20 Things That Seem Normal After Working on an Outback Cattle Station

We all want to do something exciting for our regional work right?

I was quite lucky with mine as I split it into two jobs with the first being on a race horse stud farm near the Gold Coast and the other half about about 5 months later on a cattle station in the outback about 700k inland from Townsville.

These are just some of the things that we’re considered normal everyday life whilst working on the station.

1. Your next door neighbour could be an hours drive away. No joke, the station we worked on was 167,000 acres. Next door was a million aces. Mental.

2. You get really suspicious or excited if you see another car around the property that you don’t recognise. You go weeks without seeing anyone else apart from the people on the station, next doors station and the mail man.

3. Goodbye phone signal.

4. Most nights you don’t need a torch if you’re walking around outside. The sky is so clear and the moon and stars illuminate everything around you, it’s incredible.

5. Sharing you bedroom with geckos, spiders, bird sized moths, birds and even bats is fairly normal. It’s also normal to have the milking cows try and break in too if you leave the gate open. They’re very cheeky.

6. Jeans, shirts, boots and an Akubra hat all day, everyday, every occasion.

7. You pick up some interesting Aussie lingo like “Huroo” is goodbye, “tucker” is food, “grog” is alcohol and “bloke” is used for any person no matter what gender.

8. It’s normal for an 11 year old to drive a vehicle and use a rifle. (I’m 23 and I don’t even drive yet)

9. It’s hard going back to “town milk” as they call it after drinking freshly milked milk for 2.5 months. It’s so creamy and sweet and it turns any standard bowl of cereal into a pudding. Best milkshakes ever.

10. The sound of busy traffic or a screaming baby can be deafening for hours on end, but you haven’t heard a noise quite like the sound of hundreds of bellowing cows and their calfs all day and night after camping out at the yards after a muster. I can almost still hear it 6 months later.



11. Poddys. This was my favourite out of the daily jobs on the station. So a poddy is a calf that is for some reason without it’s mother and is then hand fed and reared by us. When we were there they had the cheekiest little poddy who would head butt you until you gave him the bottle and then would chase you all around the homestead. He was the cutest, Such a character. We’d also see old poddys that we’re now grown cows that would come in from a muster and still recognise being called “pod” and would come up to people for cuddles, mega cute!

12. The outback road trains are ridiculous. They’re literally a train on the road. Duh, hence the name. But I can’t relive how long they are and how they bomb is down the dusty roads. I even witnessed an 8 carriage road train do a 6/7 point turn in the tiniest space. The drivers must have some serious skill.

13. The rodeos you see in the movies are exactly how they look and seem. Country music blaring, everyone dressed in their best jeans, shirts, shined boots and hats and all the girls with their “blingiest” belt buckles. I’m not a massive fan of making animals agitated for human entertainment but it was a grey atmosphere and experience to tick off the list. And the riders have some serious death wishes and skill level.
I in fact entered a bull riding competition. Except it was a mechanical bull. At least it couldn’t chase me when I fell off it and landed on my face in front of everyone, which was even more amusing because I was a pom and in my big colourful hippie pants. Fair to say I stuck out like a sore thumb.

14. 9pm is way past your bed time. They’re long old days and falling into bed it even more enjoyable after a busy day in the blistering sun.

15. The early morning bike rides up the road to run the working dogs was one of my favourite things. Although jumping on a bike for an hour or so at 6:30am doesn’t sound that appealing, being out in the bush with the sun coming up and a pack of loveable collie dogs is one of my favourite memories of station life.

16. On a big day of mustering (rounding up cattle and walking them back to the yards on horseback) hundreds of cattle, it’s fairly morning to be sat in the saddle for around 8 hours. I loved it as I’ve always ridden but my boyfriend found it difficult as he experienced this on his second ever time on a horse, poor guy.

17. You know you’ve been in the outback too long when you can recognise “stranger” cattle that have jumped the fence somewhere and have different brand marks or ear clips. Or even when you can recognise cow breeds when travelling in the arse end of nowhere in Asia. Cow nerd.

18. I got off the station maybe twice in the 2.5 months that I was there, so when I saw other civilisation that wasn’t our neighbour or the family on the station Id get really excited and almost forget how to act like a normal person.

19. Whilst out in the paddocks putting out lick or checking fences and water pumps, we would often come across herds of wild brumbies (wild horses). They were the most beautiful horses id ever seen galloping off into the bush. I was proper fan girling. The horse I rode for the mustering was half brumby which made her the bravest little horse that would literally walk through any bush, tree you name it. I’m covered in scars all over my legs thanks to her.

20. And finally, lighting a fire underneath the “donkey” (not an actual donkey, don’t freak out people) which was the tin barrel thing for the outside shower to hear up the water. The evenings got really cold towards mid July so a hot shower was a must every night, you just had to get a fire going a couple of hours before. Was worth it!

If you ever get the chance to work in the outback then do it. As hard as it was at times, it was an incredible, mind blowing experience I’ll remember for a lifetime.

Happy travels.