I vividly remember this one youtube video of calf branding my dad showed me as he tried to talk me out of going to Australia to work.  I watched the poor calf as it struggled against the people working on him, dehorning, branding, and castrating him.  I tried to hide my distaste from my dad so as not to let him see that his scare tactic was working.  I told him, “Well, I just won’t get a job doing stuff like that.”

Months later I find myself with calf bloodstains across my jeans.

When I first arrived in Australia, I met a group of other young adults, most of whom were from Europe or the UK, in my training group at VisitOz Australian Working Adventures.  We were all signed up for the same week of training before going off to our own jobs.  After a weekend to relax and get over our jetlag in beautiful beachtown, Noosa, we packed up our rucksacks for our outback farm training.

That first week of training with my group included a lot of learning.  We learned how to repair, assemble, and tear down fences.  We learned to drive manual motorbikes, quad-bikes, and tractors.  We cleaned a lot of horse stalls and paddocks.  We tried, and mostly failed, to crack a whip.  We became accustomed to the frequent swearing Aussies are known for.  And, my favorite, we learned to horseback ride Aussie-style.  That week of struggling to catch on, scarfing down our meals, and sweating through the midday sun brought my group closer together than I thought possible.  A week before, we were strangers in far apart countries, but by the end we were such good friends that I still keep in touch with some of them.

After training week, I took a mustering job on a cattle station (known in America as a ranch) in central Queensland.  I took a train to Blackwater, Queensland, named because of the coal industry in the town.  I arrived to my new home, Yarrawonga Station.  I worked for Fernie Cattle Company, a 45,000 acre, 6000 cattle operation with 4 to 5 people working on it.  Work started at 7am every morning, sometimes Sundays too.  Jobs usually fell into one of three categories fencing, drafting, or mustering.

Fencing probably made up the majority of the work I did.  The process started with driving out to the woods, where we cut down rosewood trees to make into the posts.  Next was the loading and transport to the fence location.  Then we, with the help of a tractor, dug 3-foot-deep holes every 10 meters for the length of the fence (this was probably the most exhausting part).  Posts were dropped into the holes, and filled back in with dirt.  Next we bored holes through the posts for the barbed wire.  Finally, we strung the wire through the posts and completed the fence.

Drafting and branding were the next most common jobs.  Drafting is the process of sorting out cattle in a maze of “yards.”  We would herd about 4 at a time into a small yard with many gates to the surrounding yards.  Then we would sort them into different yards based on characteristics like size, sex, or age.  Sometimes the purpose of drafting was to isolate the calves for branding.  If that was the case, next we herded the calves down a narrow laneway, only one calf wide.  At the end of the laneway was a metal contraption ironically called the “cradle.”  The purpose of the cradle was to catch a calf when we let it run out of the laneway.  The two metal sides would be pressed together when the calf tried to run through, and a zip-tie mechanism held it tight.  The cradle dropped down so the calf was on its side and we would get to work.  And here we have the very job I said I’d never do.  My job was ear marking and holding the animal’s head still for dehorning.  It’s amazing the things you can find yourself capable of when the situation demands it.

Last, but not least, my favorite job: mustering.  Mustering days started early and ended late, but most hours of the day were spent in the saddle so that was alright with me.  This is the kind of job you think of when you think of a cowboy.  The five of us working would load up the horses and drive to the property we were working on for the day.  We would then unload the horses and ride out to the paddock with the cattle we wanted.  As a group, we pushed the scattered herd together into a “mob” and then walked the mob to our destination.  One day we were still on horseback until 10:00 at night in the pitch black.  I’ll never forget the crystal clear view we had of the milky way that night.  Once the cattle were secured in a yard or paddock, we would head home for a well deserved night of rest.

This job was one of the best experiences of my life.  I learned tough lessons like how to be yelled at by your boss and how to do manual labor for hours without complaint.  I learned I am capable of way more than I had imagined, and that I can take care of myself and hold a real job.  I loved my time in the outback and I will always remember it fondly.