Sally D’s Mobile Challenge: The Long Paddock

As I’ve said earlier, I did not use the mobile phone camera very much on our trip at Easter.

These photos lend themselves to Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Black & White. 

Firstly, a normal person would clean their windscreen before embarking on a long trip home. It did not occur to me. These images have a lovely knocked about patina as a result. Sometimes you can be lucky. As you can see from the image in the header, the colours came out looking like they came out of a 1980s album!  The time was between 10 and 11 in the morning.

approaching cattle on ‘the long paddock’

 

Wikipedia says…

In Australia, the Travelling Stock Route (TSR) is an authorised thoroughfare for the walking of domestic livestock such as sheep or cattle from one location to another. The TSRs are known collectively as “The Long Paddock”.

A Travelling Stock Route may be easily distinguished from an ordinary country road by the fact that the grassy verges on either side of the road are very much wider, and the property fences being set back much further from the roadside than is usual. The reason for this is so that the livestock may feed on the vegetation that grows on the verges as they travel.

 

 

These three photos were taken on our homeward journey but we did pass through cattle when we arrived, too. I was in too big a hurry to stop for photos and even these were taken after I stopped and snatched up the Nokia Lumia 530 Windows Phone from my door pocket.

One has to drive with caution, though, with cattle on the road. We had to watch out for kangaroos when we left home, and cattle when nearly at our destination – now vise versa.

While the long paddocks are primarily for the movement of stock, these cattle are out because of the dry conditions. Local farmers get special grazing permission when feed is scarce. They are watched during the day and are probably taken off the roads at night.

Outside Condobolin, NSW

 

I have had a little ‘droving’ experience.

Once as a kid, I went with my dad droving sheep for a day or two. Dad encouraged sheep from neighbouring farms to join us, probably so he could steal them at the end of the drive.

In a long drought, during my first marriage, I used to take our sheep out to graze on the roadsides in front of our property. I did this most days for weeks, with Mr X taking them out at weekends if he wasn’t working.

We returned home using different roads and discovered that there are tourist information boards along a main Long Paddock route. There were also some wonderful statues honouring the role of the paddocks. Next time, I will stop at every single one!

Have a good day.  🙂