Great Drovers.
Western Mail Thursday 15 October 1936

Dear "Non-Com.""Just-a-Mug's" recent reply to an item of Joe Waldeck's interested me greatly. Perhaps it was just coincidence that he referred to Joe's trip of the summer of '24, when he pointed out that droving even these days is no bed of roses. Strange to say, I was one that made that trip with Joe, and although his distance between waters, and the numbers lost do not coincide with what I remember of the trip, he could not have picked a better example to point his meaning. Perhaps some of your readers may be interested in the details, such as I remember them.

About November, 1923, Joe received a contract from two well known sheep dealers of that year, to shift 3,500 sheep from Marron station and 3,600 from Meedo. One of the clauses of the agreement was that the sheep were to be travelled in separate mobs, but together. Just what made the owners include this clause in the agreement has always been beyond my comprehension, and one can only sur-mise that the idea was to keep both mobs as nearly as possible under the direct control of the head drover.

The plants (one spring cart, one wag-gonette, about 30 saddle horses and the stockmen) left Carnarvon early in January 24 and proceeded to Marron station where the first mob was to be picked up.

Looking back on events now, the obvious route for the Marron sheep would have been across on to the Gascoyne, coming out on that river about The Junction and then by way of Dalry Creek to Mullewa, but on account of the agreement, these had to be travelled to Meedo (about 80 miles away, I think) to join up with the other mob.

Some might argue: Why not bring the Meedo sheep back to Marron and take both mobs that way? So it will be neces-sary here to explain part of the Droving Act. The Droving Act allows that when stock are travelling off a stock route, the stock must travel the nearest route to their destination, so it was not possible to bring the Meedo sheep to Marron, and the only route open was up the Warramel across Byro Plains, and on to the stock route in the vicinity of Byro station

Luck was against the Marron mob from the jump. We were lucky if we watered every second day on our trip to Meedo and furthermore, the mob was poor.

Arrival at Meedo found that mob not ready and a wait of about ten days occurred. From Meedo the trip was uneventful as far as Meedo boundary, but once reaching there we had a 40-mile lead to the next water (Calatharra Springs). A start was made late in the evening after giving each mob nearly a whole day on the water, and one mob travelled 24 hours behind the other. Over this stage my impressions (in the main) must be confined to the last mob, which I was with.

Meedo Pool (just a series of kangaroo soaks) was reached the following evening, and here a bit of a soak was dug and we managed to give our horses a drink by placing a blanket in the sand. The next night saw us about nine miles further on and by that time we had been 2and half days without water for the sheep. We dragged a hollowed out gum log about a mile and dug a small well on the site of an old pool, and attempted to water the worst of the mob here, but they crowded the well so much that it was soon filled in and we had to desist.

The next day saw us still struggling on. The sheep were in a bad way by this time and we had decided on an all night drive. The horse tailer of our outfit was to have met us on the lunch camp, and with his extra help we had decided to leave our lunch camp late in the evening and by pushing the mob all night, and in the cool of the morning, to possibly reach Calatharra before the heat of the next day.

The horse tailer had come back and we were just pushing the sheep off camp, when one of those small isolated thunder storms broke over us, and for about 20 minutes we had a deluge. Luckily for us, having the extra help of the horse tailer, and having our sheep in a compact mob (just off dinner camp), we were able to hold them till they got a drink. The other mob was not so lucky. They were already on the move, were strung out, and were in rough and broken ground. When the storm broke they got out of hand, and darkness found most of the mob gone. The dingoes did the rest during the night and next morning found the mob so scattered that in spite of four days' hard riding, nearly a thousand were never found.

Calatharra was eventually reached, and from there we had a 16-mile stretch to the Byro Plains bore for water, but owing to the water in the tanks being low only the first mob could get a drink and the second mob had to do a further eight miles to water. So it will be seen that instead of "J.A.M.'s" water every 10 or 12 miles, one mob, with the exception of the thunderstorm, actually did 64 miles on the one water.

That trip was a chapter of accidents, "Non-Com." Both carts broke down, and the wagonette did nearly 40 miles on three wheels. A long pole was placed under the back axle and allowed to ride on the fore carriage of the waggonette. This took the weight of the broken back wheel and that's how we got along.

Between Byro bore and Jailor outcamp (on Narryer) there lies all that remains of 27 horses that left Carnarvon in the pink of condition. Old favourites, mostly gathered as far north as the Ninety-Mile Beach and as far south as Mullewa. It was only through the generosity of the Narryer people that more horses were procured and the trip continued once more.

The troubles were still not over, even though we were now on the stock route. On account of the two mobs being so close together, well after well was forked. In some cases the first mob had to pull away from a well half watered in order to leave water for the mob behind. However the mobs did get through, and I believe the losses amounted to a little over a thousand sheep, including the number lost on the Worramel.

"J.A.M." asked which of these men should be "King." A review of names passes through my mind too long for mention here, but including such men as Alf Cream, Charlie James, Wattie Pearce, Bob Redmond, the Troy Brothers, Ted Kayes and a host of others. They are hard to separate, and to my way of thinking they were all "Kings," and they showed it in their capacity to battle with adversity when their turn of bad luck came.

To see half your mob dead of poison, or to see your weakening stock dropping out day by day on a stock route bare of feed, is enough to break the heart of any ordinary mortal, but as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks to months, with all chances of a profit being made from the trip gone, and the wages and stores bill reaching alarming proportions, they deserve credit that they "carried on."

And yet I fear it will always be so. Just as long as there are stock routes and the mobs come down, that "old gang" will ever gamble their chances with poor stock on difficult routes, and if from time to time the luck is against them, they leave behind those sunbleached bones, holding up a warning hand to the men that follow on.

SHORTHORN, Meekatharra. .