DROVING was an essential step in the development of the pastoral industry in northern Australia. The driving of cattle on horseback first began in the 1880s when European settlers drove the first herds into the outback.
The Durack family were among the early pioneers, droving from Queensland clear across to Western Australia. The industry flourished as the likes of the Farquharsons, the Gordon brothers and Blake Miller explored and developed more accessible stock routes.
Thanks to the determination and initiative of these early drovers, the Murranji Track and the Barkly Tableland stock routes soon cut months of rough travel through the Gulf of Carpentaria.
As cattle stations were developed and stock numbers increased, so too did the number of drovers.
Drovers finished the year at the tail end of the dry season. Needing to spell their horses and take a well-earned rest over the wet, many began to settle with their families in the small town of Camooweal.
Ideally located at the centre of north-western stock routes, Camooweal eventually boasted a good town common to spell the horses, and a post office, store and the essential pubs in other words, all that was needed for the outback drovers in their off season.
There were plenty of stations around for work over the wet season to keep bread and butter on the table.
The drovers would nervously wait for the wet to come, sometimes having to walk their horses out to better feed and water. They knew if the wet were light or never came, mobs would be scarce and money would be tight.
Generous shopkeepers such as Cronin and Freckleton would let the families 'book up' supplies over the wet, expecting payment with the delivery of the first mob.
As the wet season finished and waterways started to dry back, the drovers would chase up, by foul means or fair, droving contracts with the various stations and companies.
They would grease their packs and saddles or service their little camp truck/cart and look for men.
Pic Willetts has high praise for the many Aboriginal people who worked for him over the years.
"The older fellas were brought up in stock camps on the stations so they had good horse and cattle sense. They were great bush men and would handle tough conditions. They would be there at the end," he said.
Up to 1000 horses could be yarded after the wet on Camooweal's common in the height of the droving era in the mid-1940s. After the long spell on the common, there would be much heckling and argument about ownership as the horses were mustered for the start of the season.
A good plant of horses was a drover's best asset and it needed a combination of quiet "night" horses and fit young animals able to withstand the long miles ahead.
Quiet pack horses and horses to pull the carts or wagons were at a premium, especially if mum and kids had to travel with the drovers. The horses would be checked for soundness and shod, long tails and manes were pulled, and neck straps and hobbles sorted out.
Women and children would gather their meagre belongings and follow their men as they trudged out to the big runs to take delivery of mobs (1250 - 1500 head) to drive south once again. Some women with school age children would stay behind to spend many lonely months in their camps or houses. Edna Jessop once told me, "Gawd, my mother was such a tough old bugger. She reared all us kids out in the bush on her own while Dad was away droving. Beats me how she did it."
Pic Willetts came to Camooweal in 1947 as a youngster and fell in love with the carefree life of the drover.
"There is nothing better than hitting the road with a top plant of fresh horses and full packs. You are your own boss and every day brings fresh country and all the wonders of nature appear before your eyes as you walk the routes," he said.
Pic Willetts' third droving trip was with boss drover Laurie Troy in 1948. They drove 1,250 steers from Rockhampton Downs to Walgett with a team of three men with the cattle (this changed as men pulled out and new ones came in their place), Troy's wife as cook and a horse tailer with a plant of 30 horses and a small camp truck.
It was a very dry year and sometimes they would have to take the cattle through country with no grass for up to six or seven days. The horse tailer Jacky Saville would take the plant on to better country. Once when he was supposed to be tailing them on a bit of stubble he fell asleep and the plant cleared out. Upon realising his mistake, Saville also cleared out, fearful for his life, as Laurie Troy was a violent man!
When the plant never arrived that night at camp, Troy made a decision in the morning to go back while Pic and the other men took the mob on. Troy found most of them and a Norman Paine, manager of Roxborough Downs station, found the rest and put them in the horse paddock for the drover to pick up on his way back home.
They arrived in Walgett after 28 weeks and three days in the saddle and 18 head of cattle short in the count, most of which had been killed for meat supplies on the journey. They had survived on a basic diet of meat, damper, a few spuds and onions, rice, tea, sugar and plenty of salt.
Long days in the saddle started at 5am in the morning and finished with every man doing his share of "night watch" - keeping the cattle together during the night. Once the cattle were delivered there were no trucks to take them home.
Instead they faced the long journey back up the stock routes with their tired horse plant. Flooded rivers, picking up lost horses and buying (or sometimes "finding"!) new ones made for a slow trip home to Camooweal.
As cattle numbers grew in the North, stock route bores were sunk; dipping yards built, stock inspectors employed to control tick and quarantine "crook" mobs and bore maintenance blokes kept bores and troughs going.
Drover Pic Willetts estimates that as a boss drover he drove over 100,000 head of cattle between 1952 and 1995. This would be roughly equivalent to 700 triple road trains of cattle! Without the drovers to move cattle to as far away as Walgett in New South Wales (a distance of 1955km by bitumen road!) the northern cattle owners would have had limited access to markets.
However by the mid-1950s trucks were starting to be used by some companies as a preferred mode of transport for fat cattle and bulls. Droving reduced its territory. Instead of the long treks covering thousands of kilometres, drovers herded the cattle on shorter routes to the waiting trucks and trains that could cover the distance in much quicker time.
As the road trains took over, the drovers began to vanish. A small number of drovers still operate today. Modern camps, horse trucks and the addition of motor bikes, dogs and grain fed horses make it a much easier life.
