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After a visit to the Station Owner, he suggested another spot to try for pigs. This area in the far West of the property on the "internal boundary" fence had a waterhole near some old stock yards which often had a population of pigs.

We set aside a whole day to visit the area as the driving required would be considerable. So one morning we set off from our camp, headed by one of the better tracks to the main road through the property and found the track on the fenceline, and headed West passing some good cattle country to a range of higher ground. The ridge here was very thickly forested but so also was the track! It obviously had not been used for a long time, and was completely overgrown with saplings. Luckily these saplings were fairly soft, and also luckily I had had a bullbar fitted to my Landcruiser prior to this trip as it definitely came in handy now. Driving up a steepish slope I manouvred the 'cruiser so to avoid staking any tyres, and pushed the saplings over. Probably a thousand of them (!) before we got through that part of the track and eventually found the corner post of the fenceline.

South of that point, we drove the Western fenceline looking for signs of the old stockyards.

We sighted a lot of bustards or scrub turkeys in these forests. On one occaision about fourteen in one place. Would love to eat one oneday, but unfortunately if one does not have a deep suntan it is prohibited. Also reportedly they are better eating during certain seasons than others, due to their diet.

Scrub turkeys fly away.

Examples of the open forest in the area.

The "internal boundary" fenceline and Western boundary track.

The reason these fences are "internal boundaries" is that many of these properties do not use the entire area of their leasehold for cattle operations. There can be very large areas outside of the fenced areas where cattle are run, which are simply not used. Usually for reasons of cost and efficiency. The areas can sometimes be simply too large.

Some untagged cattle within the fence boundary.

After a long drive and a bend in the fence, it was obvious we had missed spotting the stockyards. A bushfire in the area several years before may have destroyed them. So turning around, we headed North again, and eventually were back to the Northern fence again, again not sighting anything! Third try, a couple of scouting walks failed to find the waterholes/creek and then a bit of a ridge was spotted. This time we found water and a thin small creek with waterholes in it.

Within a hundred metres some pigs were spotted lying up in a wet hollow out of the hot sun, and some shooting occurred. At last! No boars, some sows, and piglets.

Danny with a piglet from this small herd of pigs.

Walking to the North along the creek, Phil took the West bank, Danny the East bank, which left me 60 metres into the bush to the East.

Danny surprised a boar in a thin strip of bush along the water, which then ran into the bush and out the otherside. Danny couldn't shoot as firing would have endangered Phil, he was not happy! But Phil managed to take the nice boar.

Phil's boar taken with a Remington .308.

The length of the creek where Phil took the boar. The low bushy area was between Phil and Dan and the pig was shot coming out of it on the other side.

The pig itself was sleeping in a hollow in the Right (East) bank.

While Phil was cutting the tusks out of the boar, Danny set off to look for more, so I decided to continue as well at this point.

Some distance along a couple of pigs took off a couple of hundred metres in front of us, and later another did the same. I stopped Danny and said we were spoiling the area. The wind was directly on our sweaty backs and the pigs were scenting us before we could see them. So we turned around and re-joined Phil.

Looking at the map it was evident the creek crossed the Northern boundary maybe 5 to 7 kilometres North and maybe a 1500 metres West, so we returned to the Landcruiser drove to the North to the fenceline. I volunteered to have some lunch

and drive the vehicle down and pick up the other two guys on the track in a couple hours. I think Phil and Danny took another two or three pigs along that section.

This area did look good for pigs, especially as there was now carrion there, but it was a full day trip to get there. We were thinking about coming back another day later in the week.

Back driving down the fenceline to the South, we planned to come out by a Southern track in the middle of the property. Was pretty uneventful until we reached the ridge and descended to the plain below and found a very deep washout across the track, probably about 12 feet deep and a bit less across. Luckily the floor of the plain was only about 30 feet down at this point, so after some discussion I drove the Landcruiser straight down the steep hillside in low range and into the grass. The vehicle did pick up speed, but stayed in control. With hindsight I should have checked for big rocks or logs in the grass first, but no mishap, so OK.

Further along got back on the track, another creek or gully, we managed to get through with some earthworks, and then driving along the fence in the grass, the track had mostly disappeared, kapow, a big bang, and a big puff of smoke and dust to the right. A lovely broken off steel dropper in the ground at an angle managed to stake the side of the tyre and ripped a lovely big hole in it. A cm or two further to the left, and nothing would have happened. So a tyre change, we were carrying three spares, another rough creek with high banks, but we managed to find a somewhat better spot and we were through.

Further along we hit a number of fences, some small cattle handling paddocks, a dam and a windmill. It was a bit tricky working out which gate to take to get through, and after one failure, we were on the outside track.

Donkeys sighted, three of them. We took one each.

Past the water tank and dam, the cattle trough was empty, and lots of cattle in the area, to me seemingly thirsty, made a mental note to tell the property owner later, we were off along a nice track back to the main track, not sighting any game, but lots of cows.

Checked a "turkey nest" dam at the end of this track and there was some old pig sign in the mud of the dam, but no pigs.

Back to camp

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