Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), Monday 13 July 1903, page 6


A PASTORAL TRIP.

WESTERN QUEENSLAND

[By Julius Grunike.]

No. IV. —Fine Cattle Country.—

There is probably no finer stretch of cattle fattening country to be found anywhere to-day in Australia than along the Georgina River, in western Queensland. All the way

south from Bedourie, through Cluny. Glen gyle, Dubbo Downs, Kallidiwarry, and Annandale Stations, for miles on each side of the river, are to be seen vast plains covered with magnificent grass. Hundreds of square miles of this country have been flooded by the King, Georgina, and Mulli-gan Rivers. and now that the water is dry-ing up a splendid growth of feed is covering the ground. For miles in places the coun-try appears to be as level as a table, and is covered with a dense crop of clover a foot to two feet in height. This clover makes capital hay, and on some stations are to be seen stacks of it stored for future use. At Cluny Station Mr. Field has a well built stack of about 60 tons in capital condi-tion, and at Currawilla, on the Diamantina, and at Dubbo Downs, similar provision has been made. As horsefeed costs anything up to £20 a ton delivered on the stations in dry seasons; and as this clover hay can be had for the mere cost of the labour employ-ed, it is good business to stack it for the lean years. —Feed in Plenty but Cattle Scarce — Turning southward from Cluny, after a few miles we pass the junction of the King and Georgina Rivers, and enter the Glengyle Run, owned by Mr. McGregor, of Melbourne, and managed by Mr. A. W. Piper. The run comprises some 800 square miles, and has on it about 1,200 cattle, all in splendid condition, mostly breeders and young cattle. About 300 fats have just been sent to the Adelaide market. This run, like most others un this way, is at present much understocked, and the one regret expressed on every side is that there are not more animals available to be fat-tened on this country, to enable the owners to convert into cash the feed which must otherwise go to waste. —Stock Held for Higher Prices.— Several lots of cattle from the river north of here have been travelled to Bourke for sale in Sydney this year, the owners preferring that market to what is considered the more fluctuating one in Ade-laide. Some owners, too, are holding their fat cattle until next year, feeling certain from their knowledge of the losses that have taken place during the past few years, and the drain that has been made on cattle of any age during the same period, that much higher prices will rule next year. And this seems practically certain to be the case, as for the next year or two only a limited number of bullocks of the right ages will be available for market;. This has been such a good season that several sta-tions with only small numbers of cattle on them have put the animals into the market, and they have no other cattle to take the place of those sent away. —A Fattening Depot.— The busiest station I saw anywhere in Queensland was Annandale, the great fat-tening depot of Mr. Kidman's, from which place the fat cattle gravitate to the South Australian markets. This is the station whence the bulk of the fat cattle for Adelaide have come during the past year or two. Mr. J. P. Gaffney, who is general manager of Mr. Kidman's stations at Annandale, Kallidiwarry, and Dubbo Downs, last year sent away to Adelaide from tliess runs nearly 9,000 fat cattle, in addition to another thousand or two of fats secured at other places. There is an im-mense amount of work for a manager and his men to do in mustering, drafting, and dispatching to market 10,000 cattle. The animals are sent away in lots of three to four hundred at a time, with sufficient in-tervals between each mob to prevent crowd ing in the market. Mr. Gaffney also has a thousand or more horses to look after on the stations under his control, and when we reached Annandalc he had several hun-dred in hand ready to be drafted for mar-ket. About 600 of these have been selected and are now on their way south, to form part of a lot of nearly a thousand Mr. Kid-man will shortly be advertising for sale at Kapunda. Annandale has this year brand-ed well on to 2,000 calves, and in a few years there should be a good-sized herd established here. — A Paradise for Live Stock. — The country all along the Georgina seems well adapted for breeding cattle and horses. It is splendidly grassed, has a very fair rainfall, and nearly always gets the flood waters which come down from the semi-tropical country on the table-lands along the Northern Territory bor-der and western Queensland. The waterholes along the river are as nearly permanent as possible. Some of them are several miles in length and of sufficient) width and depth to float and turn a good-sized ship in. There are lakes and lagoons scattered about this beautifully pastured country, all helping to make it a perfect paradise for live stock. — Sandhill Country — Leaving the Georgina River we struck eastward, and after getting away about 20 miles entered the sandhill country. The feed on the sandhills between here and Birdsville is good this year, but around Birdsville it begins to go off again, although the residents reckon the country is look-ing well. It is a wet season compared with what they have had. Six inches of rain has fallen already this year, or about as much as fell during the three previous years. —A Novelty at Birdsville.— Business people at Birdsville and in western Queensland generally complain about the serious inconvenience they are put to in having a mail from Hergott only once a fortnight, and it would pay Adelaide merchants to do their best to get the week-ly mail re-established. It takes months sometimes to get a simple order executed from Adelaide under the present mail ar-rangements. Birdsville recently had the novelty of a loaded wagon arriving in the town with goods from Hergott. This load, brought by Mr. W. Crombie, of Mungara nie, was the first wagon which had reached Birdsville for five years. During all that time of drought all goods were carted up by camel train. —A Dry Area.— I rode up the Diamantina, north-east of Birdsville for 65 miles, through the Bluff and Thundapurty Runs. These stations, owned by the A.J.S. Bank, have only 200 horses on them, nearly all of the cattle having succumbed during the drought. This is about the driest part of Queensland, and it will take a number of good seasons to restore the country away from the chan-nels of the Diamantina into anything like stock-carrying condition. —In South Australia Again.— Joining Mr. and Mrs. Kidman at Birds-

ville I started southward, and we passed through the border rabbit-proof fence into South Australia, after exactly eight weeks travelling. We had travelled for over a thousand miles through Queensland terri-tory, over gibber plains, boggy channels, flooded creeks and swamps, and steep sand hills without any untoward incident; but a few hours after entering South Australia we got a temporary check. Dropping over a pretty steep bank into one of the flooded channels of the Diamantina the buggy land-ed in the gluey mud, a trace broke, the pole gave a resounding crack, and the vehicle was fast in the middle of the stream. No time for hesitation. In a twinkling Mr. Kidman had off his boots, was into the water, unharnessed the horses, and waded through the mud and water to remove the contents of the buggy. —The Cattle King 'in the Soup.'— For once Mr. Kidman was fairly 'in the soup.' A rare chance for a real good snap-shot was lost here. The cattle king, in a semi-detached state of attire, wading through the water to the buggy, and with a fine disregard for conventionality, carrying his better half pick-a-back to the bank of the creek, with the half-buried buggy in the middle of the stream, and the timber-fringed bank of the Diamantina as a background, would have made a good picture. Half an hour's work saw everything adjusted, and we pas-sed through Pandi Pandi Run. and by the deserted homestead. —Kidman Land.— Pandi Pandi is held by Mr. Kidman, but is at present unstocked. We travelled down the Birdsville track for about 40 miles, cros-sing part of Clifton Hills Station, which does not look too well, and has very few stock on it, and struck across eastward to Coongy. This is another Kidman station; in fact, with the exception of a few* miles of Clifton Hills country, we had been tra-velling for nearly a couple of hundred miles on country held by Mr. .Kidman. Coongy Station has had a really good rainfall this year, and looks first rate. The Cooper flood has got down this far, and is now filling up some of the immense lakes on the run. There are between three and four thousand cattle on the station, most of them bullocks being fattened up for next year. Coongy Station itself is situated in as pretty a place as one could wish for. On a slight rise between the channel of the Cooper and an immense lake in front, of the homestead one can see ducks, peli-cans, and the graceful black swans float-ing about. The manager (Mr: M. R. Oakes) has the best station residence I had seen

anywhere in my travels, and altogether Mr. Kidman seems to have got a real bargain when he secured Coongy last year with 1,000 cattle for less than £4,000. —A Beltana Company Property.— With a black boy as, a guide we left Coongy, and travelled down the Cooper past Kanowinna Station, owned by the Beltana Pastoral Company. All around Kanowinna and the eastern portion of the run the country looks splendid, herbage and flowering

plants knee deep everywhere. This big sta--tion, of 4,000 square miles, had only 1,000 cattle on It, the drought having almost wiped-out the herd. Ten years ago Kanowinna sold '4,000 fat bullocks, 3,000 cows, and branded 9,000 calves. From Kanowinna, down the Cooper, the country begins to fall away in condition, and needs rain badly. After travelling south-west for something over 100 miles across wretched sandhills we struck the Birdsville track at the Kopperamanna bore. —Valuable Artesian Wells-The feed on the stock route from Birds-ville to Hergott is now first rate, better than it has been for several years, and fat stock are brought down with little loss of condition. The facilities for getting cattle to Adelaide are increased by each artesian well of water secured along the route, and it now requires only one or two more flows along the track to enable fat stock to be brought from Queensland to our northern railway at any time. It is difficult to estimate. what the benefit to South Australia has been by the construc-tion of the artesian wells along the Birds-ville track. During the past couple of years thousands of fat cattle have come to the Adelaide market, which, but for the arte-sian flows from Hergott northward, would certainly have been diverted to the mar-kets of tho eastern states. These wells have cost a lot of money, but they have been the means of materially cheapening the cost of beef to the consumer in South Austra-lia; and, as nearly all of the fat stock brought down from Queensland is carried over the railway, the construction of the wells has been a good investment by the state. —Date Palms.— At the Lake Harry bore, 20 miles from Hergott, the State Forest Department has about 10 acres of date palm trees growing. The bulk of these are about five years old; but the trees are more or less affected by scale, and have to be regularly sprayed to keep the pest in check. As an experiment to demonstrate the possibilities of the coun-try, the plantation is useful; but it is not likely that the imported article will have much competition from- local grown dates. —End of a Delightful Trip.— , A quick run to the Great Northern Rail way line finished a trip of a couple of thou-sand miles through pastoral country looking now at its best. Having been treated with the greatest possible hospitality everywhere —having travelled in the pleasantest of weather and in charming and interesting company— I reached Adelaide after a most delightful trip.