An Old Cattle Station Tells its Own Story

“I have stood here longer than any of them remember. Before the fences, before the homestead roof was patched with tin, before the road learned how to find me. The land and I grew up together, and we still speak the same slow language.

 

Each morning I feel the first footstep before I hear it. Boots on my verandah, the weight of a kettle set on the stove. The dogs wake me properly, their nails clicking across my floors, already eager for the day. When the gates swing open, my yards creak and complain, but they do the job. They always have.

 

The cattle move across my paddocks like a living tide, noses down, dust rising gently from my skin. I know every dam, every low spot where water lingers after rain, every fence post that leans just a little too far. When a wire breaks, I feel it—a loosening, a small wound in my edges.

 

The heat comes hard in the middle of the day. I hold it, store it, let it shimmer above me. People think it’s empty out here, but I am full: of ants and grass seeds, of stories pressed into the dirt by hooves and tyres, of quiet moments under bloodwood shade. I teach patience whether it’s wanted or not.

 

At night, I exhale. The stars settle in close, and the dingoes sing along my boundaries, reminding everyone who was here first. Lamps glow softly in the homestead, and I listen to boots come off, to tired voices drift into silence. 

 

Tomorrow will look much the same. I will still be here, weathered but watching, holding fences together and lives upright. People come and go, but I remain—stitched to the horizon, shaped by work, and rooted deep in red earth.”