Outback Parable

'Outback Australia' Published by Lonely Planet

As the plane touched down at Alice Springs airport, my sister and I were both captivated by the vastness of seemingly endless red, dusty earth. The airport’s landing strip was like in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by low-lying scrubs and red earth. We made our way to Uluru from the Alice on a small bus and during the few nights in the outback, we slept in tents, rolled on insect repellent numerous times and tried playing the didgeridoo around the campfire one night. This was 1996, when I’d just finished high school and was enjoying a well-deserved break before university life was to begin in a couple of months time for me.

A friend of mine, Gwen, not only spent some time in the outback, she spent a small chunk of her life there, growing up in Yulara, near Uluru – which is literally in the middle of nowhere, in the desert. Alice Springs, the nearest town with a hospital was some nearly 400 kilometres away by road. However, I always like listening to her talk about her experiences as a young teenager living there, ‘attending’ correspondence school and communicating with her teachers in Darwin via phone and how she'd cycle around everywhere simply using Uluru and the Olgas as her compass.

Australia is a big country but a third of it is also covered in seemingly inhospitable desert and scrubland. When I think of the outback, I think of red earth, of desert, of sand, of searing desert heat, of dusty roads and road trains, of Aboriginals and of course, of cattle, cattle stations and jackaroos. I also think of blundstones and R M Williams but I won’t go into that. But if there’s anything that has stuck in my mind after all these years, it is the vast expanse of land, of red dust and earth. No wonder they call this the Great Southern Land.

As my parents head off on their 11-day outback trip to Uluru and Alice Springs early tomorrow morning by coach, I thought it’d be fitting to share this parable I’d once read and heard in various shapes and forms involving this particular part of Australia. This version was taken from Ashley Barker and John Hayes’s book ‘Submerge’, albeit with some paraphrasing. I hope you find it interesting. Those of you inclined might want to try and suss out what the parable could be about or simply take out of it what you can get.

The Parable - Deep Wells versus Fences

Some years back, so the story goes, there was a successful, independent Californian farmer who had pioneered numerous industry-acclaimed practices, from water conservation, to feed management, to specially designed fences. His success was the envy of his peers and, of course, of great interest to the multinational livestock companies.

Made an attractive offer by a multinational livestock company, he became a global consultant and his first consulting project was to travel to the Northern Territory in Australia to evaluate a large cattle station recently purchased by the multinational company he now worked for.

After leaving customs at Darwin airport, the Californian was greeted by a 50-something, leather-faced man with thinning, light ginger hair. Before long, the two were on their way, heading out of Darwin and toward the cattle station.

“How far to the farm?” asked the Californian.
“About 12 hours,” replied the Australian.

The ride out to the cattle station was uneventful. The Californian’s eyelids grew heavy as the light, red sand and a long, straight, dusty road sped past.

“Right,” said the Australian after 6 hours, “we’re here.”
“I thought you said it was 12 hours,” said the Californian.
“Oh, mate, that’s to the homestead. It’s another six hours till we get there. But we’ve just entered the property. Now,” he continued, “tell me what you know about your experiences with similar cattle stations around this size.”

The Californian started to inspect his fingernails. How was he to know how to improve a farm which was half the size of California? With his experience in custom-designed and built fences, he decided to shift the focus and ask some questions of his own.

“Tell me,” he asked. “If you have 100,000 head of cattle, where are the fences? I mean, how many would you lose a year?”

“Oh, mate,” the Australian replied, “don’t you go back and tell your boss that we have to build fences out here. That’d be crazy. You’d kill people building fences out here. Anyway, we don’t need them.”

“Really? Why?” asked the Californian.

The Australian stopped the 4WD by the side of the road and looked at his Californian colleague-cum-consultant.

“Well, the reason we don’t need fences out here is that we have deep wells. The deep wells provide a constant source of water out here. The cattle don’t stray because we find the underground springs and put a windmill on it to suck up the water. The cattle don’t wander off because they know where to come to if they’re gonna survive. It’s better, mate, to dig deep wells for fresh water than to try and build thousands of kilometres of fences to keep them in. So don’t even think of recommending to your boss that we need to put fences around this cattle station. Otherwise, you can get out here right now and walk to the homestead.”

(Jackaroo and cattle station photos sourced from R M Williams website)