Category Archives: Birdsville Track

Shane Oldfield, Clayton Station, Birdsville Track cutting out young heifers and steers for ear tagging and branding.

There’s still time to break out the swag and head for Marree this Sunday where blokes like Shane  will be in action all day at the bronco branding competitions.

Bronco branding is the traditional method of branding cattle in the Outback and has been practiced on most of the large stations throughout Australia.

Once the mob has been mustered a stockmen  rides in and ropes a cleanskin calf from his horse. The catcher then hauls the calf to a bronco ramp where it is held, earmarked and branded.

The whole process can take less than a minute.

The modern process uses a calf cradle and this reduces both the time and labour costs for outback stations.

The use of open or yard broncoing, as seen here, has become virtually obsolete, and, along with that, the skills of the Australian stockman.

To keep those skills alive there are now bronco branding competitions all over the Outback.

The next one is in Marree on June 12. If you don’t mind a bit of dust it’s worth joining in to see our station people doing their thing.

Pictures from a recent cattle drive on Clayton station, just over 50 kilometres north of Marree on the Birdsville Track.

Clayton Station is in northern South Australia and is bouncing back from a decade of drought which saw the property destocked for a time.

Destocking means hard times and no income for people on the land.

However good rains have seen a spectacular regrowth of vegetation on all the properties along the track and plenty of feed for healthy cattle.

Clayton Station, Birdsville Track, Outback Australia

The now-famous Birdsville Track was originally used as a route to bring cattle  from Queensland’s Channel Country to the sale yards in Adelaide and later Maree.

That started back in the 1860s but today, people, mostly from the cities, tag along on these sorts of drives, getting a first hand experience of life on an outback station complete with strong horses, strong men and women, acres of dust and plenty of fresh air.

Droving cattle on Clayton Station, the Birdsville Track in Outback South Australia.

And not too far from where the Lake Eyre shots, posted yesterday, were taken.

It doesn’t happen often these days – droving cattle in the traditional way with horses.

Motorbikes replaced horses on catlle and sheep stations around Australia because of costs and efficiency.

Nevertheless on the Birdsville Track recently, at Clayton Station, the cattle drive was on once again, with some fine horsemen and women droving the herd.