Watch Hill Station

It seems like some of the best experiences just come out of the blue, totally unexpected. My visit to see Cloudy and Bram at Bram's cattle ranch certainly falls into that category. I was excited to see Cloudy and the outback but I didn't think it would turn out to be SO MUCH FUN! First a bit about the road to get there.

I spent Sunday walking and hiking around Kuranda, followed by a short night in my tent at a roadside camping area. Andrew had suggested that I camp at a place called Davies Creek, but the road was rough to get to it and it was a violation of my rental agreement to take the car on unpaved roads - something I wanted to save for getting to Watch Hill... still, it would've been nice to see Davies creek it sounded really beautiful.

Barron Gorge National Park is just outside of Kuranda. A really nice elevated boardwalk through the rainforest leads to a view of Barron Falls - although it looked pretty big to me, it is apparently just a trickle compared to the rainy season:

Mount Hypipamee National Park was a short stop and hike to nice waterfalls and a deep volcanic crater - the picture on this sign is better than any I was able to take and hopefully you can read a bit about the area:

I also sidetracked to Undara Volcanic National Park. Apparently there are lava tubes there that run for many miles. It is a closed area and can only be accessed via an organized tour. Much to my disappointment, I got there a bit late to see them - I wanted to be sure I got to Watch Hill before dark. I did take a hike to the top of a volcanic cone (Kalkani) with wide views of the surrounding lava plain - very forbidding country.
A couple of small kangaroos were on the path - I got a picture before they took off but it's a bit rough:

The drive to Watch Hill was mile after mile after mile of pretty much nothing but road. There were these lumps all over the place - at first I thought they were rocks but they didn't really look like rocks:

Turns out they are termite and/or ant hills. Some of these were as large as the little car I was in, the ones at Watch Hill are shorter (maybe a foot or 2 in height) and pointy and all over the place. They turned out to be a part of the obstacle course that made Tuesday so much fun.

I got to Watch Hill late afternoon on Monday (August 10) and found the place completely deserted. I had no idea what to expect, but this wasn't it. After waiting around for maybe an hour, I finally heard some noise and saw dust rising in the distance on the other side of the house. I made my way down to a maze of steel pens to find Cloudy and Bram running cattle through a series of spaces that narrow down to a chute that forced them to dive into a pit of tick dip. Watch Hill is in tick country and the cattle have to be dipped before transport to market. It was dusk and they were just wrapping up but Cloudy wasn't near to being done for the day - she still had animals to feed and dinner to make - we all dropped into bed probably around 10. I slept like a rock. Among the animals she feeds are the orphaned calves (they call them poddies) - she bottle feeds them a powdered milk mixture morning and night. She had me feed one - I think I ended up with more on me than it got in it's tummy - they are very enthusiastic about feeding time and kept yanking the nipple off the bottle.

Tuesday was chopper muster day - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muster_(livestock). It was a chopper muster because Bram hired a small helicopter to help him chase the cattle out of the bush. With 38,000 acres and over 4000 head of cattle, you would think it would require a small army to run the place but it was down to just Bram and Cloudy. Bram's father was in the hospital (a bit of a heart procedure - he's going to be just fine) and they have an open position that Bram is trying to find someone to fill. This was quite lucky for me as I was drafted to ride the 3rd quad bike. Bram did a great job of explaining what needed to be done and we had a very successful day of bringing the cattle home. It was just too much fun :)!

I posted some pics on facebook (for those of you who haven't found me there yet - my profile name is Rasta Pasta and pic is of my siberian husky Rasta)