A Ringer's Hands

This is a true story. A Ringer’s Hands is an account of the year I spent working on an outback cattle station in the middle of the Northern Territory. I left Sydney as a City Boy with a ute, a swag, a red dog and a craving for adventure, I came back a real Australian ringer. My grandfather would talk for hours about his young life working on a large property in South Australia and for me it was too much to resist. I couldn’t wait to get out there and have a go. I spent most of 1987 at Murranji at the top end of the Tanami Desert.

I learnt how to ride rough horses, work crazy cattle and drive road trains. I went chopper mustering, barramundi fishing and I rode a steer at the Daly Waters Rodeo. I helped track down a suicide case and during a trip to town I was mistaken for the Kimberley Killer by cops with their weapons drawn.