Nutwood Downs part 2

Hi to all,

We left Nutwood Downs about a week ago and have just arrived in Darwin. Here are some further impressions of the very interesting six weeks we spent there.

Last email I described the process of mustering the cattle. The ultimate purpose is to load them into roadtrains for transport to Darwin then live export to Indonesia. Below are the steps to load the roadtrains.

The cattle are mustered from very large paddocks into the cattle yards. You can see a long line moving right to left in the distance and the group of stragglers in the foreground are being pushed along by the bullcatchers (which you can't see).

This is Starkvale, one of three cattle yards. It is almost empty because we just loaded 2 roadtrains (12 decks). In the top left you may just be able to see cattle. The main gates are here. Cattle are pushed in an anticlockwise direction down the left side through a series of gates to the front left hand corner then into a “pound” just under the small tree in the centre. Cattle can be drafted in several directions from the pound, the majority in single file up the narrow ramp towards the road train which is just behind the camera.

Cattle are drafted about 10 at a time into the pound and then sent through one of several gates. Some cattle can get very anxious and charge at speed looking for a way of escape.

The work is very skilled and requires quick reflexes

It gets extremely dusty.

Up the race into the blue and yellow road train.

They talk about the number of decks, so this road train has six decks and will carry about 150 cattle, depending on size of the cattle.

Nutwood Downs has certainly been a different experience for us - the remoteness, the climate, the way of life, the dust, the dogs (there must be about 7 of them which are let off the chain at different times during the day. Some of them are stupid big pups which jump up on you as you walk past).

Not to mention the cane toads. Hundreds of them come out at night and as I (Lee) walk to the toilets or shower with the torch, they hop out of the way – or just sit defiantly. As I was pulling my washing out of the machine the other day, I noticed something moving, and sure enough, it was a small cane toad – a lighter shade of brown than usual, but still moving!

One good thing about the cane toads – the highly poisonous brown snakes like to eat them, and of course the poison in the cane toads kills the snakes, so there aren't as many brown snakes around !!! There have been several sightings of snakes around the house – William killed one the other day, but the others got away. The numbers of snakes and spiders increases dramatically during the wet season as more and more of them seek the high ground around the house – sounds inviting, doesn't it ?

Having the noisy generator going 24/7 has been another different experience for us. The generator died one day and had to be replaced. Backup No 1 was also out and backup 2 was too small, so they had to fork lift an old one in from the workshop. The power supply is not consistent, there are many surges of power and flickering of lights – the microwave in our Van has "chucked a hizzy fit" and seems to be gaining a couple of hours a day – it can't cope with the irregular power supply.

School work has progressed well. Lee's student had to design an experiment to drop a raw egg from 2 metres without breaking it. With many hints from Lee, he succeeded. Peter's student went to Darwin the day we left for seven days Senior residential School. He was really looking forward to the social interraction with his classmates

Of course all the meat is locally produced, how many ways can you cook beef? We also had pork and there are chooks as well. This photo is outside the kitchen, the big white box is the walk-in coolroom.

A couple of quick comments to conclude. The Hodgson River runs through the property. It has a huge flow in the wet season. When it is flooded the only way out is by helicopter. For the rest of the year the river quickly

subsides and all that remains are waterholes at several places. The Hodgson drains north into the Roper River, which flows east to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Nutwood Downs was one of a string of stations owned by (British) Lord Vesty till the family bought it in 1986.

There are usually three or more Aboriginal stockmen. Their tribal area extends to Roper River and Ngukurr in the north, where CMS has just celebrated 100 years of missionary work and church support. The stockmen live on the station or at an Aboriginal settlement at Hodgson River (an Aboriginal owned cattle station), immediately north of Nutwood Downs. Hodgson River has a community store, school, nurse and police station. Aboriginal people also own Cox's River to the east. Unfortunately, neither station is running anywhere near its potential.

We really enjoyed our time with this family and other staff at Nutwood Downs. Our two students were delightful. The weather and the dusty conditions were trying, especially as it got hotter at the end of our time. Overall another memorable VISE experience.

God bless,

Peter and Lee Caspersonn.