MY PASSION FOR THE NORTH is surely obvious by now. I hesitate to tell less-positive stories at the risk of scaring people off, but the truth is, the north is wild, large and relatively untouched, and with this comes inevitable dangers. There are snakes, goannas and other reptiles that can give you tetanus if they bite you… or worse. The distance between towns, paddocks and places where there is phone service is immense. Getting bogged with no gear can mean you’re up a creek without a paddle for a long time. Locals are used to that, so they put many measures in place to keep everyone safe. But one thing that is hard to avoid is wild, cranky, ‘clean-skin’ cattle.
Clean-skin cattle are cows that have not been branded or touched by humans. They don’t have owners, so deals are made between landowner groups and the government to determine who has the right to sell them. If you can catch them, they’re yours (that is a big simplification). Clean-skin cattle have an ancestor who was
