I have good mates in Queensland that worked the big cattle stations (ranches)in North Queensland. The way they did the mustering and drove the cattle was a combination of horseback and helicopter.
My friend,Archie Black ran Kings Plain Station, it was over 1800 sq. miles of tropical Cape York Peninsula. Abandoned for 40 years, it was sold and Archie came over from the Northern Territory to put it right.
The cattle had been wild for generations, living in the scrub, and they had to be gathered and counted and tested for tuberculosis and whatever the ... kind of bug they have down there, driven (droved) to a loading area days away on horseback sometimes then hauled to auction.
I met him and his head stockman, Dave Curtis at the Lions Den Pub (a tin shack in the eastern edge of Kings Plain, near Cooktown) the only watering hole for a very long way.
Dave wound up being best man a few years later when I married my Australian bride, and I was his best man when he got hitched to a Philippina gal but I digress...
Most of the meanest bulls had their OWN herds and they had to be dealt with summarily, sometimes with the .303. (actually, old wild cows were the most deadly)
The men on horseback carried no lasso, but they wore a "bull strap" around their waist. These fellows were Aboriginals and their horses were wild brumbies (what we'd call a mustang) they'd catch and break, saddle and work these scrubby horses. Those fellows would surround and wrastle wild scrub bull and strap the hinds legs together, and leave them dry for a day or two...then the bull would come to water, where we "us whitefellas" had set up the panel pens so we could load the beasts in the trucks. (Converted UniMog six wheel drive things)
The heli-mustering only worked to a degree in the more tropical section and those old bulls would get up under the trees and had t be dealt with by hands.
There's stockmen and drovers and breakers....but no cowboys.
I guess the chopper pilot was a "cowboy", but I had a feeling he'd learned his trade flying low over less friendly territory in the '60s
(Never call an Australian stockman a cowboy. Cowboy is the term for the male child who milks the cow in the barn. That was explained to me right away)
Here's a thing I heard when I lived in Queensland. [ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfvlGFVKZw0[/ame]
My friend,Archie Black ran Kings Plain Station, it was over 1800 sq. miles of tropical Cape York Peninsula. Abandoned for 40 years, it was sold and Archie came over from the Northern Territory to put it right.
The cattle had been wild for generations, living in the scrub, and they had to be gathered and counted and tested for tuberculosis and whatever the ... kind of bug they have down there, driven (droved) to a loading area days away on horseback sometimes then hauled to auction.
I met him and his head stockman, Dave Curtis at the Lions Den Pub (a tin shack in the eastern edge of Kings Plain, near Cooktown) the only watering hole for a very long way.
Dave wound up being best man a few years later when I married my Australian bride, and I was his best man when he got hitched to a Philippina gal but I digress...
Most of the meanest bulls had their OWN herds and they had to be dealt with summarily, sometimes with the .303. (actually, old wild cows were the most deadly)
The men on horseback carried no lasso, but they wore a "bull strap" around their waist. These fellows were Aboriginals and their horses were wild brumbies (what we'd call a mustang) they'd catch and break, saddle and work these scrubby horses. Those fellows would surround and wrastle wild scrub bull and strap the hinds legs together, and leave them dry for a day or two...then the bull would come to water, where we "us whitefellas" had set up the panel pens so we could load the beasts in the trucks. (Converted UniMog six wheel drive things)
The heli-mustering only worked to a degree in the more tropical section and those old bulls would get up under the trees and had t be dealt with by hands.
There's stockmen and drovers and breakers....but no cowboys.
I guess the chopper pilot was a "cowboy", but I had a feeling he'd learned his trade flying low over less friendly territory in the '60s
(Never call an Australian stockman a cowboy. Cowboy is the term for the male child who milks the cow in the barn. That was explained to me right away)
Here's a thing I heard when I lived in Queensland. [ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfvlGFVKZw0[/ame]
, worked them in a squeeze chute for sorting, vaccinations, ear tagging, etc. No branding though watched it. Ran a horse ranch for others until they decided to not be absentee owners! Rode the high country of Wyoming for awhile, along the seashore of Oregon, desert of Ca., and other places. Still ride in Iowa, Mn. and the Black Hills. Broke my first bone trying to stay with a horse at 13 y.o., broke my last bones at 56 y.o. plus all of the bangs, contusions, etc. as we still have two. Been bit, kicked, stomped, mashed against fences, and barn walls multiple times by horses and cattle. Been thrown and knocked off by branches, had runaways, rode some downhills and uphills that would take your breath away, some intentional! 
