Think of the Farmers in Western Qld this Christmas

[Geoff13]

Biting my tongue.

 

sell to your neighbours when its good, buy when its bad. get a job when your not farming

 

Your a effn' genius mate.I dunno why us farmers didn't got onto that idea years ago, we would all be millionaires by now.

I agree with your post Skeptic36 except I would have spelt the 4th word as ID10T

 

 

[Geoff13]

Anyway truck is ready and fueled.

 

Ute is loaded with Tucker and water.

 

I had to go buy 30 straps and buckles because someone got into my trailer over New Years Break and decided that he needed my Straps more than I did.

 

Pisses me off I have had most of them for over 10 years and they normally sit in the shed.

 

Only moved them to the trailer on Thursday to save doing it tonight. Anyway glad I went and checked things today or I would have looked silly trying to load 80 rolls of Hay.

 

Just having Dinner with the boss then heading out to go join the run.

 

Bit silly really I have driven millions of kilometres but this trip I feels like I am going on holiday.

 

They are expecting between 120 and 135 trucks and up to 200 trailers.

 

Convoy should be the biggest ever seen in Australia and will stretch over 50 kilometres.

 

Pity they don't run it through Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane to give the pollies a wake up call.

 

 

[revsmith]

we are farmer / graziers in southern qld and gradually destocked as the dry developed, but still seem to have too many. long term droughts just cant be planned for and still have an income but costs still go up . on a positive note for Christmas my good wife gave me an envelope for a present. upon opening it was a receipt for a donation on our behalf to drought angels the joy I felt of this present to others in more desperate need than us, was indescribable. way to go drought angels

 

 

[planedriver]

I have the B/Double set up and ready to go. Leaving tonight for Southern NSW to load up.

Good on you Geoff, that's great!

 

So good that other like minded truckies will be backing your efforts.

 

"Thank you" for what you are doing to help those that need it most, it affects all of us in some way, and some more than others.

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

Great job Geoff....we will be riding with you in spirit anyway. Good luck with the trip and take plenty of pics to put here as we would all love to see them

 

 

[rage83]

Just to add fuel to a fire that is already burning here.

 

During my time out west i had a farmer tell me he would rather watch the cattle die than sell off cattle down to a level that the land could support at the time. His logic was simple and he was straight up about it. If he had less cattle the government would not support him.

 

Now I don't mind people getting support off the government however when they are blatantly ripping the system off purley because it was easier than actually managing his property.

 

 

[rankamateur]

Sitting here listening to my cows chewing outside the garden fence while I have my breakfast. It is really nice to hear, but wouldn't be happening if just two falls of rain had missed us.

 

for Christmas my good wife gave me an envelope for a present. upon opening it was a receipt for a donation on our behalf to drought angels the joy I felt of this present to others in more desperate need than us, was indescribable. way to go drought angels

My daughter and my whole family ate too much chocolate this Christmas. She is a first year primary school teacher and her grade two class loved her. One of the parents, knowing that we are graziers and She grew up farming, made a donation to Aussie Helpers instead of adding even more to the chocolate high.

 

 

[S.Drifter]

Just to add fuel to a fire that is already burning here.During my time out west i had a farmer tell me he would rather watch the cattle die than sell off cattle down to a level that the land could support at the time. His logic was simple and he was straight up about it. If he had less cattle the government would not support him.

 

Now I don't mind people getting support off the government however when they are blatantly ripping the system off purely because it was easier than actually managing his property.

No argument here.

 

That type of operator is a very small minority and there are clowns in all walks of life not only in primary industries ripping off the system, but what pisses me off is being tarred with the same brush as them. If you aren't prepared to look after your animals and land you have no place in the industry.

 

 

[SDQDI]

When we were living out west it was drought and we were feeding cows non stop and we would occasionally get unannounced visits from the local rspca, they were always impressed with how fat the cows were but were there because of anonymous complaints (well they said they were anonymous but I reckon someone had an axe to grind but that is of course just supposition on my part!). So it is hard for me to see how someone can let their stock starve without getting done for animal cruelty.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Ok guys was it one of your who flew the Savanah over the convoy today just out of Blackall.

 

If it was I was 3rd truck in the line and would love some photos please.

 

 

[Geoff13]

We arre urrently trending number 1 on facebook and have been since yesterday.

 

The pages appartently has had 4,000,000 hits in the US and GB.

 

It is also being considered for several records by Guiness.

 

Today we are seeing how powerful social media can be when used correctly.

 

 

[Geoff13]

And a Gazelle doing circuits of the convoy and the showgrounds as we came into Ilfracombe today.

 

 

[rankamateur]

And a Gazelle doing circuits of the convoy and the showgrounds as we came into Ilfracombe today.

Lifted this off Facebook Geoff, acknowledgements to the owner who ever they are.

 

 

[Robbo]

Hey Geoff

 

What truck you in?

 

Channel 7 in VIC just had aerial footage of the convoy.

 

LOL not on the barbie were you?

 

 

[RetiredRacer]

Imagine getting stuck behind that

 

 

[Robbo]

Had to look twice at the photo, it looked like the Monash Freeway.

 

 

[SDQDI]

Imagine getting stuck behind that

I hate to say it as it was all for a good cause but I have to say my first thought when I saw that photo was "man that would suck if they were all on 95 and you were in a hurry to get anywhere!"

 

 

[rankamateur]

Imagine getting stuck behind that

Rather get stuck behind them than a bunch of SOBs on the way to an RV rally.

 

 

[rankamateur]

I followed a convoy of Morris Minors down the Newell Highway on the way to Natfly a few years ago. They must have been meeting at Dubbo or Parkes, can't remember now but all of a sudden they started coming towards us in the other lane after we passed through their destination.

 

 

[turboplanner]

sell to your neighbours when its good, buy when its bad. get a job when your not farming

Been done already FT, by Sir Sidney Kidman, who started out with a horse and became around the fourth largest land owner in the world and immensely rich. He would buy a failing sheep station for very low money, fire the 40 employees, and replace them with 3 or 4, pull all the fences up and cart them down to the steel buyers in Adelaide, and in some cases spell the. usually, overgrazed land for up to five years, then put cattle on it, fatten them up, and start droving them towards the Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane market. At times he had ten thousand cattle on the roads to market. When prices went up he would speed up the mobs, and vice versa, with an uncanny ability to match the arrival of his stock with peak prices. His key tool in co-ordinating all this was the telegram, the forerunner to the text. When he arrived in a town in his horse and buggy, there would be a stack of telegrammes waiting for him with reports and prices etc. He returned his instructions by telegram, and then moved out in his horse and buggy. He usually did three round trips from Kapunda (SA) through Broken Hill, up into north west Queensland, down through western NSW and back to Kapunda. Many people said he was an opportunist, or lucky, but none of them match his level of work.

 

 

[turboplanner]

sell to your neighbours when its good, buy when its bad. get a job when your not farming

Been done already FT, by Sir Sidney Kidman, who started out with a horse and became around the fourth largest land owner in the world and immensely rich. He would buy a failing sheep station for very low money, fire the 40 employees, and replace them with 3 or 4, pull all the fences up and cart them down to the steel buyers in Adelaide, and in some cases spell the. usually, overgrazed land for up to five years, then put cattle on it, fatten them up, and start droving them towards the Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane market. At times he had ten thousand cattle on the roads to market. When prices went up he would speed up the mobs, and vice versa, with an uncanny ability to match the arrival of his stock with peak prices. His key tool in co-ordinating all this was the telegram, the forerunner to the text. When he arrived in a town in his horse and buggy, there would be a stack of telegrammes waiting for him with reports and prices etc. He returned his instructions by telegram, and then moved out in his horse and buggy. He usually did three round trips from Kapunda (SA) through Broken Hill, up into north west Queensland, down through western NSW and back to Kapunda. Nobody can sa he didn't work for his success.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Kidman and Ned Kelly both started out by rounding up and selling their neighbour's stray cattle, both about the same year I think. Both had successful careers in their subsequent chosen fields.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Kidman and Ned Kelly both started out by rounding up and selling their neighbour's stray cattle, both about the same year I think. Both had successful careers in their subsequent chosen fields.

Wouldn't have done Sid much good - in the beginning he needed horses to pull his coaches. With his brother Sackville, he set up coachlines in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia and built up the biggest coach business in Australia, buying out a lot of the Cobb and Co routes. Needing horses to pull the coaches he bred his own, and from that went into breeding his own. His annual Kapunda horse sales were the biggest in the world, bringing thousands of people to the town. Seems hard to believe today when you drive through this quiet little spot. Sid went into cartage for outback mining ventures and took a bullock wagon full of hardware out to Cobar. The miners didn't have meat and were prepared to pay a fortune for it, so he went out of town, cut some tree branches, and built a leafy "shop" in the main street. He then butchered his bullocks and made a handsome profit on the trip, which allowed him to buy more cattle. He went into property late in life, and developed the successful model outlined by FT.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

In her book about Sir Sidney Kidman, Jill Bowen explains that he was inspired by the exploits of Harry Redford, who in 1870 stole 1000 head of cattle in Queensland and drove them 1000 miles to Adelaide where he sold them for five thousand pounds “…a staggering amount of money at the time”.] Redford was caught but acquitted in 1873 by a jury of admiring stockmen for whom Redford was “less a criminal than a hero”.

 

In the period 1875 to 1880, Kidman was establishing the basis of his fortune by horse and cattle trading and butchering in Western NSW. He made money by buying stock and then moving them to where he expected a market. He made good money. For example he bought sixty horses in Adelaide and sold them for 800 pounds in the bush, where he bought and sold another mob for a quick profit of 300 pounds. It is generally agreed that Kidman was not averse to “poddy dodging”. Bowen provides the following examples from people who knew the gossip of the time…

 

• Of Monty Winton, a Kidman manager “if something didn’t have a brand on it, Monty would put a Kidman brand on quick smart.”
   
   
  
• “It was alleged there was only one bigger cattle thief in Australia than Sid Kidman and that was his son in law Sid Reid. When he married Elma Kidman he was given (it was said) 1000 cows and everyone later said that in the first year all those cows must have had ten calves”.
   
   
  
• “Many people said that if there was a strange bullock that came along, Sid would send it along to market”
   
   
  

 

 

Other quotes are provided from people who point out that “everyone did it” at the time. While it was a generally accepted bush practice, there were a lot of fights over it when people were caught.

 

 

[RetiredRacer]

Been done already FT, by Sir Sidney Kidman, who started out with a horse and became around the fourth largest land owner in the world and immensely rich. He would buy a failing sheep station for very low money, fire the 40 employees, and replace them with 3 or 4, pull all the fences up and cart them down to the steel buyers in Adelaide, and in some cases spell the. usually, overgrazed land for up to five years, then put cattle on it, fatten them up, and start droving them towards the Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane market. At times he had ten thousand cattle on the roads to market. When prices went up he would speed up the mobs, and vice versa, with an uncanny ability to match the arrival of his stock with peak prices. His key tool in co-ordinating all this was the telegram, the forerunner to the text. When he arrived in a town in his horse and buggy, there would be a stack of telegrammes waiting for him with reports and prices etc. He returned his instructions by telegram, and then moved out in his horse and buggy. He usually did three round trips from Kapunda (SA) through Broken Hill, up into north west Queensland, down through western NSW and back to Kapunda. Nobody can sa he didn't work for his success.

You can still run into a mob on the road that are doing the very slow trip down the "long paddock" to fatten them up rather that trucking them.