask in glory was momentary as the directional motivation was significantly more than was required to simply get Beelzebub into the Austin.

As I stood at the bottom of the chute the sound of a bellowing and galloping Beelzebub was being overpowered by the yelling and scrambling sounds of Athol and Keith Roberts as they got out way of this 1 ton organic killer.

These sounds of success were quickly followed by an ungodly thump as the 1 ton of enraged Beelzebub hit the end of the truck. His immense kinetic energy propelled him upwards till his head went through the top of the crate and collapsed exhausted onto the top of the cabin of the Austin crushing the roof of the cabin.

The bellowing, swearing and scrambling noises continued without abatement as Athol and Keith somehow managed to push the forequarters of Beelzebub back into the crate.

Beelzebub finally succumbed and stood panting with his head bowed in the crate which he had boldly resisted. Man had won and again shown mastery over beast.

When the kafuffle died down and the other 9 or so beasts (for some reason) complied and walked up the chute in the orderly fashion reminiscent of well trained class monitors It was then that Athol loomed larger that life in front of me.

Unsure of what to expect Athol used all his dramatic powers and drew the moment out. He carefully loaded his pipe, drew the matches and carefully lit up. After several settling puffs including a very relaxing long draw back he carefully removed the pipe from his mouth.

Holding the pipe with the stem pointing at me in the way a good tutor uses a pointer to make a critical point, he fixed his gaze carefully on me.

Then shifting his weight to his right leg he thought deeply and in his best western drawl and without moving his jaw he said, “Terry, I said in the f**king truck not through the f**king truck.

It was here that I learnt the importance of clearly understanding instructions.