Is the Drover's Day Gone

We came down a stock route last year to take a look at the Dick's Creek Hotel ruins which are onBendemeer Station outside of Winton. It is a great drive along the stock route and good alternative to those not wanting to take the highway...

Cheers, Baz, The Landy's

was a few years ago but in the mid 90s I caught a lift with a guy from jundah to windoroh and his job was inspecting commons ( my memory is a bit hazy) basically land set aside along rivers and waterholes for cattle to lay up while droving

Cheers "The Landy" .. the stock routes are always a good alternative for a drive..
You can get a QLD stock routes map that has them all marked out too..
Oh, and nice people at Bendemeer too :-)

Gom, anyone in the shire can also pay to have a few head on the town common.. is handy for people that live in town to stick a few there..

I remember about 30 yrs ago, a head-on smash closed the road. A farmer about 5 cars down called out to everyone listening, follow him, he took us on a stock route pararell to Pacific Hwy, ran for 5 klms, unbelievable the road was well looked after, we even glanced down past the smash, and watched those coming south not moving

I think the term ‘greenie’ is used far too liberally these days, especially by the media, to invoke a certain response.

What is a ‘greenie’ ? At the mention of the word many assume it is a reference to the extreme ‘tree-hugging’ variety, matted hair, tambourine under one arm, hairy armpit under the other, chanting ‘save the koala’ as they wander the streets of Byron Bay...

But many farmers, if not most, are ‘greenies’ in the sense that they care for the land, ensure it is used in a way that is sustainable, and for the most part accessible to others. The Australian aborigines could be counted amongst our first ‘greenies’ when you look at the way they managed their surrounding land, which included burning it off when required to stimulate growth and to manage fire risk.

I suspect many who visit this forum are ‘greenies’ to some extend or the other. But it doesn’t mean it is always to the detriment are exclusion of others...

Regards, The Landy

Well said Landy, but Kevin makes a fair point too. NSW has an unfortunate history of converting land into national parks and nature reserves, locking it up but not allocating nearly enough resources to manage it properly. The end result is land over-run with weeds, feral animals and fuel just waiting for a lightning strike to start a bushfire.

Kevin, its worth remembering that landcare - surely on of the most effective land management schemes - got going because "greenies" (specifically Phillip Toyne who was then the head of the Aust Conservation Foundation) got together with farmers (Rick Farley, then head of the National Farmers Federation) to lobby the Hawke government (Graeme Richardson was then environment minister) to set aside funding to get it all going.

That was back in 1989, and it all went very well for the next decade and a half. Unfortunately governments think that they can just drop the funding for succsessful programs and think that they will just roll on under their own steam. Wrong. If our current PM was really concerned to do practical things about climate change she would recharge landcare as a very cost effective and successful way to get everyone (not just farmers but city folk as well) involved in looking after our land. Doubt it will happen though.

end of rant for the day.

Cheers,

Val

Meant to add that TSRs (stock routes) in NSW at least, have been under constant threat of being sold off for many years now, so this latest idea is nothing new. Many sections have been sold off over the years unfortunately. It used to be the case that adjoining farmers had first option to buy an adjoining TSR if it ceased to be used.

But it is well recognised that TSRs are excellent natural corridors, often with good biodiversity. With a bit of common sense they should not be difficult to manage, although weed control can be expensive.

If 4WD clubs sat down with the current managers you would think a win-win arrangement could be negotiated whereby 4WD clubs get access in return for agreed managment. I dont support unfettered 4WD access though. But often roads and TSRs run together and where that happens it makes for great driving and maybe camping too.

cheers,

Val