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single-storey houses; Rob and his family lived in one and there was another for his parents and brother and a third for Rob’s best mate, Kiwi, and his wife Lee. Kiwi had come to Australia from New Zealand when he was nineteen, and had been on the station for seven years. Apart from him and Lee it was pretty much just family. I couldn’t believe that that was enough people for three thousand head of cattle.
    The cows looked similar to the kind Ewan and I had seen in Africa: russet-coloured with smallish heads and long drooping ears. We got acquainted with one in particular, an orphan Helen had reared by hand and called Sausage - because that was almost certainly how part of him would end up.
    Kiwi cooked the breakfast in a massive outbuilding; it was a bit like the barbecue we’d had in the Spitfire hangar. We ate on the veranda with the sun beating down. It was so warm, even though it was still winter - I shuddered to think what the heat would be like in the dry season.
    After breakfast Helen asked me to help her muster a couple of hundred ‘weaners’ - young cattle that had been away from their mothers for a few weeks and were in the process of being ‘educated’ before they were shipped out to various paddocks across the station.
    ‘We teach them how to muster,’ Helen told me. ‘We put them into corrals then use the dogs to get them to move from one side to the other. Cows are quick learners and they like routine. Once they know what the dogs want them to do, it’s quite easy. After a week or so moving them from paddock to paddock they understand, and one person on a horse can easily lead two hundred.’
    This was ranching Australian-style, and it was amazingly efficient. Helen and Rob had a big place but like most ranchers they were hardly cash rich and could not afford to employ lots of stockmen. Sometimes when I’m travelling I come across people living a way of life that, when I catch a glimpse of it, is so appealing I can see myself doing it. It’s happened a few times, and it’s the tranquillity, maybe, the security of knowing what you’re going to be doing tomorrow. Perhaps that’s particularly appealing when I’m on the road, rarely staying in a place for more than one night at a time.
    Anyway, I climbed onto the back of a beautiful chestnut horse to help Helen muster the weaners. ‘OK,’ I said to my mount. ‘Here we go. I haven’t done this for ages, my love, so look after me.’
    ‘It’s a boy, Charley,’ Helen called out, ‘a gelding.’
    ‘Boy,’ I said, ‘right.’ I patted the horse’s neck. ‘OK, we’ll have a few beers together or something, buddy, shall we?’
    We rode through long grass with hills bordering the paddocks and the clear waters of the creek running by. It was a beautiful morning. Helen led the cattle with me trailing behind them and three dogs keeping the little herd together. It was easy; once the cows saw the dogs they knew what was expected and we moved them from one paddock to another. The only bit of hassle was when they were spooked by Claudio’s camera.
    After lunch the boys showed up in their utes. They came trailing up the dirt road, three shining examples of the kind of custom-car culture I’d heard about. We’re talking chrome and alloy, metallic paint and the rumble of V8s. Utez.com has something like two thousand active members, people who buy a Holden or a Ford maybe, and do it up. I suppose it’s a bit like Harley culture or sports-bike culture in the UK.
    They had come to drive us up to Cairns, these three young guys in T-shirts and dark shades: Cameron, Ronnie and Ben, or Camshaft, Rocket and Big Ben, as I decided to dub them. Cameron was driving a Ford BF XLS, Ronnie an HSV Maloo and Ben a VZ 55 Holden.
    We showed them where we wanted to get to on the map, and Ben reckoned we ought to be able to make Mackay that night, while another eight hours tomorrow should see us in Cairns. Saying our goodbyes to the Old Station, we took off along a