KEY POINTS:
"Stand back from the rails old cobber, or you'll spook the colt." I quickly retreat behind a tree as wily old Bill Hayes slowly subdues the wide-eyed, strutting, snorting, bucking beast in the corral.
The sleek, grey body is quivering with fear and confusion as the colt circles the corral under Bill's steady hand.
Mercifully, Aussie stockmen don't use the breaking in techniques of old these days. Stock horses are soothed, stroked and whispered into obedience. Mind power and gentle persuasion have replaced force and fury.
So, remarkably quickly, it's, "Open the gate, matey, we'll take him out for his first trail ride in the scrub."
I rush forward to complete my first authentic cattle station chore. The heavy gate is spring loaded and I find myself pinned helplessly like a possum in a trap.
I have come to Ooraminna Homestead and Camp, in heartland Australia, for a taste of Outback life. It's a 30-minute bucking, bouncing ride down Old South Road out of Alice Springs.
I announce my arrival with a spectacular cloud of dust. But the grand entrance is an anticlimax - Ooraminna is deserted.
It slowly dawns on me that this is the film set; a replica town built to recreate the pioneer era for the film, The Drover's Boy, which was abandoned before shooting began because of funding difficulties. It is now used as an occasional venue for functions.
I nose my 4WD vehicle around a sandy track and find the real Ooraminna Homestead nestled under a rocky crag. All around is fiery red spinifex desert shimmering in the noonday sun.
Prue, the duty manager, directs me to the old police station and jailhouse, originally part of the film set. It's a three-star lockup with crisp white sheets and an ensuite. Doing time was never so good.
Ooraminna Homestead and Camp is an innovative tourism venture created by Jan and Bill Hayes, the fourth generation owners of Deepwell Station, which has the distinction of being the oldest Northern Territory property still owned by descendents of the original settlers.
Pioneers William and Mary Hayes were one of Alice Springs' first families. They arrived here in 1884 with horses and bullock teams loaded with steel telegraph poles, to replace the original wooden poles on the Darwin-Adelaide overland telegraph line.
Jan and Bill farmed beef successfully until the 1990s, when a sustained drought took its toll and the decision was made to diversify into tourism. Today they run cattle on a mere 182,110ha, which is classified as a small holding in the Territory. This is the sort of country where a 100km drive through scrubby desert makes you a next door neighbour.
Jan was a Melbourne city girl, who first came to Alice Springs on a working holiday. "All the boys were very shy back then," she recalls.
"Bill was a local lad with hayseeds in his hair, more at home with stock horses than with living room conversation."
But his conversation can't have been too bad because the couple now have a tribe of grandchildren. "If they'd told me how lovely grandchildren are, I'd have had them first."
Bill has had a lifelong passion for horses and cattle and is a mine of information on station life. He concentrates on the tourism side now, assisted by son-in-law Sal, who runs the Station Tour in the informative, down-to-earth manner of this part of the country.
For a big-boned man, Sal's movements are remarkably quick and efficient. He is not the stereotypical slow-talking, laconic Marlborough Man, with a bulldust squint and a weathered, leathery face, as old as the Outback. But the handshake is firm and welcoming as I greet him and ask what draws him to the bush.
"The beauty of the Outback is that we still have no word for tomorrow. If we can't get it done today we'll just do it later." He says he gets the job of dealing with tourists because "They reckon I've got the gift of the gab".
He's certainly got a fund of entertaining yarns. "A lot of the Europeans ask if they can hang over the back fence and feed the cattle with hay. They're shocked when I tell them it'll take two hours to drive out and see them. Each of our paddocks is the size of a New Zealand dairy farm.
"We run one male to 30 females on the farm. That's what first attracted me here.
"One of the questions I get asked is 'what colour is the wind?' The answer is 'it's blew all day."'
"What's a steer? It's a male that's had an operation to change his way of thinking from ass to grass."
To the layman all this desert country appears barren and unproductive. The cattle are put in the spinifex grass for up to 12 months then rotated through the heavily wooded areas, shrubland and sparse grasslands in a surprisingly systematic way.
Remarkably, the ironwood and acacia trees yield up to 38 per cent protein when they are flowering, so the cattle are in prime condition on the desiccated plains. Rainfall is spasmodic but one sustained shower can bring the pasture springing back. New life erupts so suddenly it's as if a switch is thrown and green shoots thrust up before your eyes.
In the absence of fences, ingenious ways of controlling the herd have been devised. Cattle will normally walk no more than 5km in any direction from a water source, naturally gravitating towards their own trough. Bores are sunk at 10km intervals, effectively confining the herd to one specific locality.
When a stock muster is required, one-way steel gates are rigged around each water trough enclosure. Within a few days virtually all the stock have returned to the water supply and are secured within the enclosure. Kiwis don't have a monopoly on the No.8 wire syndrome.
Sal takes time to reflect on the bush lifestyle. "My children are the luckiest in the world. They have all the trappings of town in Alice, but can come out here and ride horses with complete freedom. It's a great lifestyle."
He remembers one visitor who was overawed with the beauty, isolation and expansiveness of the desert region. The visitor turned to a young boy and said, "What's the best thing about living out here Luke?" The answer came back in a flash, "My PlayStation!"
I join the Hayes family for an evening meal on the homestead patio. Shadows lengthen among the red rock outcrops of the painted desert. The sky becomes a canvas of vivid colour as the sun's golden orb sinks out of view.
I sit on the porch and savour the fresh desert air. There is absolute peace and stillness within this sheltered rock-strewn basin.
Blood red outcrops that earlier rose up like ruined citadels are now dark, looming silhouettes in the twilight. I listen to the sounds of silence and feel the magic and mystique of the desert.
The night sky is filled with myriad needle-sharp stars. The Southern Cross is in its appointed place, reminding me of home. I'm beginning to understand the true nature of the Outback.
* Paul Rush travelled to Ooraminna courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory.
GETTING THERE
Ooraminna Homestead and Bush Camp is 30km south of Alice Springs on the Old South Road. Take the airport turnoff and continue past the airstrip on a gravel road (4WD recommended).
ACCOMMODATION
The bush cabins have four-poster beds, are comfortably furnished and spotlessly clean. A veranda provides for complete relaxation in a natural desert setting.
ACTIVITIES
Regular Sounds of the Outback dinners are held under brilliant starry skies. Cattle station tours give an insight into farming methods, flora and fauna and landforms. Sleeping outdoors in a genuine Aussie swag is an option.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Ooraminna is on the web at www.Ooraminnahomestead.com.au. Information about Northern Territory is at www.tourismnt.com.au.
