well certainly not really a trip report, but headed out mustering the last couple of days, pulled about a 600 head of cattle out from the scrub ready for sale, and grabbed some photos on the way out and back (unfortunately didn't get any while mustering......was a bit busy!) just thought i would put them in a separate post to save filling up the where did you fly today section as a grabbed a fair few!

flying over the hills I live amongst on the way out.


Rocky creek dam, the water supply for the byron bay area


a couple of shots of an area called Kyogle




One of the many hardwood timber plantations in the clarence valley


A couple of the strips I was working out of

Drake international


little Italy


A few photos from up the ground at little italy, waiting for the property owner to arrive with some dog baits (did a bit of baiting to while I was out there)

Popsy looking great in the sun!


and old tow along grader.


Drake international terminal building! food court commng soon!


Just one of the turned over trees out there, just liked this one for some reason.


was pretty happy with this photo.


the old drake gold mine, about to be recommissioned


The rocky river


where the rocky river meets the mighty clarence river


The mighty clarence


A few bush fires blazing, I counted about 6 in the 1.5 hour flight heading home

Cool! When you say mustering, you're talking about driving cattle from the air right?

Was there a Discovery show a while back where a guy did that in a R-22?

yeah thats mustering. not sure about the show, but there are alot of blokes out there doing it in r22's typically we use choppers in the scrub country and fixed wing in the open country. but the property i was working on was only 100 000 acres so not really enough to justify the expense of a chopper. only really bring choppers in on places a million acres and up

That's awesome. Beautiful country! Nice pics too.

Just a 100000 acres. That's a good bit!

Hiiiyyyahh!!!! (Whip crack, sound of screaming Rotax) Move em out...

Zzz wrote:Hiiiyyyahh!!!! (Whip crack, sound of screaming Rotax) Move em out...

keen 'em doggy's moving! RAWHIDE!!!!

DrifterDriver wrote:yeah thats mustering. not sure about the show, but there are alot of blokes out there doing it in r22's typically we use choppers in the scrub country and fixed wing in the open country. but the property i was working on was only 100 000 acres so not really enough to justify the expense of a chopper. only really bring choppers in on places a million acres and up

one of the propertys I work on, Anna Creek station, is 6.4 million acres.....so 100 000 is more a hobby farm compared to that. Difference is this ones is all scrub country while Anna creek is red desert so its very different to work.

a few more that I got.

this is the property I was working





this is the homestead



she was a bit chilli up at 5000 in transit out there! I think I was quite well dressed for a mugging!

Beautiful pictures and thanks for posting.

I wonder how many Brown Snakes are wandering around those fields?

yeah theres a fair few about, both eastern brown and king brown. theres also alot of tiger snakes, rough scales and red belly blacks about to. but thankfully being autum there not to bad right now. still a fair few pythons hanging around.

heres an eastern brown I got the morning after those photos where taken.

I know enough about Australia to know a buncha shit will kill ya - why you folks walkabout with bare-ass feet?

Great, great shots, thanks for posting those. Great shots of the old machinery, and the Drifter also, thanks.

soyAnarchisto wrote:I know enough about Australia to know a buncha shit will kill ya - why you folks walkabout with bare-ass feet?

Nothing wrong with a little love bite here and there....

That is way cool, I bet it's a blast working cattle by air. Wish we could do that on our ranch, it'd take a chopper out here.

I'd love to see more photos/video of mustering! Good work on the brown snake too

I like the old grader!
I hauled this one home last summer.

Skalywag wrote:That is way cool, I bet it's a blast working cattle by air. Wish we could do that on our ranch, it'd take a chopper out here.

I'd love to see more photos/video of mustering! Good work on the brown snake too

Choppers still defiantly have there place, but the cost of running them is just so high that we do most of the property work fixed wing now and bring the choppers out closer to the yards. with the slow speed performance and manuverability of things like the drifter, theres very little you can do with a chopper that I cant do in my wee beasty....thought hovering is proving to be a bitch!

I stopped in at a mates place on the way back from another mustering gig a week or so ago and hes been a long term muster pilot in choppers. he had a collection of pics hes collected over the years I asked him to send me for you. these arnt all him, just pictures his grabbed that he happened to have on a computer. though the first 3 are him!











and this is his place, we stopped in to give him a land loading stock, I grabbed a photo while we where loading the trucks. Thought some of you guys might like this as Im not sure if you have Road trains in the states? they can get up to 10 trailers but normally site between 2-5 depending where you are in the country,

Dang those photos are unreal Thanks, I'm gonna ship my ass down to Aussie land one of these days and hang out with y'all if that's ok, such awesome country!!!!!!!

mate same goes to anyone on here, if anyone finds themselves heading south to the land of red, feel free to give me a yell, there's a bed, tucker and half a plane sitting here for all of you!

Would be a dream come true to take you up on that offer.

Thanks for posting Drifter, really enjoyed it.

Beautiful photos, my daughter lives in Byron lovely place.
The William Creek Hotel is on Anna Creek isnt it?
We flew in there a couple of years back in our Beech just before lunch and were number 7 on final. By 2pm no one was left and we were number one again.
Great country.