HARD WORK

Six-Month Cattle Drive Is Moving 18,000 Animals Across 1,200 Miles

GUNBAR, Australia—To Bill Little, snakes crawling in sleeping bags, saddle sores and 12-hour days in scalding temperatures are all in a day's work driving cattle vast distances across the Australian outback. Interruptions, especially for something like a rock concert, are more of a nuisance.

"One of my drovers took time off so she could fly up for a weekend to a Bon Jovi concert in Brisbane" some 700 miles away, says Mr. Little, who has spent three decades in the saddle. "It would have been unbelievable not long ago."

Mr. Little and his crew of spur-clad cowboys are nearing the end of a six-month journey driving 18,000 cattle across more than 1,200 miles of Australian countryside—the distance from Washington, D.C., to Houston. That easily surpasses the U.S. record for the number of cattle in a single drive of 10,652 animals set at the T Anchor Ranch in the Texas Panhandle in 1882, and is the biggest anywhere for a century. (click below to read more)


The unlikely driving force: a reclusive multimillionaire, Tom Brinkworth, who bought the cattle last April and scoffed at the industry practice of using trucks to move the mob from northern Queensland state to southern Australia.

Instead, Mr. Brinkworth, who declined to comment, hired the 55-year-old Mr. Little and a ragtag collection of riders. These include foreign backpackers, who sign up to steer the cows along a vast corridor of public land that traverses the country, known here as the "Long Paddock."

Cattle-driving is the stuff of legend Down Under. When director Baz Luhrmann co-wrote the script for his 2008 "Australia" movie epic, he cast Hugh Jackman as the rugged, unshaven drover in charge of moving cattle owned by recently widowed Nicole Kidman. In addition to such Hollywood odes, the feats of cattlemen and women are celebrated in songs and taught in schools, along with other heroes of the country's pioneer past like the jolly swagman in Waltzing Matilda.

Tourism companies in Australia are cashing in on the nostalgia. For a few thousand dollars, they arrange for would-be cowboys and cowgirls to swap city garb for a wide-brimmed hat and join organized cattle drives with overnight stays in luxury tents.

But any romantic notions of sleeping under the stars and riding across open country don't actually jibe with reality. Boss driver Mr. Little and his team, who move cattle through the middle of heat waves and wildfires, have a few cautionary words for those who might end up like the feckless stars of the 1991 movie "City Slickers." He describes conditions that might make even John Wayne squirm.

"Snakes crawl into your swag [bed] on the ground to keep warm. You have to sleep on a camp bed. It's not for everyone," Mr. Little says, batting away a swarm of bush flies with his fist from beneath his cream Stetson hat. On his lap: a breakfast plate of pork chops and fried eggs so thick with flies in the shimmering morning heat that they look more like wandering grains of pepper.

Then there are the early starts—work days often begin at 4 a.m.—and the arduous nature of the work in temperatures that can rival the Sahara Desert in Africa. A battered, white hut on a trailer equipped with a tiny kitchen and a sweltering bathroom makes even a shower seem unattractive. While the cattle dogs get to rest every hour due to the heat, the drovers are expected to remain in the saddle all day.

So it's no surprise that some newcomers fall off the wagon. The biggest casualties tend to be among cowboys from Generation Y.

"We had two pretty young blonde girls from the Netherlands join us for a week and who had jumped horses, done dressage, and they thought 'this is the go'," recalls Mr. Little with a wry chuckle. "They got a sore bum and lasted a day. They had to get right out of here."

Whereas cattle rustling used to worry drovers of yesteryear, now it is the rustle of bedding that is a cause for concern. Stampedes have been triggered on past trips by amorous activities between men and women drovers, Mr. Little says. Jittery cattle have been known to hoof it at the sound of a sneeze.

Loneliness is a constant curse, as is the paucity of bars along the trail to enjoy a cool, refreshing beer. On one occasion when they were able to stop for a drink in a hotel, a drover's risqué joke fell flat and almost led to them being run out of town.

"I've been married five times and I've got nine kids," says cow hand Johnny Cooper, a grizzled 37-year-old with several missing teeth who grew up in the remote outback town of Cunnamulla. He is one of few Australians never to have spent time on a beach.

"My grandfather was a drover. It's hard on the missus—whichever one it is—but you gotta do what you gotta do," says Mr. Cooper, hand-rolling a cigarette in the shade of a truck.

Gunbar, a dusty village with fewer than 100 people, is typical of the stops along the droving route of rutted, red dust roads. A corrugated-iron community hall and church dominate a landscape offering little beyond far-flung homesteads, blankets of eucalyptus and the occasional kangaroo.

"We call it fortnight-itis, because few people last more than a fortnight," says Mr. Little. "It's a little like a marathon, with some of the younger guys sprinting along and [not prepared] for the big call. We've used up a few men."

Still, there is no shortage of willing workers, especially backpackers from overseas who want a taste of rural Australia.

Ranching recruiter Anna Brown, who finds jobs for backpackers in Australia's rural heartland, says the outback can be a brutal workplace, with dusk-to-dawn work, austere conditions and oppressive heat, topped by a diet better suited to meat eaters, which many young Europeans in particular find confronting.

"If they can survive they have a good work ethic," she says.

Mr. Little and his employer, Mr. Brinkworth, hope the record drive will establish them alongside Australian legends like Sidney Kidman, a drover-turned-cattle-baron of the early 1900s. After six months living rough on the road, though, Mr. Little at least is ready to move on.

"I've been saying for years that I want to get a life," he says. "It's about time I did."