It's amazing what certain video reactions perform different than others. This is by far the fastest performing video on my channel. You all love your vast country that is for sure. I am happy to learn all these things about Australia and this one didn't disappoint.
The Aussie's connection to our vast outback is a bit of a paradox, given that more than 85 per cent of Australians live within 50 kilometres of the coast, making it an integral part of our laid-back lifestyle (if you were to visit a new beach in Australia every day, it would take you over 27 years to run out of beaches!) Yet the Outback is also an integral part of our identity, our beating heart if you will, and it has a unique history. For example, we have a train line called the Ghan which runs through the red centre from Adelaide on the south coast to Darwin on the north coast. The Ghan got its name from the Afghan cameleers who brought their camels as beasts of burden in the vast deserts, perfectly suited for the harsh conditions. The camels have thrived and have become a pest, damaging the fragile environment and competing with 'roos and other wildlife for food. Fun fact: Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia because Oz has the last remaining wild camel herd left in the world! Not only is it wild, it is also incredibly genetically diverse.
@@jenniferanderson1499 Fun fact. Local pub has a camel in the yard at the back of the beer garden. She (Fergie) came here as a baby camel, brought by one the local blokes who transports camels to Darwin by road train. She's huge now and very sociable. A few more camels grazing in the paddocks outside my window, in amongst the cattle and Llama.
A friend who used to live in Alice Springs told me a story about tourists to the area. If they asked where the nearest McDonalds was they were told "follow the main road and turn left at the first set of lights". It wasn't a lie but the first set of lights was in Darwin 1,500km (900 miles) away.
We aussie have different sayings for different distances. Just down the road kinda close (at least to as aussie can be 5 mons away to 2 hours away) As the crow flies (over 2 hours away) Back of woop woop( really far away)
I’ve spent a huge part of my life in the outback and one of my best friends grew up on a cattle station. From the age of 11 one of her chores was to check the mailbox at the end of the driveway once a week. Which required her grabbing the keys to the land cruiser and driving for 90 kilometres down a dirt track through “sparse grazing land” to the front gate. The entire return trip took three and a half hours. She’s a total legend.
@@Breath-j8x lol! You know what, I never thought to ask. She recently sent me a video of her drinking rum and riding a wake board down a sand dune somewhere near the edge of Lake Eyre. (not really a lake but the largest and flattest slab of sun-baked salt in the planet) I’ll give her a call and find out…
Reminds me of the time Australian billionaire Kerry Packer was gambling in Las Vegas. Packer, who once famously tipped a black dealer a million dollars, and routinely tipped casino staff tens of thousands of dollars each time he played, was playing blackjack at a table with a Texan oil baron who was bragging about his wealth, saying he could buy every one at the table several times over. Bored of his boorish behaviour, Packer called him out over his claimed $100million net worth, saying in front of them all, “I’ll flip you for it,”. An offer that was declined. There was a guy sounding off how rich he was, bragging and letting her tablem
In Australia, grazing capacity of land is generally not measured in how many head per hectare but by how many square kilometres per head. They're called stations not ranches.
G'day mike. I'm an Aussie and we had an agricultural course at my high school in Queensland. There are quite a few schools that still do run agriculture courses. Recently at the EKKA,our state fair in Brisbane,the wife and I met many wonderful young students proudly displayed and chatting to the public about their livestock, cattle, sheep, goats ECT. It's an excellent way to raise potential new farmers and to teach them the ever changing facets of agricultural and farming. It was very interesting and informative to me. My grandparents ran a dairy farm and my relatives on mums side had and still have large citrus orchards as well as ran beef cattle. I have spent a lot of time around cattle and sheep out west but am in no way an expert so I'm always happy to learn new things. I really appreciate and enjoy watching people who are very knowledgeable in their applied trade whether it be in construction, farming, engineering ECT. Enjoying your channel. Have fun and stay safe mate. It's a dangerous and essential job that you do😊
I’m a fifo (fly in fly out) mine worker, 2 weeks on 2 off. I work in the very right hand end of the red bit. It’s early Spring and it’s 37 degrees c, 50kmh winds today. Nice mild day. I did first pass exploration on Mulga downs for a period. Right in the middle of Western Australia. Million acres, 25,000 head of cattle. 2 guys with a helicopter each ran the whole thing and they brought in 10 odd people and a couple of light planes for mustering.
Used to helpout in a station in The Kimberly, we used to go stash fuel drums with hand pumps for the helicopters to top up and had a Land Cruiser with drums on too lol, herd and property was too big for the small choppers to operate. Also new a rural Postman who covered a LOT of land delivering mail, its exceptionally large and remote outside of the cities especially through the middle and in WA
They mentioned that most of those cattle stations are owned by Sidney Kidman and Co and that he's related to Antonia Kidman..that's a kinda tricky bit of info because Antonia Kidman is mainly only well known in Australia wheras internationally her sister is the well known actress Nicole Kidman.
It was good mentioning Nicole's sister instead of herself & that's a Aussie thing to do. We know here in Australia who Antonia is, but l doubt other countries know unless the people are fans of Nicole. She's a great Oscar winning actress so she would have heaps of fans. Keith is ok to 👍
I went to Agricultural School with a great bloke whose Family owned two cattle stations ……. I grew up on a 2500 acre property but my school mate made life on his giant cattle stations sound more than fantastic !! Gibbers are stones…… and Lake Eyre is pronounced “Air”. A lot of cattle mustering is done with helicopters these days and many stations have a large number of feral 🐪 camels as well.
There were two stations in the Northern Territory, bigger than the one mentioned. Wave Hill station was 30 million acres and Victoria River Downs was 33 million acres. Both have since been cut up and sold off since the 1980s
Good to see some other stations mentioned, I worked on Alexandria in the early 80’s it was the 3rd largest cattle station in the world so nothing to sneeze at.
The reason the stations are so big is that the land itself can probably only support one head per 5 acres. You need alot of cattle to make a farm profitable, therefore the need for the huge amount of land.
A very long time ago I dated a girl whose father owned two cattle stations in Queensland. Not quite as big as a sheep station but big enough. One was 300,000 acres, the other 80,000 acres. The family referred to the smaller one as the "paddock..." They used aircraft for mustering (which they did twice a year, I think), although most of the time the cattle were left to their own devices and had to be located first before mustering started. Most of the time they never knew where they were.
Brunette Downs cattle station used to be about 1 million acres. It has a shop and a school and a famous rodeo there every year. Rockhampton Downs next door to Brunette is around 1 million acres now. All these big cattle stations use light aircraft instead of cars to go shopping etc. And to receive visits from the Royal Flying Doctor. We really need a good documentary about these huge Cattle stations in the outback.
Flying doctor is free service that covers the entire of Australia 🇦🇺 and runs on donations I live 300 km from city have been flown to Perth twice to Ed each state has their own planes most propeller driven the big states have a jet
TV show here in NZ about sn Aus cattle ranch up in the Kimberly,Over a million acres, JUST blows your mind, everything in Aus is big,same with their Road trains,3 trailer's is pretty normal,up to 5or more makes your head hurt,
working on the highway nth of pt aggutta in the early 90s, middle of summer , two asian dudes with their backpack strapped to the pushy, HJ ice drink in hand, pull up at the roadwork stop sign. One of the highways guys asked where they were going, we were 100 k nth, really unusual to see pushies. They replied Alice springs, they thought they would be there by nightfall and book into a motel, lol. Highways guys talked them out of it and they were given a lift back to pt aggutta, possibly saving their lives.
I did a charter flight from Rawnsley Park Station over Lake Eyre (which is pronounce 'Lake Air", by the way) and we landed at William Creek, which is an interesting place. They had a little "park" (just a bare patch of stoney land) with some remnants of old rockets from Woomera. The pub was nice and the locals were very welcoming.
@@corinnecowper1339 he certainly did. I was going to try and write how it sounds but it was too hard. I visited about 50 years ago when the Americans were based there and it was a thriving little town, and we stopped there a couple of years ago and there was not much there🇦🇺
We used to go pig shooting on a 200 thousand acre property near Mitchell in the seventies An old mate of my dads was the station manager and taught me and my brothers loads of things
Spent a lot of time at Coober Pedy, work related. Also lived and worked in Texas for a while (Ft. Worth), also work related. Nice people those Texans, but they didn't like being told that my state, South Australia, is 2.5 times the size of Texas. To quote Mick Dundee, that's not a state, this is a state.
South Australia? "That's not a state, THIS is a state." says Western Australia entering the conversation (3.6 times the size of Texas and almost double the size of Alaska).😉😁
@@heatherharvey3129 The SAS is based in WA because WA is the most likely state to decide to go independent ;) It is also why most WA governors are ex-military. Their alliance to the Commonwealth is potentially questionable.
@@nevyn_karres The SAS alliance to the Commonwealth is implicit in the Oath of Allegiance. I'd like to think that, even today, a man's word s still his bond.
in the late eighties I visited a cattle station in the North of Western Australia that was over 700000 acres, it was called Mable Downs Station, near Halls Creek
You might want to check out the Sir Sydney Kidman story. He is one of those leave home with a nickel in his pocket and ends up the biggest land owner on the planet.
and antonia kidman is the sister of nicole kidman - don't know why he would tell you the lesser known sister especially globally when nicole is known worldwide
I don't know this for sure, but I think it's more likely that the cattle are mustered by chopper rather than fixed wing aircraft as stated in the video. Pretty much every other large station does it that way. Choppers are far more agile and, let's face it, way cooler than light planes.
Chopper musterers are slowing being phased out due to the death rate of low flying hazzards between trees. Planes spot them from higher up an the bikes go in then horses push them along as the vehicle notices scare them as most have never seen a person until muster/round up.
Did some School of the Air, correspondence schools catering for the primary and early secondary education of children in remote and outback Australia where some or all classes were historically conducted by radio, although this is now replaced by telephone and internet technology.
Added to the other comments, it was noted that Hancock owns a large percentage of Australian cattle land! Hancock is owned by Australia's richest person, Gina Hancock! She's a whole series of videos on her own! Cheers Mike! 🙋
@@jackbarrie6007 Did you not listen to the vid? Nobody can buy Australian land, one can only lease it. It remains the property of the Australian government in perpetuity. Company ownership is a different matter.
Cattle can thrive in harsh conditions. Although there’s not as many heads of cattle as on other grazing lands, the nutrients in desert grass species are unexpectedly high and the scorching temperatures keep many of the common illnesses latent, the cattle survive on desert vegetation with little to no chemical treatment needed.
Up to the late 60s, there was a sheep station that stretched from just outside Darwin, the capital of the northern Territory, to just outside Adelaide the capital of South Australia. This is the equivalent of the distance between Canada and Mexico. In the late 80s I was involved in splitting up one of the original paddocks that was part of that sheep station and it was bigger than Texas, my job was to fix any broken fences and make sure that the watering points were working, it took over 3 months and I only had to fix around ten sections of fence and replaced the bore pump on one of the watering points so I mostly just drove all day. That paddock is now 3 different sheep stations, several mining sites and land that has been given back to the Australian aboriginal people. To put Australia into prospective it is the 6th largest country but only has a population of around 26 million, south Australia only has a population of around 2.5 million and over 2 million people live in its capital Adelaide. The USA has multiple cities that have a similar population to Australia and there are a lot of cities worldwide that have more people than Australia. There are still parts of Australia that have only been visited by the Australian aboriginal people. If you want to see more stars then it seems possible just visit Central Australia. You can read a book by starlight alone.
I drove a truck in Australia. Was looking for a farm once. Stopped in at a farm and the guy said next house on the left. 230 kilometres later I found it 😂
VRD or Victoria River Downs was about 3 times as big Anna Creek. It was split up into three in the late 60's.VRD, Killarney & Alexander Downs. It was on the Victoria River in the Northern Territory, Plenty of Grass & lots of Cattle them Look up Bull catching in Australia. Lots of Fun, if you are game.
Around 90 percent of Australia's population live within 100 km of coast. Unlike the US there are relatively few major river systems in the inland area . I spent nearly a year as a kid on Victoria River Downs station AKA VRD or" The Big Run "in the Northern Territory which in its heyday was the biggest cattle station in the world at 40 000 Sq KM . By the time I was there in the late 1970s it was down to 12000 SQ KM .VRD was the home base of Helimuster one of the Pioneers of Helicopter cattle mustering who at there peak had around 18 Bell 47 helicopters. My father worked for them as an engineer / pilot .He flew about 3000 hours of Mustering across the Northern Territory and Queensland. You should check out some Australian helimustering vids ..
Called Stations, or Properties, over here mate. Did you hear the joke about the Texan in Australia? Everything that was pointed out to him, was apparently bigger back in Texas....UNTIL he seen a Kangaroo 😲 Excitedly, he shouted what the hell was that?!!😖The aussie asked, what, you never seen a mouse before mate.. 🤣 ... Ave a good one mate. 🤠
The gibber plain is also known as Sturt's stony desert. They are beautiful stones that look like mini Ayers Rocks. We have several as door stops in our house here in Melbourne. Not nice to drive across for hundreds of miles though!!
An outback landowner was showing his huge property to a visiting American rancher... "How big is it?" the American asked.. "Well, the Aussie replied. " It takes me four days to ride my horse from one side to the other" To which the American said, " Yup, I too had a slow old horse at one time!"
The problem with videos made by an American about Australia is that every single Australian place name is pronounced incorrectly and that grates on our nerves big time! But yes, Anna Creek is our biggest cattle station. To say it gets 8 inches of rain a year is extremely generous! That would an extremely good year of rainfall!! It is more typically much less. The grass out there is very sparse which is why there's so few cattle out there. They'd mostly be eating salt bush.
Australia's states are also very large. Texas is famously known to be very large land area to Americans so for comparison, Western Australia is Australia's largest state and way larger than Alaska, it is roughly same land size as Texas and the country of Mexico combined. Also has a pretty small population of couple million concentrated around the city of Perth down in the corner.
Pronounced "Aer" and and "OOODnadatta". As a pastoral lease in South Australia it is owned by the South Australian Government (not the Australian Government). Most if not all is within the Woomera Prohibited Area (controlled for purposes of Australian Defence Force and originally set up to test UK atomic weapons)
You’re right that Australia is about the same size as the lower 48 US states. The population density is much, much less though because the whole country has fewer people than the state of Texas. Australia has 8.8 people per square mile and the US has 87 per square mile. Most of us live fairly close to the coast so the centre of the country is even more sparsely populated, maybe 1 or less per square mile.
He pretty much skipped over Coober Pedy, the nearest big town outside the station area. It’s worth having a look at by itself, it’s a very unique place. Hopefully you can find an Australian video which would be more likely to be factual.
You need to consider this Cattle Station though huge in size is nothing compared to what the Kidman's cattle ranch/station was, look up Sir Sidney Kidman 1935 properties, he tried to buy all the land from Queensland far north right down to Adelaide.
2010 driving down the Birdsville track with my then g/f an Eastern European lady. She pointed out that we had driven through THREE Euro countries today. Home to maybe 50 people! And these days there is a made road, dirt ofcourse but when it is dry a good dusty road. When it is wet it is sometimes closed. We were the first into Mungeranni about half way down in 3 weeks. There is a film made 70 years ago about the Track then with the Birdsville mailman Tom Kruse called The Back of Beyond. Available on You Tube. Then you will get an idea of the conditions A day or two later we drove through Anna Creek station on our way to CooperPedy and parts were under water. When the drought breaks it really breaks a nd the country in places beomes bottomless. Dont go off the track,, and at that time watch out for washaways. Our smallest state, the island state Tasmania that often gets left off the map is considerably bigger than Belgium or Holland. Which are not considered small! Lake Eyre, in South Australia normally a dry salt lake was where Donald Campbell set his land speed record in 64,, then it rained and he could nearly have set the water speed record there as well. Which he also did in 64 in West Oz. I have seen inland SA at its wettest when there is green and it is quite lovely. At its dryest it is bloody awfull just dry and desolate. And does not have any stock capacity at all. That is the other extreme to the big wet
I've recently completed a train trip on the Indian Pacific train from Perth to Sydney (more than 3,000 kms) and I can testify there are very, very few people out there. We stopped for water and fuel at Cook which is almost completely abandoned. The only people in Cook are with the Australian Rail Track Corporation who are there to maintain the rail line. We just accept that the middle of Australia is not going to support much of anything except perhaps mining.
Is a old joke that the owner of Australia biggest cattle station was in Las Vegas and a Texan rancher was bragging and said his ranch is so big it takes him the whole day to drive from one end to the other. Aussie saids i used to have a old car like that too and went and bought a new one...
Great video. I am from Australia and have seen the clip but I still enjoyed watching this one and would love to see more stuff on some of the Farms you have in the states. And I was wondering. What is Australian people call a Farm. (Produces stock/crops in a business sense) Do Americans call it the same thing or is that what you call a Ranch
We call cattle or horse raising a "Ranch". Raising crops is called a farm. I think the owner decides what to call it if he raises both. Sometimes owners of as little as 10 acres will call their place a "ranch" just because it appeals to them to call it that.
Try the NT mate, wouldn't be the first time I'd stopped at Three Ways for a coffee and have a bloke land his Robinson next to my truck to grab a packet of smokes and a bottle of milk.
Robinson R44 helicopters, manufactured prior to December 2010, and all R22 helicopters, have fuel tanks that are susceptible to rupture... (next bit is from 2013)New R22 helicopters from serial number 4622 will be fitted with a bladder fuel tank and not an aluminum one as before.
Famous Aussie actress Nicole Kidman (whose husband is famous Aussie country singer Keith urban) is the well known relative of sir Sidney Kidman Sir Sidney Kidman was a well liked boss to his many workers and made a name for himself after leaving his family home at 13 due to an abusive stepdad Sir Sidney Kidman spent a lot of time with the local aboriginal people and many are have said to have mourned his passing Also there is a good clip on YT of Keith urban and Jimmy Barnes singing flame trees and one of urbans shows in Australia that you may like ❤
Texas fits into our State of Western Australia three and a half times. People who come here do not expect to see what they do. Out there we have a lot of road trains, they are 18 wheelers pulling up to 5 more trailers. If one is coming at you, close your windows and get off the road.
I've seen where they have overlaid a map of Australia on a map of the lower 48 states and it's obviously pretty close. Those 48 states cover 3.1 million square miles and Australia is 2.97 million square miles.
Still laughing my arse off over the pronunciation of place names in that video about Anna Creek Station. Anna Creek Station is in my home state which is 45% larger than Texas but has a population of just 1.8M. Texas has a population greater than the whole of Australia.
A good way for a Seppo, (our pet name for Americans, although it is derived from 'Yank', which I understand that you are not), to grasp Australian geography is to think of driving from Baltimore to LA, which is sort of Brisbane to Perth. Well about 250 miles out of Baltimore, you are in Nevada, And you are in Nevada until about 200 miles from LA, when it becomes California. Simple really. I am from Western Australia, and we are about 1/3 of the country, with about 2.5 million people, 2.25 or thereabouts of whom live in Perth.
If you really want to know: we call Americans “Yanks” and so in rhyming slang this becomes “septic tanks” which then is too long to say and gets shortened to “seppo”.
I wish these video makers would research their pronounciation before blundering in. Lake Eyre is pronounced 'air' (after the British explorer John Eyre), not 'ire'. Oodnadatta has a short 'a' as in 'at' so it's not 'Oodnadarta'. Gibbers are small rocks and pronounced with hard 'g' so it's not 'jibber' (which is what badly reasearched video presenters do). Also, Anna Creek is not a bloody 'farm'. That's a much smaller higher rainfall holding where you till the land and grow wheat etc. And the land isn't owned by the Australian Government. It is 'Crown land' owned by the South Australian state Government. These leases were created long before the Australian Government even existed (1901).
Sorry, I thought I read "Station Wagon" Now that I re-read it as "Station Way Bigger" It makes my reply look dumb. So, I know there are some "Stations" (we call them Ranches) bigger than Texas. I find that amazing.
Would have been better if the clip was made by an Australian. At least the pronunciation of places would be accurate. He did get Coober Pedy correct, though!😂
Considering he butchered every name, with American Authority and Accent, one would be excused for dismissing all other stated "Facts". I know where Oodnadatta is but where is Oodnadarhta ?
Yep, Australia is approximately the size of the contiguous 48 States…but we have less than 10% of y’all’s population: US = 335 Million vs. AU = 27.4 Million. Much of that is due to being the driest continent on Earth (besides Antarctica)…we have the lowest ratio of River and Catchment systems to landmass. No fresh water means no agriculture means no population settlements. Aboriginal people have very different life ways and live carefully and sparsely across vast landscapes, but that is a different story for another time.
I am Australian how are you going mate. You react to why is there a cia base in the middle off Australia. Interesting. Bye now. From the land down under.
The guy commenting this vidio isn't an Aussie.he may live here but he cant pronounce Places and land features correctly so much for knowing what he is talking about
It's amazing what certain video reactions perform different than others. This is by far the fastest performing video on my channel. You all love your vast country that is for sure. I am happy to learn all these things about Australia and this one didn't disappoint.
I enjoyed the watch.
The Aussie's connection to our vast outback is a bit of a paradox, given that more than 85 per cent of Australians live within 50 kilometres of the coast, making it an integral part of our laid-back lifestyle (if you were to visit a new beach in Australia every day, it would take you over 27 years to run out of beaches!) Yet the Outback is also an integral part of our identity, our beating heart if you will, and it has a unique history. For example, we have a train line called the Ghan which runs through the red centre from Adelaide on the south coast to Darwin on the north coast. The Ghan got its name from the Afghan cameleers who brought their camels as beasts of burden in the vast deserts, perfectly suited for the harsh conditions. The camels have thrived and have become a pest, damaging the fragile environment and competing with 'roos and other wildlife for food. Fun fact: Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia because Oz has the last remaining wild camel herd left in the world! Not only is it wild, it is also incredibly genetically diverse.
@@jenniferanderson1499 Fun fact.
Local pub has a camel in the yard at the back of the beer garden.
She (Fergie) came here as a baby camel, brought by one the local blokes who transports camels to Darwin by road train.
She's huge now and very sociable.
A few more camels grazing in the paddocks outside my window, in amongst the cattle and Llama.
@@NedKLee that's awesome! Where's the local pub?
When an Australian tells you, " it's just down the road". That might be 1000 km down the road.😁
Make that 50 to100 km idiot stop showing of😢😢😢
A friend who used to live in Alice Springs told me a story about tourists to the area. If they asked where the nearest McDonalds was they were told "follow the main road and turn left at the first set of lights". It wasn't a lie but the first set of lights was in Darwin 1,500km (900 miles) away.
Yep, I’ve once been told “just up the road, first on your right” …. Turns out that was 300km north….
We aussie have different sayings for different distances.
Just down the road kinda close (at least to as aussie can be 5 mons away to 2 hours away)
As the crow flies (over 2 hours away)
Back of woop woop( really far away)
Yep 😎👍🇦🇺
I’ve spent a huge part of my life in the outback and one of my best friends grew up on a cattle station. From the age of 11 one of her chores was to check the mailbox at the end of the driveway once a week. Which required her grabbing the keys to the land cruiser and driving for 90 kilometres down a dirt track through “sparse grazing land” to the front gate. The entire return trip took three and a half hours. She’s a total legend.
I hope there was Mail 📬👍
@@Breath-j8x lol! You know what, I never thought to ask. She recently sent me a video of her drinking rum and riding a wake board down a sand dune somewhere near the edge of Lake Eyre. (not really a lake but the largest and flattest slab of sun-baked salt in the planet) I’ll give her a call and find out…
American Farmer.. I got the biggest Ranch in Texas...
Aussie Farmer.. I got a Ranch Bigger than Texas.
Great come back. Luv it.
That's hilarious!
Reminds me of the time Australian billionaire Kerry Packer was gambling in Las Vegas. Packer, who once famously tipped a black dealer a million dollars, and routinely tipped casino staff tens of thousands of dollars each time he played, was playing blackjack at a table with a Texan oil baron who was bragging about his wealth, saying he could buy every one at the table several times over. Bored of his boorish behaviour, Packer called him out over his claimed $100million net worth, saying in front of them all, “I’ll flip you for it,”. An offer that was declined.
There was a guy sounding off how rich he was, bragging and letting her tablem
Station, not ranch in Australia. Plus Australia even supplies beef to Texas.
@@terencemcgeown2358 Americans would think i'm talking about trains though..
In Australia, grazing capacity of land is generally not measured in how many head per hectare but by how many square kilometres per head. They're called stations not ranches.
G'day mike. I'm an Aussie and we had an agricultural course at my high school in Queensland. There are quite a few schools that still do run agriculture courses. Recently at the EKKA,our state fair in Brisbane,the wife and I met many wonderful young students proudly displayed and chatting to the public about their livestock, cattle, sheep, goats ECT. It's an excellent way to raise potential new farmers and to teach them the ever changing facets of agricultural and farming. It was very interesting and informative to me. My grandparents ran a dairy farm and my relatives on mums side had and still have large citrus orchards as well as ran beef cattle. I have spent a lot of time around cattle and sheep out west but am in no way an expert so I'm always happy to learn new things. I really appreciate and enjoy watching people who are very knowledgeable in their applied trade whether it be in construction, farming, engineering ECT. Enjoying your channel. Have fun and stay safe mate. It's a dangerous and essential job that you do😊
I’m a fifo (fly in fly out) mine worker, 2 weeks on 2 off. I work in the very right hand end of the red bit. It’s early Spring and it’s 37 degrees c, 50kmh winds today. Nice mild day. I did first pass exploration on Mulga downs for a period. Right in the middle of Western Australia. Million acres, 25,000 head of cattle. 2 guys with a helicopter each ran the whole thing and they brought in 10 odd people and a couple of light planes for mustering.
@@stuartgraham9329 2&2 is a great roster mate. Well done! 👍
I work in exploration too…. But almost to the left and bottom left of the red bit hahahaha
Used to helpout in a station in The Kimberly, we used to go stash fuel drums with hand pumps for the helicopters to top up and had a Land Cruiser with drums on too lol, herd and property was too big for the small choppers to operate. Also new a rural Postman who covered a LOT of land delivering mail, its exceptionally large and remote outside of the cities especially through the middle and in WA
They mentioned that most of those cattle stations are owned by Sidney Kidman and Co and that he's related to Antonia Kidman..that's a kinda tricky bit of info because Antonia Kidman is mainly only well known in Australia wheras internationally her sister is the well known actress Nicole Kidman.
🤣
RIP to their mother 😊❤
Pause at 6:43
It was good mentioning Nicole's sister instead of herself & that's a Aussie thing to do. We know here in Australia who Antonia is, but l doubt other countries know unless the people are fans of Nicole. She's a great Oscar winning actress so she would have heaps of fans. Keith is ok to 👍
I went to Agricultural School with a great bloke whose Family owned two cattle stations ……. I grew up on a 2500 acre property but my school mate made life on his giant cattle stations sound more than fantastic !! Gibbers are stones…… and Lake Eyre is pronounced “Air”. A lot of cattle mustering is done with helicopters these days and many stations have a large number of feral 🐪 camels as well.
There were two stations in the Northern Territory, bigger than the one mentioned. Wave Hill station was 30 million acres and Victoria River Downs was 33 million acres. Both have since been cut up and sold off since the 1980s
When I went to live in the Territory in the 70's the VRD was always described as being bigger than the state of Texas, which it was at the time.
Good to see some other stations mentioned, I worked on Alexandria in the early 80’s it was the 3rd largest cattle station in the world so nothing to sneeze at.
The reason the stations are so big is that the land itself can probably only support one head per 5 acres. You need alot of cattle to make a farm profitable, therefore the need for the huge amount of land.
Not 5 acres, more like 5 sq miles, good New England district land is good for one beast per 5 acres.
❤ to you Mike,I hope your well….Great video thankyou❤
A friend of mine lived on a family cattle station in out back Queensland, he married the girl who lived next door which was 50 miles away.
I was there a month ago. Absolutely HUGE!
A very long time ago I dated a girl whose father owned two cattle stations in Queensland. Not quite as big as a sheep station but big enough. One was 300,000 acres, the other 80,000 acres. The family referred to the smaller one as the "paddock..." They used aircraft for mustering (which they did twice a year, I think), although most of the time the cattle were left to their own devices and had to be located first before mustering started. Most of the time they never knew where they were.
Brunette Downs cattle station used to be about 1 million acres. It has a shop and a school and a famous rodeo there every year.
Rockhampton Downs next door to Brunette is around 1 million acres now. All these big cattle stations use light aircraft instead of cars to go shopping etc. And to receive visits from the Royal Flying Doctor.
We really need a good documentary about these huge Cattle stations in the outback.
Flying doctor is free service that covers the entire of Australia 🇦🇺 and runs on donations I live 300 km from city have been flown to Perth twice to Ed each state has their own planes most propeller driven the big states have a jet
It’s Lake Eyre pronounced “air”! Ooh that grates on my nerves, sorry
And the pronunciation of Woomera was incorrect as well. Narrator said Woom-era, instead of Woom-a-ra.
karenglenn....How about "Jibber" plains ? ! Thought it was Gibber.
Come to Ballarat, Eyre Street is pronounced that way here. Yes it shits me too.
@@gusdrivinginaustralia6168 I’m in Castlemaine, which is pronounced Cassel Maine not Carstle Maine. Also Melbourne Mel bin not Mel borne.x
@@michellewatson4843 I missed that one, well spotted. You’d think that they would do some research before hand 😡
People just don’t know how big Australia is .
40% is not explored yet
TV show here in NZ about sn Aus cattle ranch up in the Kimberly,Over a million acres,
JUST blows your mind, everything in Aus is big,same with their Road trains,3 trailer's is pretty normal,up to 5or more makes your head hurt,
Really interesting video, Thank u Mike👍🦘🐨🐊
My Grandfather had 40,000 acres in the Wimmera region of Victoria and on it he could only run 2-3000 sheep. From Mick.D.
working on the highway nth of pt aggutta in the early 90s, middle of summer , two asian dudes with their backpack strapped to the pushy, HJ ice drink in hand, pull up at the roadwork stop sign. One of the highways guys asked where they were going, we were 100 k nth, really unusual to see pushies. They replied Alice springs, they thought they would be there by nightfall and book into a motel, lol. Highways guys talked them out of it and they were given a lift back to pt aggutta, possibly saving their lives.
Lake Eyre (Air)
It is an amazing place as well.
Keep safe, your friends from Adelaide South Australia 🦘🦘
I did a charter flight from Rawnsley Park Station over Lake Eyre (which is pronounce 'Lake Air", by the way) and we landed at William Creek, which is an interesting place. They had a little "park" (just a bare patch of stoney land) with some remnants of old rockets from Woomera. The pub was nice and the locals were very welcoming.
Love how the narrator brushes over Coober Pedy like it's an insignificant dot on the map. Impressed that he pronounced it correctly though.
Some of his other pronunciations were a bit dodgy though.
@@miniveedubyep…Wimmera? 🇦🇺
@@NannaK-b2c I think he means Woomera.
@@corinnecowper1339 he certainly did. I was going to try and write how it sounds but it was too hard. I visited about 50 years ago when the Americans were based there and it was a thriving little town, and we stopped there a couple of years ago and there was not much there🇦🇺
We used to go pig shooting on a 200 thousand acre property near Mitchell in the seventies
An old mate of my dads was the station manager and taught me and my brothers loads of things
What station that one i live in mitchell. An my father used to run Morwheena just out of town
Spent a lot of time at Coober Pedy, work related.
Also lived and worked in Texas for a while (Ft. Worth), also work related.
Nice people those Texans, but they didn't like being told that my state, South Australia, is 2.5 times the size of Texas.
To quote Mick Dundee, that's not a state, this is a state.
😂😂 that makes me giggle. Texans think that they’re the biggest, and they’re not. Maybe in the US they are but that’s it.
South Australia? "That's not a state, THIS is a state." says Western Australia entering the conversation (3.6 times the size of Texas and almost double the size of Alaska).😉😁
@@karenglenn6707 Alaska is the biggest US state, a fact which also can irk some Texans. 😉
@@heatherharvey3129 The SAS is based in WA because WA is the most likely state to decide to go independent ;) It is also why most WA governors are ex-military. Their alliance to the Commonwealth is potentially questionable.
@@nevyn_karres The SAS alliance to the Commonwealth is implicit in the Oath of Allegiance.
I'd like to think that, even today, a man's word s still his bond.
in the late eighties I visited a cattle station in the North of Western Australia that was over 700000 acres, it was called Mable Downs Station, near Halls Creek
You might want to check out the Sir Sydney Kidman story. He is one of those leave home with a nickel in his pocket and ends up the biggest land owner on the planet.
and antonia kidman is the sister of nicole kidman - don't know why he would tell you the lesser known sister especially globally when nicole is known worldwide
Copyright? 😆
Pause at 6:43.
Gave me a big laugh when he said Antonia😂😂
Because Nicole has nothing to do with the stations herself.
@@gusdrivinginaustralia6168why comment the same thing over and over again.
I was last schoolteacher at Anna Creek back in 1981. 11 students ranging from grade 1 to grade 7
I don't know this for sure, but I think it's more likely that the cattle are mustered by chopper rather than fixed wing aircraft as stated in the video. Pretty much every other large station does it that way. Choppers are far more agile and, let's face it, way cooler than light planes.
Chopper musterers are slowing being phased out due to the death rate of low flying hazzards between trees. Planes spot them from higher up an the bikes go in then horses push them along as the vehicle notices scare them as most have never seen a person until muster/round up.
Cheers from outback Oz 🦘🦘
Did some School of the Air, correspondence schools catering for the primary and early secondary education of children in remote and outback Australia where some or all classes were historically conducted by radio, although this is now replaced by telephone and internet technology.
Added to the other comments, it was noted that Hancock owns a large percentage of Australian cattle land! Hancock is owned by Australia's richest person, Gina Hancock! She's a whole series of videos on her own! Cheers Mike! 🙋
Gina Reinhardt, her dad was Lang Hancock .
@@gusdrivinginaustralia6168 I think she's more ruthless, she's determined to keep control and his wealth! 😄
@jenniferharrison8915 the good thing about her is she's buying up Australian companies and land it's better than overseas buying it
@@jackbarrie6007 Absolutely agree, that somewhat redeems her personal ruthlessness! We must keep Australia Australian as much as possible! 😄
@@jackbarrie6007 Did you not listen to the vid? Nobody can buy Australian land, one can only lease it. It remains the property of the Australian government in perpetuity. Company ownership is a different matter.
Cattle can thrive in harsh conditions. Although there’s not as many heads of cattle as on other grazing lands, the nutrients in desert grass species are unexpectedly high and the scorching temperatures keep many of the common illnesses latent, the cattle survive on desert vegetation with little to no chemical treatment needed.
Gidday SOB (son of bob!)
To put the size into a US perspective it's the same size as West Virginia.
Faaarrrkkl!!
Up to the late 60s, there was a sheep station that stretched from just outside Darwin, the capital of the northern Territory, to just outside Adelaide the capital of South Australia. This is the equivalent of the distance between Canada and Mexico.
In the late 80s I was involved in splitting up one of the original paddocks that was part of that sheep station and it was bigger than Texas, my job was to fix any broken fences and make sure that the watering points were working, it took over 3 months and I only had to fix around ten sections of fence and replaced the bore pump on one of the watering points so I mostly just drove all day. That paddock is now 3 different sheep stations, several mining sites and land that has been given back to the Australian aboriginal people.
To put Australia into prospective it is the 6th largest country but only has a population of around 26 million, south Australia only has a population of around 2.5 million and over 2 million people live in its capital Adelaide.
The USA has multiple cities that have a similar population to Australia and there are a lot of cities worldwide that have more people than Australia.
There are still parts of Australia that have only been visited by the Australian aboriginal people.
If you want to see more stars then it seems possible just visit Central Australia. You can read a book by starlight alone.
I drove a truck in Australia. Was looking for a farm once. Stopped in at a farm and the guy said next house on the left. 230 kilometres later I found it 😂
VRD or Victoria River Downs was about 3 times as big Anna Creek. It was split up into three in the late 60's.VRD, Killarney & Alexander Downs. It was on the Victoria River in the Northern Territory, Plenty of Grass & lots of Cattle them Look up Bull catching in Australia. Lots of Fun, if you are game.
Around 90 percent of Australia's population live within 100 km of coast. Unlike the US there are relatively few major river systems in the inland area . I spent nearly a year as a kid on Victoria River Downs station AKA VRD or" The Big Run "in the Northern Territory which in its heyday was the biggest cattle station in the world at 40 000 Sq KM . By the time I was there in the late 1970s it was down to 12000 SQ KM .VRD was the home base of Helimuster one of the Pioneers of Helicopter cattle mustering who at there peak had around 18 Bell 47 helicopters. My father worked for them as an engineer / pilot .He flew about 3000 hours of Mustering across the Northern Territory and Queensland. You should check out some Australian helimustering vids ..
Called Stations, or Properties, over here mate. Did you hear the joke about the Texan in Australia? Everything that was pointed out to him, was apparently bigger back in Texas....UNTIL he seen a Kangaroo 😲 Excitedly, he shouted what the hell was that?!!😖The aussie asked, what, you never seen a mouse before mate.. 🤣 ... Ave a good one mate. 🤠
5:45 ……. Lake Eyre….. pronounced Lake Air….
Our farmers work so hard, we need to keep supporting them. People do not realise how difficult it can be for them.
Agree
The gibber plain is also known as Sturt's stony desert. They are beautiful stones that look like mini Ayers Rocks. We have several as door stops in our house here in Melbourne. Not nice to drive across for hundreds of miles though!!
An outback landowner was showing his huge property to a visiting American rancher...
"How big is it?" the American asked..
"Well, the Aussie replied. " It takes me four days to ride my horse from one side to the other"
To which the American said, " Yup, I too had a slow old horse at one time!"
And my nephew managed that station !
The problem with videos made by an American about Australia is that every single Australian place name is pronounced incorrectly and that grates on our nerves big time!
But yes, Anna Creek is our biggest cattle station. To say it gets 8 inches of rain a year is extremely generous! That would an extremely good year of rainfall!! It is more typically much less.
The grass out there is very sparse which is why there's so few cattle out there. They'd mostly be eating salt bush.
So true. For example Eyre is pronounced as AIR, not whatever rubbish he said.
Australia's states are also very large. Texas is famously known to be very large land area to Americans so for comparison, Western Australia is Australia's largest state and way larger than Alaska, it is roughly same land size as Texas and the country of Mexico combined. Also has a pretty small population of couple million concentrated around the city of Perth down in the corner.
I know, It's huge.
'Everything is bigger in Texas' 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
For size compared to state, it is slightly less land area than state of Maryland.
Pronounced "Aer" and and "OOODnadatta". As a pastoral lease in South Australia it is owned by the South Australian Government (not the Australian Government). Most if not all is within the Woomera Prohibited Area (controlled for purposes of Australian Defence Force and originally set up to test UK atomic weapons)
You’re right that Australia is about the same size as the lower 48 US states. The population density is much, much less though because the whole country has fewer people than the state of Texas. Australia has 8.8 people per square mile and the US has 87 per square mile. Most of us live fairly close to the coast so the centre of the country is even more sparsely populated, maybe 1 or less per square mile.
Your altro ( hope I got that right) runs perfectly. :)
Awesome.
He pretty much skipped over Coober Pedy, the nearest big town outside the station area. It’s worth having a look at by itself, it’s a very unique place. Hopefully you can find an Australian video which would be more likely to be factual.
You need to consider this Cattle Station though huge in size is nothing compared to what the Kidman's cattle ranch/station was, look up Sir Sidney Kidman 1935 properties, he tried to buy all the land from Queensland far north right down to Adelaide.
I come from a place that had a pub and 13 permanent residents
2010 driving down the Birdsville track with my then g/f an Eastern European lady. She pointed out that we had driven through THREE Euro countries today. Home to maybe 50 people! And these days there is a made road, dirt ofcourse but when it is dry a good dusty road. When it is wet it is sometimes closed. We were the first into Mungeranni about half way down in 3 weeks. There is a film made 70 years ago about the Track then with the Birdsville mailman Tom Kruse called The Back of Beyond. Available on You Tube. Then you will get an idea of the conditions
A day or two later we drove through Anna Creek station on our way to CooperPedy and parts were under water. When the drought breaks it really breaks a nd the country in places beomes bottomless. Dont go off the track,, and at that time watch out for washaways.
Our smallest state, the island state Tasmania that often gets left off the map is considerably bigger than Belgium or Holland. Which are not considered small!
Lake Eyre, in South Australia normally a dry salt lake was where Donald Campbell set his land speed record in 64,, then it rained and he could nearly have set the water speed record there as well. Which he also did in 64 in West Oz.
I have seen inland SA at its wettest when there is green and it is quite lovely. At its dryest it is bloody awfull just dry and desolate. And does not have any stock capacity at all. That is the other extreme to the big wet
I can tell you, its an experience being in a place where theres no one around you for at leadt 2 days....by air.
I've recently completed a train trip on the Indian Pacific train from Perth to Sydney (more than 3,000 kms) and I can testify there are very, very few people out there. We stopped for water and fuel at Cook which is almost completely abandoned. The only people in Cook are with the Australian Rail Track Corporation who are there to maintain the rail line. We just accept that the middle of Australia is not going to support much of anything except perhaps mining.
Why do you say that? Indigenous folks were out there for millenia, until white folks moved them off.
Is a old joke that the owner of Australia biggest cattle station was in Las Vegas and a Texan rancher was bragging and said his ranch is so big it takes him the whole day to drive from one end to the other.
Aussie saids i used to have a old car like that too and went and bought a new one...
Antonia Kidman, by the way, is Nicole Kidman's sister - not sure why they didn't just say Nicole Kidman as most people wouldn't know Antonia.
Most U.S Americans don't realise but their country & Australia are close to the same size.
Great reaction video's also include the url of the original.
Thx dutch
Great video. I am from Australia and have seen the clip but I still enjoyed watching this one and would love to see more stuff on some of the Farms you have in the states. And I was wondering. What is Australian people call a Farm. (Produces stock/crops in a business sense)
Do Americans call it the same thing or is that what you call a Ranch
We call cattle or horse raising a "Ranch". Raising crops is called a farm. I think the owner decides what to call it if he raises both. Sometimes owners of as little as 10 acres will call their place a "ranch" just because it appeals to them to call it that.
Australia is about the same size as the United States. We have 6 states and 2 territories.
We call them ‘Properties’.
Isn't Ranch some sort of salad dressing obese Americans devour by the litre?
As an Australian, I have always wanted to live in Montana. Apparently there are only 3 people there. Build a house, get a Robinson R22.
Try the NT mate, wouldn't be the first time I'd stopped at Three Ways for a coffee and have a bloke land his Robinson next to my truck to grab a packet of smokes and a bottle of milk.
@@NedKLee I grew up in the North-west. Flew the stupid Nomads. No licence. No one cares as long as the job is done. Flew a couple of messed up Bells.
Robinson R44 helicopters, manufactured prior to December 2010, and all R22 helicopters, have fuel tanks that are susceptible to rupture... (next bit is from 2013)New R22 helicopters from serial number 4622 will be fitted with a bladder fuel tank and not an aluminum one as before.
@@royferntorp My opinion on Nomads are not suitable for publication here.
@@Mosesmombassa I heard about that. Have never seen it. The collective is good on the R22. Not so much throttle.
Famous Aussie actress Nicole Kidman (whose husband is famous Aussie country singer Keith urban) is the well known relative of sir Sidney Kidman
Sir Sidney Kidman was a well liked boss to his many workers and made a name for himself after leaving his family home at 13 due to an abusive stepdad
Sir Sidney Kidman spent a lot of time with the local aboriginal people and many are have said to have mourned his passing
Also there is a good clip on YT of Keith urban and Jimmy Barnes singing flame trees and one of urbans shows in Australia that you may like ❤
Lake eyre , is pronounced Lake air
You should see Victoria Downs in the NT
Hi. did you know Australia is sometimes referred to AS A BIGGER TEXAS ????
Kinda, but with different words...
We used a beast per area ratio, so a place like this might be 1 beast per 2 square miles.
Texas fits into our State of Western Australia three and a half times. People who come here do not expect to see what they do. Out there we have a lot of road trains, they are 18 wheelers pulling up to 5 more trailers. If one is coming at you, close your windows and get off the road.
I've seen where they have overlaid a map of Australia on a map of the lower 48 states and it's obviously pretty close. Those 48 states cover 3.1 million square miles and Australia is 2.97 million square miles.
Antonia Kidman is Nicole Kidman’s sister, BTW.
Still laughing my arse off over the pronunciation of place names in that video about Anna Creek Station. Anna Creek Station is in my home state which is 45% larger than Texas but has a population of just 1.8M. Texas has a population greater than the whole of Australia.
Lake Eyre is pronounced Lake Air
It’s not a farm, it’s a station
Yeah haha make sure ypu know what is meant by neighbour
America's population is 333M and Australia's population is 26.7M so much smaller...
Just a tip, most channels stop the video so they don't give someone elses sponsors free airtime on their channel.
A good way for a Seppo, (our pet name for Americans, although it is derived from 'Yank', which I understand that you are not), to grasp Australian geography is to think of driving from Baltimore to LA, which is sort of Brisbane to Perth. Well about 250 miles out of Baltimore, you are in Nevada, And you are in Nevada until about 200 miles from LA, when it becomes California. Simple really. I am from Western Australia, and we are about 1/3 of the country, with about 2.5 million people, 2.25 or thereabouts of whom live in Perth.
If you really want to know: we call Americans “Yanks” and so in rhyming slang this becomes “septic tanks” which then is too long to say and gets shortened to “seppo”.
Forgot to also mention that Western Australia is 3.6 times the size of Texas....
Jus sayin 👊
Anna Creek is not a farm. In US English it is a ranch. It is range land running cattle.
It's a station, Hence the term "station hand".
outro running
I wish these video makers would research their pronounciation before blundering in. Lake Eyre is pronounced 'air' (after the British explorer John Eyre), not 'ire'. Oodnadatta has a short 'a' as in 'at' so it's not 'Oodnadarta'. Gibbers are small rocks and pronounced with hard 'g' so it's not 'jibber' (which is what badly reasearched video presenters do). Also, Anna Creek is not a bloody 'farm'. That's a much smaller higher rainfall holding where you till the land and grow wheat etc. And the land isn't owned by the Australian Government. It is 'Crown land' owned by the South Australian state Government. These leases were created long before the Australian Government even existed (1901).
Got a Station way bigger than Texas god dam,, JUST SAYIN bloke,
I'd hate to see that gas bill.
Sorry, I thought I read "Station Wagon" Now that I re-read it as "Station Way Bigger" It makes my reply look dumb. So, I know there are some "Stations" (we call them Ranches) bigger than Texas. I find that amazing.
truth known possibly least off the Australian government
Would have been better if the clip was made by an Australian. At least the pronunciation of places would be accurate. He did get Coober Pedy correct, though!😂
Considering he butchered every name, with American Authority and Accent, one would be excused for dismissing all other stated "Facts".
I know where Oodnadatta is but where is Oodnadarhta ?
Yep, Australia is approximately the size of the contiguous 48 States…but we have less than 10% of y’all’s population: US = 335 Million vs. AU = 27.4 Million. Much of that is due to being the driest continent on Earth (besides Antarctica)…we have the lowest ratio of River and Catchment systems to landmass. No fresh water means no agriculture means no population settlements.
Aboriginal people have very different life ways and live carefully and sparsely across vast landscapes, but that is a different story for another time.
The land does not support more people.
I am Australian how are you going mate. You react to why is there a cia base in the middle off Australia. Interesting. Bye now. From the land down under.
Talking per square mile than per acre put things first into perspective.
6650 square miles of crap! 😄
There's more people in las vegas than australia
When Elvis is doing his next show perhaps, but there are usually much less than the current Australian population in the joint. 😉😊
@@theoztreecrasher2647 i meant la
Sorry
The guy commenting this vidio isn't an Aussie.he may live here but he cant pronounce Places and land features correctly so much for knowing what he is talking about