Sheep station stay gives family peek at old Australia

Stories by Brian J. Cantwell

The Seattle Times

THE GUMS, Queensland -- On a December

morning in the Australian bush, far from anything that would call itself a city,

I was transfixed as kangaroos bobbed across the dawn-rimmed horizon.

I'd never seen kangaroos in the

wild. The motion was unexpected. They didn't bounce -- boing, boing. They bounded,

propelled many yards at a time like an express elevator catapulting passengers

upward but leaving their stomachs in the lobby.

Beyond a few statuesque eucalyptus

trees, a mango sunrise promised blast-furnace heat in the day ahead.

Just then, functioning on a predawn

gulp of Nescafe and a gobble of Weet-a-Bix cereal, I forced my attention back

to the task at hand: monitoring a two-way radio glowing dimly on a farm truck's

dashboard. I was at the wheel, helping herd a flock of merino sheep 15 miles

across the bush for their annual shearing.

This was my introduction to work

life on a family-run sheep station, an adventurous taste of old Australia that

relatively few modern Australians experience, much less visitors from the States.

Early start

Some 90 minutes earlier I had awakened,

fumbled into work clothes and stepped into the moonlight outside our farm cottage.

I wasn't first up. An unseen figure

in the shadows spoke softly in a drawl thickened by 69 sunburned summers in

the bush: ''So, yer ready, then? Ah'll jest get the dogs.''

As I plopped into the passenger

seat of the ute (say ''yewt,'' the Aussie word for a work truck, Bill Huskisson,

the leather-skinned, hard-toiling owner of Wattle Downs Sheep Station, loaded

his sheep dogs in the back. Then he slid behind the wheel and drove us off to

start the workday.

Farm stays aren't hard to arrange

in Australia, but my family and I felt lucky to find our way to 5,750-acre Wattle

Downs, home to the Huskisson family and more than 3,000 sheep -- a modest spread

by Australian standards. It was much more a family farm than a tourist attraction.

Our visit immersed us in the interesting

culture and friendly people of rural Australia, a nation whose modern economy

was built on wool.

I gazed up at a full moon pinned

to a sequined sky. Bill, peering from under a brown slouch hat that rarely left

his head, pointed out the Southern Cross, the constellation on Australia's flag.

This morning we would move 613 sheep

-- ''if they're all there,'' he said with a rancher's cynicism -- from a remote

grazing land to the Wattle Downs shearing shed.

A blur of orange leapt across the

tunnel carved by our headlights. ''Fox,'' Bill noted without excitement. One

reason why the sheep might not all be there.

Starting roundup

Fifteen minutes farther along the

straight and empty road, far from any buildings, we unloaded Bill's dusty Honda

four-wheeler from the back of the ute. At road's edge, the sheep milled in a

pen where they'd spent the night after beginning this trek the previous day.

Bill and the dogs would herd the sheep along the road while I leapfrogged ahead

in the ute, stopping every half-mile and keeping an ear on the radio in case

Bill encountered trouble.

In the pre-dawn chill, the only

noise was the trill of awakening songbirds, the maaaah-ing of sheep and Bill's

frequent, throaty bellow of ''Hunt-er!'' to direct the lead dog.

Twenty minutes into the roundup,

Bill's daughter, Karen, and her 13-year-old daughter, Chantahl, drove along

the rust-colored road in their Australian-built Ford and joined me, offering

a welcome mug of coffee.

I savored the steaming brew and

looked to the sunrise as more kangaroos set the plain in motion like waves roiling

a calm sea.

This mustering of the sheep was

routine for the Huskissons, whose British forebears settled here 200 miles west

of Brisbane in 1913, five generations ago.

Chantahl, who has been driving utes

since she was 7, wants to be a veterinarian. As we kept the sheep moving, she

worked alongside her grandfather, leaping to help whenever they spotted a sick

sheep in the flock.

Chantahl would grab the animal by

a hind leg, and then she and Bill would hold it while I zipped into position

with the ute so they could trundle the sheep into a cage at the rear. ''Fly-blown''

was what they called the malady. It can happen when a sheep's thick wool becomes

moist, making it a hatching ground for flies and often leading to festering

sores and fever.

Four sheep soon occupied the truck's

cage. I took care not to jostle them as I drove.

As the rising sun warmed us at a

stop under a broad sapphire sky, Karen noted that a long drought had ended with

recent rains. A purple haze of wild verbena, long unseen, edged the road among

clumps of prickly pear cactus. ''And there's wild tobacco,'' she said, pointing

out the skyward-pointing white trumpets with a spicy scent.

Orphan wallaby

At a rustling in brush at the road's

edge, Karen paused and looked over her mirrored sunglasses.

''It might be two goannas fighting,''

she said, referring to the Australian monitor lizards that grow to more than

5 feet long.

Stepping over to investigate, she

spied a small fuzzy head.

''Oh, it's a little wallaby!''

A baby wallaby, the smaller cousin

to the kangaroo, had tangled itself in a fence. With no mother to be seen, Karen

bundled the animal into her arms. Chantahl ran from the car to wrap it in a

sweater while Karen, like an Australian Jane Goodall, agonized over what to

do with the animal.

''She seems well fed. I don't know

why she was on her own. She has soft feet, which means she hasn't been out of

the pouch very long -- their feet toughen up very quickly.''

Kangaroos and wallabies typically

don't leave their young unless chased by a predator, she said. ''So her mum

might be dead.''

Chantahl, cuddling the young animal,

pleaded, ''Oh, mum, let's keep her. What shall we name her?''

The wallaby went home to Wattle

Downs, where two orphaned kangaroos -- their mothers killed on the road -- already

were being bottle-fed every day in a pen on the lawn. (One sucks its finger

while the other is fed.

''When you raise them from babies,

all pink and soft, they really get to be like your own children,'' Karen told

me. ''They're sweet animals. If kids are taking a bath, they'll jump right into

the bathtub -- yahoo! -- or if they get into the kids' rooms, they'll jump up

on the bed as if to say, 'Let's play!' ''

Karen's other daughter, 8-year-old

Zarettha, named the newcomer Gingernut.

The sheep finally reached the Leichhardt

Highway, the narrow, straight two-lane blacktop marking the edge of Wattle Downs.

Road trains

Traffic is rare, but crossings call

for caution. The biggest threat: road trains.

Driving Australia's highways, I'd

learned to slow and edge to the side anytime we encountered one of the multiple-trailer

semirigs marked with a ''road train'' banner. Barreling across the outback,

the monster rigs' rear trailers sometimes wag like a dog's tail.

Sure enough, a truck appeared in

the far distance. It was a long time before we heard its rumble over the whisper

of wind, chirr of crickets and cawing of crows. We waited. Finally, the big

truck passed with a cyclonic whoosh.

Looking both ways again, Karen signaled

OK and we pushed the sheep safely across the pavement.

From there, the flock would follow

a muddy track unfit for the ute. It was time to get the horses.

''Hoy! Hoy! Hoy!'' Karen called

from the saddle of her bay mare as the sheep arrived at the shearing shed an

hour later.

Funneling the sheep into a pen seemed

the most work of all. My 10-year-old daughter, Lillian, and I helped on foot.

Her first time on a farm, she joined in with wide-eyed interest.

Mixed in with the hundreds of milling

sheep were some tiny lambs.

''There's a set of twins that's

probably 2 days old,'' Karen pointed out.

Lillian worried about the lambs

losing their mother but was reassured.

''The ewes know the scent of their

own milk, so they sniff the lamb at the nose and the bum and they can smell

the scent of their own milk going through the lamb,'' Karen said.

When the gate finally closed behind

the last sheep, we all caught our breath. It wasn't quite 9 a.m. With shearing

scheduled to start the next day, there remained plenty of chores at Wattle Downs.

Our adventure wasn't over.

But I'd been up since about — a.m.

My eyes felt hard-boiled. As a paying guest on the farm, I was allowed something

real farmers almost never get: a quick nap.

No trouble nodding off. Didn't need

to count sheep.

SIDEBAR:

Day in shearing

shed slice of real life

He was patient, to a point, but

I was costing the old man money, and that just wasn't right.

''Yer've still got two inches o'

wool there! Get right down to the skin!'' Australian sheep farmer Bill Huskisson

barked over the loud clacking of the electric shears as I tried my hand at shearing

a sheep at Wattle Downs Sheep Station.

My wife and daughter and I were

in the woolshed doing a practice run on one sheep and helping to sweep up in

preparation for a big event: the annual shearing week.

Wattle Downs is very much a working

sheep ranch; but when wool prices were depressed in the 1990s, the owners built

a couple of guest cottages to bring in extra income. We were there for the farm's

busiest time of year, shearing, which happens in early December.

The real action began at 7 a.m.

Monday when four professional shearers parked their trucks in the yard, tied

their dogs to the bumpers, walked into the woolshed and prepared for five frenzied

days of work.

Rod Steinohrt, Justin Cobb, Errol

Wissemann and Terry Arnold each offered a bone-crunching handshake and a jovial

''G'day!'' -- genuine, not bottled from some tourism campaign.

As helpers arrived, everyone was

introduced to everyone else in the shed, with handshakes and smiles all around.

Huskisson explained the routine.

They'd start precisely at 7:30 -- even in the bush, there are union rules --

and work two hours before a tea break. By 4:30 that afternoon, they would shear

about 500 sheep, keeping up that exhausting pace all week.

Sheep crowded holding pens at one

end of the shed. Huskisson pointed out slanting chutes next to each shearing

station that sheep would be scooted down once shorn.

''Down there, we call that the money

pit,'' he said dryly. ''At day's end, if there's nothing there, I don't make

any money, and'' -- with a meaningful look around at the shearers -- ''neither

do they!''

The shearers attached clippers to

long, jointed metal arms leading from electric motors mounted near the ceiling.

They slipped their feet into well-worn leather booties that laced tightly, with

no heels.

''If you wore shoes like that,''

said Arnold, pointing to my sports shoes, ''they'd wear out in a month of shearing,

because the oils get into them.''

''And with no heel, it's more comfortable

for the way we stand all day,'' added the wiry, scraggly-bearded Wissemann.

At precisely 7:30, one of the shearers

announced calmly, ''Well, I guess it's time.'' Each strode into the holding

pen, dragged a sheep out by its forelegs, bent down and started shearing. The

sheep rarely struggled. They've been through this many times.

Average shearing time: three minutes.

But that's on a workday like this. In competition, pros can whip fleece off

one of these heavily wooled merinos, the popular breed that makes up 80 percent

of the country's sheep, in less than half that time.

It sounded like a Marine Corps barber

shop. A radio chattered, but the shearers worked silently and furiously on the

sheep pinned between their shins.

One modern touch: Three shearers

used ceiling-mounted, spring-loaded slings they leaned into to ease back strain.

Even in the bush there are work hazards.

Each time a sheep was finished,

one of the crew would gather the armload of fleece and fling it in one piece

like a bedspread across a slatted table for a quick ''classing'' by length and

fineness of fiber before it was tossed into one of several bins.

Nearby, a baling machine waited

to compress the fleeces for shipping to market. Australia's best wool ends up

in expensive suits in Italy and Japan.

If anybody could forget this was

Australia, at 9:30 a.m. came the perfect reminder: tea break.

Everybody put down their shears

as Huskisson carried over a giant metal teapot. Loma Huskisson, Bill's wife,

sent in trays of sandwiches, cookies and dainty scones topped with jam and whipped

cream.

The tough, sinewy shearers all sat

on the floor and ate scones, munched sandwiches and sipped tea as they chatted

amiably.

They would put in a hard day. But

with moments like that, it was also a good day.

INFOBOX:

If you go ...

Wattle Downs Sheep Station is a

four-hour drive west of Brisbane, Australia, which is reachable by air via connecting

flights through Sydney.

Rates

Wattle Downs offers private cottages

with full meals for $148 Australian (about $79 U.S. per person per day (half-price

for children 3-12. Cottages have full kitchens; if you bring your own food

and cook your own meals, the nightly rate is $100 Australian (about $53 U.S.

per couple plus $20 (about $11 U.S. per extra person. Daily working-farm activities

and some guided outings included. Activities vary by season, but may include

feeding animals, gathering eggs, horse and pony riding, hiking, cycling, fishing,

wildlife viewing, swimming, stock work and more. Very child-friendly. Winner

of 1998 Queensland Tourism Awards for hosted accommodation; finalist in 1997,

1999 and 2000.

The farm has an excellent Web site,

www.wattledowns. com.au, which makes the place appear more polished than it

is. If you're looking for an authentic and down-to-earth farm stay with a nice

family, this is an excellent choice. If you're looking for luxury, consider

a beach resort.

Contact

Wattle Downs, The Gums, Queensland

4406, Australia. Phone 011-61-7-4665-9129 or e-mail Wattledowns@bigpond.com.

Exchange rate

Travel in Australia is an exceptional

bargain for U.S. visitors because of the favorable exchange rate. Currently,

$1 U.S. is worth about $1.87 in Australian currency.

Booking tips

Numerous farms offer farm stays,

including many on the Internet. See www.farmholidays.com.au, but select carefully;

many are primarily cattle ranches. Sheep stations offer the most traditional

Australian farm experience.

When to go

Sheep shearing time is an exciting

experience that few visitors get to witness. If a sheep station can accommodate

you at shearing (often around the beginning of December, it's a memorable event.

But it also can be an exhausting, busy time for the farming family.

For a more relaxed visit, enjoy

spring on a Queensland farm in October or November (the seasons are opposite

ours without uncomfortable heat. Avoid the hot and humid months of January

and February.

PHOTOS:REPLACING MOM: Karen

Huskisson feeds an orphaned baby wallaby on her family's sheep ranch in Queensland,

Australia.TAKE IT ALL OFF: Errol Wissemann, left, and Terry Arnold shear

sheep in yearly ritual.