Life on the frontier

Jock Asiimwe sent in this report on a floppy
disk taped to a carrier pigeon

My mother departed Dalmore Downs station (near Barkly Homestead) for Victoria. That was back in 1956. Forty years later she returned.
"It was isolated then, it's still isolated" was her remark. "At least you don't have to open and shut gates in and out of Tennant!"
We still have to open and shut gates, the place has no grids. But then it deters the tourists from venturing into places where they need not wander. Dalmore Downs no longer exists, swallowed up by neighbouring stations as times changed, and new economies meant only the larger stations could be viable.
But my mother is partly right about the isolation, although those of us living on the edge believe isolation is only in the mind. Phones, faxes and satellites have reduced the isolation, so that we consider ourselves remote rather than isolated.
This is Nudjaburra, an outstation only a stone's throw from the Queensland border. It really is the frontier. We are on the edge of the Barkly, the edge of the Gulf, and the tropics.
Our weather is neither tropical, nor temperate. We get the brunt of each climate. Not that we mind, we receive our fair share of lovely days, and the plants seem to approve. In many ways we are like Christopher Robin on the stairs - halfway to everywhere.
Out here, like any station, you live and learn fast, and usually by your mistakes. We listened with interest to the radio descriptions of the Katherine Floods earlier this year, whilst battling similar floods, three times. Cyclones Sid, Les and May. The last sat over us for eight days, and the subsequent flooding brought in plenty of snakes.
Eight days, stranded in our house with two babies, two adolescents, two dogs and a dozen snakes. We became acquainted with our reptiles, and in the boredom, named them. It was a sad day when we had to send them out into the wild again, we even shed a tear when the kookaburras swooped for a free feed. Still, there is always the next wet season.
Despite the progress in transport routes over the years, we are still best reached by air. And in true pioneering spirit, keep our spirit maintained by hand. With the advent of the dry comes the weeding and pruning of the strip. 60 000 square metres (or 15 acres in the old language) is a large garden to tend to. But that is life on the frontier.
After all, the strip is our lifeline, in all weather. Without it we have no mail, no emergency evacuation and, as happened for a month last wet, no communication at all. For we are isolated totally by road for over three months a year.
We plan for Christmas now, and make sure we have enough to see us through. Everything is tinned or powdered. My children think milk comes from dried up cows. Bread is what you make yourself.
But for all the lack of basic shopping services, there are other benefits. The businesses of Tennant Creek are extremely efficient in meeting the mail plane and getting those essential items to us in time (or more than not, at a moments notice).
We are not plagued by traffic, so the children can wander safely. Nights bring discussions around the open fire, with stories of droving and other adventures from days gone by. Larry and Gerald give us all many a good laugh, and Carmel and Evan talk about traditional culture before it is lost forever.
There are always amusing things happening, like the morning the feral pig locked itself in the public phone booth, and we had to ring a serious fault through to Telstra. The Adelaide operator did not know what to think, but dutifully logged the complaint. Needless to say we eventually got him out. The Sunday roast was pork that week.
But then, that's life on the frontier.