Mabel Down Station

 

Mabel Down Station Camp site was only a few km from the Ord River where I had spent the previous night, I arrived there first thing in the morning. Unfortunately they did not have any powered sites available, unpowered was cheaper but as I had camped unpowered the night before  and was not intending to drive I was concerned about my battery.

I booked a coach trip to the Bungle Bungles for the following day and a safari trip on the station for that afternoon.

Mabel Down Station is one of the largest cattle stations in Australia covering 1.8 million acres with 20,000 head of cattle. The road to the Bungle Bungles is across their land  and they have recently opened this camp site and offer 4 wheel drive bus and helicopter trips.

We start the trip with a small creek crossing.

 

 

A bush turkey, they are supposed to be good to eat but are protected. If you wish to taste them get an invite to dinner with a local a aborigine as they hunt them for food.

 

The local Brahman cattle have been bred to cope with the hot dry climate they were developed from South American stock. These animals are grown to a weight of 300kg for a live export trade to Indonesia where they are further fattened mainly by small farmers to about 600kg prior to slaughter which is done in the traditional way when required for consumption.

This trade  has recently caused a lot of controversy resulting in the Federal Government putting a ban on all live exports. This ban has now been rescinded as this would have put many of the cattle stations in Australia out of business. I don’t wish to go into the morality of live exports but if it has to stop, then it has to be phased out over a period of time and alternative markets found for frozen beef. That means competing in the very difficult world market  against countries like Argentina, which is not easy with the high value of the Australian dollar, alternatively the long established Australian beef trade will phase out of existence and a huge industry will be lost.

These cattle have long floppy ears the first time I saw a calf it reminded me of an Anglo Nubian goat.

 

 

After spending a couple of hours driving round the station we had to do a river crossing which was too soft for the laden vehicle. We were all chucked out and had to walk across the river whilst the driver took the vehicle across.

 

 

 

It was an interesting trip, we arrived back just in time for sunset.