WSJ: Aussie Cowboys’ monumental Cattle Drive – 18,000 cows Across 1,200 Miles
WOW! Talk about endurance and hard conditions… Most of the part-timers give up and go home…
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.
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.”
Chez Froggie 