The Skippers Road
Terry talks of using .22" - .32" - and .303" rifles to shoot feral goats, wild cattle, and deer, in between shearing the sheep.- Riding horses, driving bulls - herding sheep - and of "fatting" and skinning thousands of rabbits for the small rewards that the skins would fetch - all the time with her young children at foot (- or rather - sitting in front on the saddle!).
Her tales of rabbiters, gold panners, shearers, and old station hands are delightful in exposing the lonely and eccentric hermits way of life. - Odd folk certainly - but tough and self-sustaining definitely!
She and her husband ran the Mount Aurum Station and the neighbouring Branches Run where freezing winter conditions complicated their lives for sixteen years - until Archies ageing combined with her loosing an eye in a serious head wound (while launching their boat on Lake Wakatipu) led to them selling-up and a move to a farm in milder conditions at Roxburgh.
No doubt the road was improved some when I drove it 30 years ago - compared to how it was in their day 45 years earlier - but it was still thrilling and spectacular even in good summer weather.
I expect that nowadays - helicopters, motorbikes, and 4W.D.s are easing management in the "back of beyond" - but you'd still need to be hard working and tough to thrive in there
Marty K.
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