Hunting alone

I act as caretaker on a large 2200 sq km cattle station when the manager is elsewhere. The station is rugged to the extreme, being on the western edge of the Great Dividing Range, about 300km west from Cairns in North Queensland.

The work is not hard - feeding dogs, chooks and pigs with patrols to check on dams, bores and cattle. The patrols provide me with a chance to hunt for wild dogs and feral pigs. Generally, I take a mate along, but on the last two occasions he had to drop out due to family business. As it was too late to find someone else, I was alone on consecutive weekends.

The dry season was well advanced with temperatures ranging from 36C to 41C, a time when you expect pigs to hang about water all day. However, on the first week I discovered that this was not the case as during the middle of the day there was no sight of hogs. Instead I ran a pattern, only hunting early in the morning and late afternoon.

Early morning

My day started before the