When it rains, it pours: Revisiting North West Queensland, two years after the floods

GILLIAN BRYANT

It’s been a long, slow road for Gillian Bryant and her family, who live on 12,140 hectares halfway between Julia Creek and Cloncurry. They are stocked at 30 per cent, after losing 80 per cent of their herd in 2019, and pasture recovery has been slow. “We haven’t been able to replace stock for a number of reasons, not least because there’s too much damage to the soil,” she says. “It’s been devastating, but we’ve always diversified and had other income. Grazing can be such a fickle industry and we’re always looking at the sky. You can prepare for drought, but you can’t prepare for what happened in 2019. It felt like the world had imploded.”

They had already sold two-thirds of their cattle before the monsoon because of a preceding seven-year drought and haven’t taken advantage of government recovery grants for replacement stock because their pastures wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure. “We essentially went from drought to flood, and then to drought again,” says Gillian. “We’re still really in the rebuilding stage. We’ve seen no response from the perennial grasses and the soil was so damaged we can’t put more pressure on it by replacing stock. We just need to wait and let the pastures recover.”

COURTNEY HAY

Courtney Hay was one of the famed ‘Angels of the Sky’, piloting a helicopter for Stanbroke on Donors Hills. She witnessed the loss of 6000 head over the 263,045 hectare property, 140 kilometres south of Normanton. “We didn’t get a chance to let it sink in,” she says. When the waters subsided, Courtney and her partner went to the Northern Territory for a reset, but have returned to Donors Hills married and awaiting their first baby’s arrival. These days, Courtney is happy to swap her joystick for a pair of fencing pliers and stay on solid ground.

JAYE HALL 

Jaye Hall still struggles with the amount of trauma her livestock endured on her 18,210 acre property Caiwarra Station, 46 kilometres out of Julia Creek. She and her husband Ben lost half of their stud cattle. “The cattle were completely traumatised, and I’d never seen them so poor. They needed a gold star for surviving.”

The couple have been slowly rebuilding their herd, and are having renewed success marketing their
bulls; a triumph close to Jaye’s heart. “There’s no use dwelling on it. Country people are pretty resilient,
and we had so much help from friends.”

THEA HARRINGTON

Thea and Dudley Harrington manage Werrina Station, 36 kilometres from Julia Creek. She doesn’t count their losses in numbers. “A loss is a loss,” she says. Instead, she concentrates on how her family and community have come together through shared experience with a renewed focus on community, resilience and empowerment. “For me, the legacy of the floods is the creativity, innovation and ideas that have brought the community together,” she says.

The couple became parents for the first time last year, distracting their family from the stress in the paddocks and giving them a fresh new perspective.

AMANDA MCMILLAN

Amanda McMillan’s family had a period of rebuilding, recovery and rebirth in 2019, purchasing two more properties in the aftermath. She now lives at Wollogorang Station in the Northern Territory, an hour away from Doomadgee.

“We always joke it was our own ‘Steven Bradbury’ moment,” says Amanda. At the time, purchasing more property felt impossible. “In those early days, many women had to become many things, and at a much faster rate than the rains took to take our livelihoods.

“We have moved on and are focussed on our business development and the raising of our two beautiful boys in a climate that encourages ‘free range’.”

EDWINA HICK

For Edwina and Patrick Hick at Argyle Station, north of Julia Creek, prospects are looking brighter. The couple aim to run 15,000 head of cattle across five properties and estimate to have lost 6000 head over 200,000 hectares during the 2019 event.

Despite the personal losses, Edwina has been a driving force behind some of the community organisations that have brought people together socially and emotionally.

“We recognised the importance of just having an outlet and something to draw your focus away from what was happening at home, because people really didn’t know where to start,” she says.

“We have a pretty amazing little community. When the chips are down, they do pull together.”