Governess on a Sheep Station in the Outback - Episode 4
A normal day! by Chris Chalmers
  Article # 493 Article Type: Literature

The day usually started quite early in the morning, at dawn or just before, and only because in the Summer this was the coolest time, the time when energy flowed a little faster than later in the day, when all I wanted to do was curl up in the shade and sleep!

Very early mornings in the bush are delightful, the birds are singing their heads off, Magpies have the prettiest song, very melodic and not at all like normal bird noise.
Parrots, and in particular Cockatoos and Galahs are raucous – extremely raucous, and argue and play like tumbling clowns who can’t find their red noses. As birds who bond for life, the behaviour between pairs is delightful to watch, and they preen and clean, feed each other and generally carry on like an old married couple – and waddle with such aplomb when they are feeding on the ground – one always with an eye to see that no harm is near.

The air is so clear and cool, before the heat makes it shimmer, and induces little ‘whilli-whillies’, like miniature tornadoes in reverse, just the action of super hot air rising into a spiral and picking up dead grass and leaves to dance them around and then place them back in a new heap.

The smells from the kitchen were always mouthwatering – everyone started the day with a big hot meal, and it was very common to be eating lamb or mutton chops, eggs and potatoes after porridge. The day started early for the ringers, and they would not eat much in the middle of the day beside damper, bread made in a camp fire, not unlike soda bread, tasty – with simple flour, water and baking powder. Maybe some cold meat in a bag would accompany this – but if it was really hot and they were busy, it would be a cup of billy tea, made by boiling water in a billy tin over the fire, throwing a handful of tea leaves onto the top of the water as it came to the boil, accompanied by a leaf or two to keep the taste of the smoke out of the tea – then after it had boiled for a minute or two, swinging the billy full of tea around your head in great arcs to settle the tea leaves to the bottom. This delicious drink was always taken in enamelled mugs, and liberally sweetened by tinned condensed milk. I can still taste that tea – and the hot damper that usually came with it – if you were lucky there was Golden Syrup to go on the damper.

There were some men hired as Boundary Riders. The place was 240000 acres, and had miles and miles of fencing, not to keep the sheep in, but to keep dingoes and kangaroos out. Dingoes are the wild dogs that are the scourge of all stock, they roam in packs and can wreak havoc when they decide to feed. The kangaroos eat the grass right down to the root, so short that it won’t regrow afterwards, thus adding to the desert conditions.

These Boundary Riders would live solitary lives, and were usually men who couldn’t cope with life in society, but actually enjoyed the life they chose. They would ride all day, checking the fence and repairing it when necessary. They may have had an aboriginal wife who was happy to camp out with them, and they only came in to the house every six to eight weeks to pick up essential supplies like tea and sugar and flour and tobacco – and were always keen to get back to their world.

After breakfast we would get ready for a school day, and if we were unlucky enough not to have the mail truck due, or someone else visiting, or Mrs playing up, we could count on getting some work done. The day soon passed, morning tea break was taken on the verandah with whoever was home, tea and sandwiches and cake – half an hour of socialising then back to work. Lunch was more civilised, and was usually cold meats and salads, or a pie or some sort, followed by dessert left over from the evening before, sherry trifle, apple crumble or some such thing, steamed puddings and custard studded with dates or sultanas. Two more hours of work, and by now being weighed down by the combination of food and the heat – the lazy sounds of afternoon, the cicadas humming, the lazy twittering of birds just awake, and the flies constant buzz outside the screening.

Three o’clock always brought delight to my pupil – and I tried to always end the day with something easy, so as to be able to praise us both for getting through another session.

Afternoon tea on the verandah was a cold drink and biscuits – and then a scurry to get changed into riding clothes and get out for a while on the horses. In the beginning these afternoon rides were delightful, so quiet, exploring the dried river bed – trying to identify all the different gum trees – but as the drought wore on, and the summer got hotter it became more a mission of mercy.

The kangaroos were getting so thin because they had cleared all the feed around the place, they would come up against a fence and not be able to jump it as they usually could – but lie there, dejected, dying, sometimes with their eyes already picked out by the crows – and we did the only thing we could, and went every afternoon after school and put them out of their misery.

Some afternoons it would be so hot that the boss would declare a half holiday, and ask if anyone would like to go fishing – of course we did, and on the first occasion I was a bit bemused when he said all I needed was a stick and a bucket!

We drove down to the waterhole that was all that was left in the river – this mighty river reduced to a string of big puddles – and waded in to knee deep water. He then showed me how to stir the water with the stick, so that the fish had to come to the surface to breathe because of all the silt disturbed – and then how to hit them on the head with the stick, and put them in the bucket. We returned to the house, and that is where I learned how to clean and gut a fish – and those black bream were so sweet!

 Back to List | First | Previous | Next | Last