GoGo Adventures (part6)

© Janet Lane, 2024. Image:  Gogo station horsemen breaking horses 1957-8. State Library W.A.

Our last dinner with Harry was good. Everyone parted on good terms, although I was a bit peeved he’d let Gopher take a couple of second raters among the good horses – after all Ian was paying a big sum for them, more than the people who’d bought the greys. They were a lifetime investment for him, to help save the breed. Harry, an astute businessman, had soundly won that one over Gopher, it shows muscles don’t make a strong person.

We had to take the horses down to another set of yards to load them, that being the ones for Ian. Needless to say some horses were leaving family behind so it wouldn’t be that easy.

And as Gopher wanted to ride his grey mare that I’d ridden most of the trip, I was told to jump on one of the wild geldings we were leaving behind. No-one knew which if any were broken. A big handsome, bright bay finally let me catch him, yes he was huge.

He let me get the tack on, with a bit of manoeuvring. Well, time to mount. Might as well get it over and done with quickly. I hopped on, maybe fear sprang me up that high, or did I kick off a stock-yard rail, anyway I was up and on, ha.

Gopher didn’t wait to look but opened that gate and chased the horses out. Instantly I found this huge gelding, too tall for a stockhorse in my opinion, was an absolute gentleman. What a horse. He seemed to have been broken in, but best of all he had stock sense – he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking, and although very fresh and nervous, keeping his head very high, he was so so good I felt like crying. What a champ! I called him Oh-Five as that was his brand. His mouth was very soft, either well broken or not, who knows.

There is simply nothing like being able to trust your horse. I don’t know what became of him, but hope Harry kept him. Dear Oh-Five. He saved me from acute embarrassment as he didn’t dump me and galloped after the horses and turned them superbly, in rough, stoney, undulating scrubby country.

We got the horses down to the trucking yards, a bit of excitement here and there but on the whole a good little trip. Next day a big truck was arriving to take us all south.

Am sure Gopher was as keen as me to see the back of each other. What his percentage of the sale was I have no idea nor was it my business. Anyway very grateful for Harry’s hospitality for what he’d thought were a couple of daydreaming nutters who would give up after day one. Sometimes I wonder if his opinion changed much, hahaha! A good fellow anyway. A great horseman. Some stories had been told about him while we were up there as we’d had one afternoon in Fitzroy Crossing meeting some of Gopher’s old friends and an old retired employee of the station. He is the toughest man in the Kimberley some said, and hearing those stories, I believe it and felt honoured to have met him.

Images on 4,000 square miles on Gogo station, largest cattle run in the Kimberley, the far northern region of W.A. The station turns off some 8,000 head a year. Photos by W. Pedersen. National Library of Australia: A fat bullock cut out from the mob tries to get back but the native stockman heads him off towards the coachers; A bullock breaks away from the mob during drafting.

The horses were going south on the Christmas Creek station truck. We’d got a super skinny, tiny ugly mare, it’s mane and tail both in one giant knot each and full of seeds. “An Arabian!” I’d exclaimed in horror, as no modern lines or breeds were supposed to be among the wildies on Gogo.

But when Harry saw her, he recognised the Christmas Creek brand. They’d bought several Arabians but all had died, as it turns out only this one survived, she’d come done the river in the floods. Poor little thing could barely stand she was so poor. A chestnut. We’d left her in the set of yards near where she was found as she was incapable of walking far.

As soon as they heard, the Christmas Creek people arrived and fetched her home, cooing over her, and calling her a survivor, and looking forward to coddling her back to health. Well. These other survivors are in beautiful condition, I felt like saying, and their manes and tails don’t turn into frizz-balls of plant material. But some people can’t see the good in what really, are the best horses on the planet. Never mind. We had some. And best of all Gopher arranged with them to take Ian’s horses to Port Hedland on their lovely big truck, which he assured me, was the best in the Kimberley if not Australia. Was it really? We shall see, I thought.

Well, yes it was!

The Christmas Creek truck arrived on Gogo like a vision. OMG. It was gorgeous, and I’m not a truck person. Maybe it represented a good end to a successful mission too. Escape. Home. Horses saved. I dunno. Anyway it was a sight indeed, like winning tatts. Huge, super clean, sparkling white. How anyone kept a truck clean in that dust I had no idea.

Horses loaded smoothly, plenty of room. The stock quarters were immaculate and the flooring safe. Bye bye to Gogo, a beautiful station, lots of trees around the homestead area, our lovely single man’s quarters, the cosy mess, the cool stone store-room, the incredible scenery, magnificent horses and of course the incomparable Harry Harris. It had been indeed, been wonderful.

High up in the giant truck which also had a sleeper behind the cab, if there was no hotel for the driver to check into on his long trips it was a great bolt hole, or even if he just needed a rest on the long outback travels. It was so clean, like being in a beautiful big spaceship. Who would know it was stinking hot and dusty outside!

The driver was a fascinating man, and for the first leg, Gogo to Broome, we had Mrs Christmas Creek travelling with us. She was absolutely wonderful, a top person. It’s incredible to meet these outstanding people in one’s life. You may have preconceptions about station owners but how good to find them wrong, if these ideas were a bit ordinary. The philosophies behind running their station were superb. Not overstocked. Not inbred. The stock were numero uno, not even poly pipe was allowed on the place, let alone a whip. It’s common to beat cattle and horses with poly pipe which isn’t good and leaves bruising. Break in horses by the patient method not the buck ‘em out method.  It seemed on every subject we agreed, although I didn’t mention modern Arabian horses, ahem, and I was learning a lot too. And that sorry little mare did have a lovely quiet temperament. Her big eyes were full of love when she was saved.

Gopher of course knew more than both of us females put together so it was an interesting conversation at times, getting the benefit of his wisdom.

The driver was South African originally, he was very lean, suntanned, probably past retiring age (or maybe that was the effect of long term sun exposure?!) had a long beard and twinkling blue eyes. Intelligent and wise. I asked about his beautiful truck. He was pleased to sing its praises. Yes it was one of the best in Australia, Kerry Packer had rung up and wanted to buy it, but Christmas Creek wouldn’t sell. He thinks they were the first people to ever turn Kerry down (then probably the richest person in Australia). As I admired Kerry Packer hugely and kept a photo of him in my wallet in the hope it might attract money, I was very impressed!

So I learned a lot about the beautiful truck and promptly forgot it all, oops. My favorite truck colour became pure white, although I do harbour an admiration for the invisible truck colour of Mr Mathews, a lovely old horse transporter in Tasmania, that’s a sort of indescribable blue-grey-green colour that apparently cops can’t see. Also, dull, as in matt paint, not shiny. Mr Mathews had painted an old truck that colour using old bits of left over paint mixed up. Then he realised the cops never, ever pulled over this old truck. So, one by one, as his business grew (he transported cattle and sheep mostly) he painted all his cattle trucks that colour, and after 50 years when I met him, he told me none had ever been pulled up. I told the Christmas Creek driver about the invisible colour, but I suppose in the outback being seen is safer, and having a state of the art truck cops aren’t a worry either. Funny old world. But it was nice to tell him about Mr Mathews being the best transporter of wild horses I’d ever seen.  I could see he was rather keen to be even better as next minute we had to examine the camera footage from the back of the truck every few minutes. Horses come first! He said. Good man.

Of course Gopher was paying to get the horses to Ian’s, all part of the whole deal. The truck was getting a handy bit of stock delivery off station which helped them re running costs.

At Broome, Mrs Christmas Creek came with us to the first stop, which she wanted to do in case her help was needed, and that was spraying al the horses for tick. This was going to be interesting, as usually they are taken off, and sprayed all over, one at a time, then the truck sprayed. But ours were all wild and there were no facilities for wildies, apart from one big yard, which seemed odd for an outback spraying place I thought. We could spray them in there by roping them one at a time, but it seemed a bit rough on them. We can’t have that! Said our driver. He and the government spraying man had an earnest chat. And found a great outcome.

The truck was backed up near a ramp. This way they could spray all the horses on the truck, and the whole truck especially in the stock area, and reach high and low by moving up and down the ramp. Brill. The horses probably thought they were getting a lovely cool shower and stood like angels.

I said goodbye to Mrs Christmas Creek who was off to fly to Perth, A really top person. “Good luck,” she wished me, “it’ll be a long trip with that strange young man.”

“Oh,” I said, so glad she understood, “well! He’s done his best. Yes. Farewell, enjoy your flight!” After all, Gopher had put up with an older female, me, who’d never been in that country, the whole trip, and managed not to lose his temper – a big plus.

Onto the open road again, we headed down to Port Hedland, a very long drive. After a while I was extremely sleepy, and Gopher was snoring in the sleeper.

We had to get the horses to Port Hedland, unloaded, then Ian was taking us to the airport there as we had to get to Perth. I was booked to Tasmania on the red eye special (the cheap night flight from Perth to Melbourne) and Gopher was catching a plane to Texas in America, where he’d taken a job on a cattle ranch. Neither of us could miss our plane. Particularly me, my fare was non-refundable if I missed the plane, I had no money, no contacts in Perth, no way to get home if the plane was missed, and I was so missing my darling children, in the care of their grandmother who didn’t like babysitting. I also had horses and chooks, a little gardening business with no holiday pay of course, and life in general to attend to.

So it was a giant relief we’d made good time so far, and should make it to Port Hedland in plenty of time to unload the horses.

“I might have a snooze, I’m ok here,” I said to the driver, I was in the front as obviously Gopher had the sleeper, and I felt that was the truckies own room somehow anyway. I simply couldn’t keep my eyes open. We’d been on the road a few hours now.

“Well if you don’t mid staying awake,” he said, “I’d appreciate it. I’m colour blind.”

“Oh, I said,” are there traffic lights?” My Grandpa was colour blind, but he knew the top light was stop and the bottom one go.

“No,” the driver chuckled, “no traffic lights, but the road is red from dust. The country is mostly red. And most of the cattle are red. And I can’t see red on red very well. The cattle like to lie on the road and go to sleep, and I can’t see them. If I slam on the brakes, it’ll kill the horses. I need a few miles to slow down.”

Blimey. I sat up and prised my eyes open, “No worries!” and before long, “cow lying on road, about 2 miles off.”

 Even hard to see for me. One had to strain the old eyes indeed.

“Can’t see it,” slowing down, in that nice choofy way trucks slow down, he really was a smooth, careful, good driver, “oh hang on, think I see it down. Move!” toot toot!, or rather, deep truck honk, deep truck honk! Cow or steer or whatever, the dusty beast reluctantly gets up, glares, steps to one side just in time.

We found the stock yards with a loading ramp where the horses were to be disembarked. Ian was there, and a crowd of people. I was very surprised. The horses would be as tired as me, in fact stuffed, and a crowd was very stressful. It was hot and dusty. All the time. Just mentioning it as I should have done that every second sentence.

But Ian was rightfully as proud as punch of these Walers he’d saved on trust, and not yet seen, and all his friends had come along for a look, and anyone else who heard about them. He introduced us to several people but I was too tired to remember them.

Off with the horses. It all went smoothly until that bloody big gelding. No way would he go under a bar over the stock gate of the truck. Design flaw I thought, it should be removable for stupid horses like this. The more Gopher roused him to get him out, the more he stamped backward and forward madly. I had a turn. There was no time for patience, which as we all know, is an irony with horses. You must always have patience. So being rushed made him worse.

It took about over an hour to get that horse off. He streamed sweat. He ended up being the last off. The rest went off ok. The yard was a reasonable size but with all the people the horses were rather stressed, many walking about and making knowledgeable remarks about them which I don’t know why annoyed me. Apart from the two geldings which were a wild card, maybe they’d be ok maybe not, the rest were very good horses. Gopher vaulted up onto the back of the slim gelding and rode him about the yard and declared him broken in. He was certainly gutsy.

Someone made a derogatory remark about the legs of the little buckskin, I felt like murder. She was fine, as if we’d get a horse with a fault. As it turned out, later that afternoon the poor little filly tried to join her mother, the blue mare, while people tried to separate them, and a protruding object on a yard fence ripped her leg so badly she had to be put down. I can just hear that wicked person saying that was a good thing. All that way, we’d got that filly from the vast outback of Gogo every day through various dangers to the station, she’d made it, bravely never giving up, she’d walked over a hundred miles, in very hot conditions, at times very thirsty. Branded. Put on the truck, to Port Hedland, then that had to happen, and she died under a cloud of ignorance. Funny how some things upset you. An accident, just a tragedy. It happens, No-one’s fault. I just wish she’d been admired too. A female vet bought the beautiful beautiful blue mare, her dam. Sadly, she too died of an accident not long after.

Gopher and I asked Ian to take us to the airport, time was fleeing. We didn’t have long. We’d miss the plane! Ian kept admiring the horses, he is such a good man. But we were getting edgy. Yes they were very tired, dusty, a wee bit down in condition, but he could see the good in them and like me, he instantly fell in love with Leopold. If you ever saw that stallion you could never forget him. He had incredible charisma, and was such a kind fellow. One in a billion. We must get to the airport! Ok. Just need to get some feed out.

(to be continued…)

Read the rest of the story: Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5

• Section: Waler Tales