Against The Odds

By Michael Taylor

In 1971, Bob Smith and his mate, Ian Taylor, bought a huge land-holding in the arid region south of Broken Hill and transformed it into one of Australia's largest irrigated cotton farms. The business also diversified into a winery, an orchard, a dairy and even rabbit farming. This incredible story spans nearly 50 years and charts the rise and rise of the publicly listed Tandou.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Taylor
• Release date: Aug 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463098783

Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor is Professor Emeritus of Transport Planning at the University of South Australia. Author or editor of eight transportation books, Dr. Taylor is a leading pioneer in transportation network vulnerability analysis.

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Against The Odds

Michael Taylor

Copyright 2019 Michael Taylor

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

Formatting by Caligraphics

FOREWORD

This story is dedicated to the memory of Ian Taylor whose life from 1939 – 2017 was one of determination, commitment, success, and loyalty to his family and friends. I first met Ian in 1957 when he had just turned 17, and I was about to. We spent three educational and fun-filled years together at Agricultural College in Wagga Wagga, NSW. Our close friendship was formed through a love for the land, a shared sense of adventure, and a desire to gain our private pilot’s licence while at college and perhaps one day own our own planes. It would be cemented by his unflinching commitment to an idea, and a demonstration of faith that went beyond the normal boundaries of friendship.

Without his financial input and support that began in 1972, there would be no Tandou story. I may have had a good idea but at the time I had little hope in seeing it come to fruition, and some saw it as pure folly. Ian was already successful through his own endeavours and did not need to take a risk in cultivating a 14,000ha barren lake bed in the middle of a desert into a major irrigation enterprise – when his heart was in beef production. But he was my good friend, and he believed in me. Ian made a huge financial commitment based on his own confidence and went about it with energy, resolve and humility.

Following my retirement in 2005, Ian encouraged me to write the Tandou story from my perspective as I had first-hand knowledge of events. I thought this was a good idea and then procrastinated for 13 years before having it written for me. My only regret is that it took Ian’s death to motivate me into getting it done and that he is unable to read it – sitting in a comfy chair with views over a paddock full of Aberdeen Angus cattle chewing on green grass – occasionally smiling and nodding his head in recollection.

Ian’s involvement in Tandou ensured its success and I will always be proud of what we achieved together. But, that pride is overshadowed by my 60 year friendship with a man who was my business partner, confidante, wise counsel and loyal friend.

Bob Smith. 2019

Ian Taylor

1.

Sometime around 700,000 years ago, a major event occurred in Australia that would ultimately shape the lives of Robert Smith and his good friend, Ian Taylor. The event centred on what is now referred to as Lake Bungunnia, a mega-lake so vast it would have taken a fast boat five hours non-stop to cross from one side to the other – if there had have been one available at the time. Its waters engulfed parts of South Australia, south-western New South Wales, and the north-west of Victoria. The huge body of water had been formed by melting glaciers and at a time when the local rainfall was considerably higher than the present day – up to 500mm per year. The life-changing event was a breach in the southern margin of the lake which caused it to drain. This heralded the start of a drier climate in Australia and the creation of the modern semi-desert landscape of saltbush, bluebush and native grasses. But it wasn’t the desert that Smith and Taylor would invest much of their lives in as a result of this event – it was a lake.

The drainage also resulted in the formation of the southern end of the Murray River. As the two-million-year-old Bungunnia fragmented, lakes were left behind including the string of lakes now comprising the Menindee Lakes Water Storage Scheme and Tandou Creek which feeds Lake Tandou and, via Redbank Creek, the great Darling Anabranch. This waterway also has its own river source and a string of lakebeds that fill in a flood, drain back to the source and are left with a pool of water generally only 1-1.5 metres in depth which evaporates over the following year. Although initially filled with fresh water, Lake Bungunnia was brackish for most of its life but reached depths of up to 30 metres. It was also home to the lungfish, a freshwater fish that still exists in Queensland today and has remained unchanged for over 100 million years. This extraordinary creature is a living fossil and has been credited with being the surviving link in the evolutionary chain between fish and amphibians.

Archaeological digs at the edge of Lake Tandou in the 20th century would reveal 30,000 year old fossils that included a tooth from a lungfish as well as evidence of the fearsome mega-fauna of the day. These included the Procoptodon, a 200-kilogram kangaroo that could reach leaves three metres from the ground by standing on its legs and the Thylacoleo, more commonly known as the marsupial lion, whose name is scary enough. Perhaps most fearsome of all was the Diprotodon – the largest marsupial that ever lived and the largest known desert-living animal in Australia. Stretching three metres long, standing 2.6 metres high and weighing as much as a rhinoceros, these beasts once roamed the shores of Lake Tandou. Their long-dead bones showed marks of stone tools, indicating a death brought on by the very hungry and very brave Aboriginal people.

The ancient Darling River provided food, water, medicine and transport for these early inhabitants. Its waters meander downstream from southern Queensland and north-eastern NSW for 1,400 miles at a slow pace dictated by its fall of only three inches every mile. Since 1829, when Captain Charles Sturt first ventured down the river, and found it too salty to drink, it has become a watercourse of many names. Beginning as the Severn River in south-east Queensland, the waters then become the Dumaresq, the McIntyre and then the Barwon River before it becomes known as the Darling, near Bourke in outback New South Wales. Flowing entirely through pastoral lands and flat, dry plains until it meets the mighty Murray River at Wentworth, the Darling has always been an unpredictable and unreliable water source. In 1902, the river dried up for an entire year – at Wilcannia, in north-west New South Wales, no flow was recorded for 364 days. In 1956, it was measured at 28 million megalitres. A megalitre is one million litres of water. (Total flow is not measurable for major floods as the river could be 100 miles wide above Bourke and still 30 miles wide at Wilcannia. The over-bank flows are not measurable).

At many times through the year, the Darling River would revert to a series of deep waterholes, and the lakes that the river fed would evaporate – dependent on the relative level that the river flowed into and drained them, and the depth of the retained water. Between the years 1885– 1960, the river ceased to flow 48 times. The main lakes, Wetherell, Pamamaroo, Cawndilla and Lake Menindee were just natural depressions that filled during floods. As the flow receded, the water in the depressions flowed back into the river. Major Thomas Mitchell, Charles Sturt and the explorers, Burke and Wills, all used the lakes on expeditions between 1835-1860. Lake Tandou is at the western end of this string of pearls, but is not fed directly by the Darling River. The 150 square kilometre lake bed, sitting quietly in the middle of one of the driest regions in Australia, contained water only intermittently. Its reported appearance in 1967 was of a flat grassy plain bounded on the east by a long sandy ridge, and would seem an unlikely prospect for a major agricultural project. But, there was a lot of water to go under the bridge before that vision was even contemplated.

Aboriginal culture can be traced back an incredible 45,000 years in Australia. In western New South Wales, Aboriginal groups first lived along the banks of the Darling River 30,000 years ago, although just 150 kilometres south, at Lake Mungo, there is evidence of human habitation that is 50,000 years old. The area surrounding the lakes and the lower Darling River is located within the traditional lands of the Barkindji people. Their name for the river is ‘barka’ and their tribal name translates to ‘people of the river’. These aborigines were fishermen as well as hunters. Australia’s original anglers used nets made of kangaroo sinews, fishing hooks from bone, dried reeds for floats and balls of baked clay for sinkers, while the women and children gathered mussels, tortoises and yabbies from the shallow water. Fish weirs and stone traps were also built to catch fish heading from the wetlands back to the river as levels fell. One stone trap further upstream, near Brewarinna, was substantial enough to stop the progress of river vessels, which began navigating the river in the 1850s. The Barkindji people, though, began to lose their traditional lands, and their existence as hunters and fishers, from the 1830s with the arrival of European settlers. Once the riverboat trade began, their future was changed irreversibly.

Six years after opening up the Murray River to paddle steamer trade, Captain Francis Cadell and Captain William Randell turned their attention to the Darling River.

With the potential for riverboat trading as far north as Queensland, the attraction was obvious, but the Darling presented far more of a challenge than the Murray. Agricultural settlements were scattered far and wide, its course resembled a drunkard’s walk, the flow was erratic and there were numerous navigation hazards. Despite all that, the first steamer headed upstream in 1859 delivering cargo to Mt. Murchison station and returning with 100 bales of wool. By 1865, the wool industry was the mainstay of the riverboat trade. Bigger and more powerful steamers towing longer and wider barges increased the volume of wool being transported, but the fickle nature of the Darling could make or break a boat owner’s business.

In some years the river level was just too low to navigate, while in times of flood, some boats could expand their area of operations. In one such flood, a paddle steamer navigated up the Paroo River to the Queensland border, 300 miles from the Darling River. But, if the water level dropped too quickly, there was no way out. On one occasion, when a steamer full of potatoes was stranded by a low river, the Captain got the crew to plant them on the riverbank. When the river rose, the crew dug up the mature crop and proceeded on their way with three times the amount of potatoes. Another boat left the main channel in a flood only to become stranded many miles inland. Legend has it, the boat became a grandstand for an outback race meeting. The paddle-steamer, Jane Eliza, holds the record of three years for the longest time stranded in the Darling River.

By 1880, roads and railways began to mark the beginning of the end for riverboat trade. The trail-blazer, Captain Francis Cadell, met his fate around the same time. After being expelled from the colony of Western Australia in 1876 for capturing and selling aboriginal people as slaves, he was murdered by a crew member near New Guinea in 1879. The first