Brangus Park, the place Christine Rasmussen calls home.
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She reflects on her years at Brangus Park, from the beef recession of her youth to the cowboy she met at the Wingham Rodeo.
WORDS KERYN DONNELLY
Brangus Park, the place Christine Rasmussen calls home.
Chrissy's children take the reins during a Stetson photo shoot, wearing (from left) a "Colorado" hat in Chocolate, a "Colorado" hat in Granite and a "Square" hat in Driftwood.
Chrissy (as she’s known to family and friends), her husband Dean and their four children take care of the cattle grazing property Brangus Park on behalf of Chrissy’s father, Peter Swatridge.
Located about 100 kilometres northwest of Dubbo, the property is made up of adjoining blocks Brangus Park and Gobabla, which the family bought in 1992 and 2007. Chrissy took over the reins when Peter decided to retire to Port Macquarie at the age of 87.
It’s a legacy she has been keen to carry on for as long as she remembers.
The now 57-year-old was just a toddler when the beef recession hit in the early 1970s. Her mother, Annette, who had been working alongside her father at the family’s dairy-farm-turned-beef-farm in Gloucester, on New South Wales’ lower Mid North Coast, went to work with Peter in the stock and station agency Corbett & Swatridge. As she was not yet school age, Chrissy would spend three nights a week at her maternal grandparents’ cattle property at nearby Bakers Creek.
These early days were filled with accompanying her grandmother on long walks through the paddocks to pull out fireweed, hand-feeding the poddy calves and sketching the local wildlife on paper with bits of charcoal.
“I did get to watch TV on a black-and-white set,” she recalls. “The only channel was the ABC and it was just static… if you were lucky you could hear Elmo speaking.”
Chrissy wears a Stetson "Colorado" hat in Granite.
Cattle on the family station, located about 100 kilometres northwest of Dubbo, New South Wales.
As she grew older, Chrissy became her father’s ever-enthusiastic sidekick, accompanying him as he completed jobs around the property.
She vividly recalls one occasion when she was terrified of the wild cattle, which were a consequence of the beef recession. “When Dad left me alone to quickly chase some cattle, he advised me, ‘Don’t worry if anything comes — climb a tree.’ With every breeze, branches would crackle and I would think there was a wild beast staring at me from the lantana. So I decided to test Dad’s theory and climb one of the trees — I couldn’t get up any of them!”
After attending the University of Western Sydney, Chrissy spent a few years working as a corporate account manager in Sydney. Although she loved the anonymity of living in a big city, it wasn’t long until the country called her home.
She returned home for a weekend and a chance meeting with a cowboy at the Wingham Rodeo led to the next chapter of her life.
“There was this cowboy talking to my father and I thought ‘Who’s he?’” she says with a laugh, remembering the first time she laid eyes on now 58-year-old Dean. “He rang a few weeks later and asked if I wanted to go to another rodeo with him and that was the start of that.”
The couple went on to have four children together — Ben, 28, Holly, 27, Lachie, 21, and Mia, 20 — with a seven-year gap in the middle.
“I remember the day I put Ben and Holly on the bus and thought, ‘It’s all over,’” Chrissy says. “I loved our life, the space, the work, the fun we had involving them in all that we did, and wanted more — that’s how you get a seven-year gap!”
Chrissy says there will be opportunities for each of her four children, should they wish to return to Brangus Park.
When the kids came along, it was business as usual for Chrissy, who often had to jump in the driver’s seat of the truck to help cart grain and cotton around the country.
“Our first harvest, we set off into southwest Queensland, caravan in tow,” she says. “The air-conditioning was the window wound down and a wet face washer on my three-month-old baby. It was an unknown adventure and our first experience with that country. We’ve been involved in harvest ever since.”
Like Chrissy, each of her children has found a way to build a life for themselves in the country.
Ben studied accounting and business, and now works in ag transport; Holly, a speech pathologist, is currently completing a Masters of Audiology so she can provide specialist services to rural centres; Lachie splits his time between working in the mines in Cobar and helping out around the farm; and Mia is currently working at Helen Springs Station in the Northern Territory.
“All of our children intend on living and working rurally and there will always be opportunities for them to work with us,” she says. “They respect the legacy my father created and we hope to continue working on this land for generations to come.”
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Chrissy’s children wear hats by Stetson, including (from left) a “Colorado” in Granite, a “Colorado” in Chocolate and a “Skyline” in Silverbelly
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