Getting to the Point, in Australia

Once we got there, there was little to recommend it. The long ride of more than two hours was tiring and nerve-wracking enough, but to be your own in inhospitable territory and confronted by this black tin shack was not the most welcoming of feelings. The first time we went I was very excited. But that feeling soon passed. No running water, no facilities of any kind, just two pairs of bunk beds and, as I recall, some rudimentary mattresses and an old ‘wild west’ stove. It was camping but with most of the comfort and luxury removed. We had to get water from the water hole and fill containers and be careful about how much we drank so that it lasted all day. We had to cater for ourselves, and that meant everything.

It’s hard to convey from the luxury and distance of 2006 just how tough life was out there in the wilderness of Point Sir Isaac thirty years ago. We could only take with us what we could carry, and as being down there meant for two or three weeks we were forced back onto our own resources a lot. There was no fridge, there was nothing to make it pleasant. Just that rudimentary stove and some gas hurricane lamps. If we wanted fresh meat it meant shooting a rabbit, and if we need to pee or poo, well it was a case of grabbing the shovel, the rifle and a roll of loo paper and disappearing out into the scrub. Funnily, no one every needed to go to the loo in the night.

I got quite adept at digging a hole and squatting over it. We had to keep an eye out for other animals, but to be honest when you’re sitting there with your trousers round your ankles there is little you can do, even with a gun in your hands. Snakes and spiders were the most common and worrisome little bludgers, but the things to be most wary of were the wild cows. Once I was caught in mid-crap by a wild cow and her calf. And that’s when they are at their most dangerous. She came round the corner and found me in a clearing doing what came naturally. She stopped and stared. And I, er, shat myself. I had become complacent and my .22 was lying just out of reach. Not that a little gun like a .22 would be much good against a wild cow if she decided to run at me, not from about ten feet or so. I could smell her. And see her very long pointy horns. I was very frightened. What a way to die. How undignified. All I could think to do was stay very still. We just stared at each other. Me in a somewhat less imposing position than she. It went on for hours and hours. I got cramp and all sorts.

Well, it went on for almost 40 whole seconds, and then her calf moved off and she turned and went after it. I changed my crapping habits after that.

The whole point of our being there was to trap the wild ponies. There were only two fresh-water holes in the area, and one of them was about forty feet down the beach. It was an extraordinary sight to see wild brumbies ostensibly drinking sea water. At low tide the spring bubbled and gurgled, but the water just dribbled away into the sand. But when the tide was in the spring made a fresh-water pond within the sea water. And the horses knew it was there. It was quite some sight to see thirty or forty horses delicately supping the fresh water from the salty sea.

Naturally they also knew about the main water hole, encircling which the pony trappers of earlier generations had built a high stock fence. It was probably some two or so acres inside the enclosure and above it, right in the middle, stood a watchtower. From the platform went an elaborate pulley system of ropes down to a large, heavy gate. In theory a herd of horses would come in, drink and you, watching from above, would shut the gate on them, trapping them until they could be sorted in the morning.

They only came at night, and it was lonely vigil. My job down there was not trapping. I was there as a support to my boss, Paul and his wife Caroline. The idea was that they would trap the ponies and I would be there to do all the other jobs that needed doing. But I was a callow youth of just 18, and it never occurred to me that I was in the way of this relatively newly married couple. I’m guessing that they were about 23 or 24. With hindsight I can see they tried everything; sending me on some spurious errand that would keep me out of the way for an hour or so, or deciding to both spend the night on the cramped trapping tower platform. But none of it worked. After about ten days we had no horses and they were getting no sex. So it was decided that I would be the one who slept out on the tower, trapping the horses, while they shagged their way to delight in the charming hut. And so it came that I spent my nights on the tower, alone, very scared and totally without horses. I can't begin to describe what is was like. Every creak of a tree branch, every rustle of breeze is clearly some kind of horrible monster coming to get you. The fact that you had to sit there with a loaded rifle on your knee was testimony to how dangerous it could be. Not that I ever needed the damn thing, but it scared the hell out of me nonetheless. On my third straight night I was so exhausted that I simply went to sleep. And got such a bollocking in the morning; a herd had come in during the night. At least that’s what Paul told me, though how he knew, I still don’t know. He said he could see the new tracks in the dirt. I reckon that was aussie bull. Anyway, he took off to ‘check the farm’ in a real huff and left me and Caroline alone out there. And that night she went on the tower while I had the shack to myself. And lo and behold she trapped about 15 or so brumbies. After nearly two weeks we were delirious with excitement. And so was Paul when he eventually reappeared.

I have to say his reappearance was highly suspicious. Because he had the Landrover full of young women. Well three of them. I think that set the tone for their marriage, but I was too naive to consider the implications to them of this. All I knew is that Paul immediately identified that one of the horses was an in-bred cripple and had to be shot. And after all my practice with the rabbits and culling on the farm, I was easily the best shot there. It was to be my job. I reached for my gun.