The Country 23/05/25: Rowena Duncum talks to Jamie Mackay

The Country’s Rural Commercial Lead is just back from a 10-day trek of the Australian Outback, where her touring party ventured to some great Aussie Outback stations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, I affectionately call her the hard dog to keep
on the porch. That's because she's never at home. She's
just come back from a ten day outback farming tour
of Australia with our travel partner's SYS for Trevor Owena Dunk.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Can.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I know you had a bit of a long haul
getting home, but you had a great tour. You went
to one place where some blockade a paddock that was
thirty thousand acres.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh no, hello, Jamie, great to be with you. It
honestly was the most amazing tour. And like I knew
farming in Australia would be different to New Zealand, but
you know, that was an amazing property. It was one
hundred and thirty thousand acres in total, so that's like
fifty two and a half thousand hectares, and it was
split into eight paddocks. And we were in a paddock
because that was fifteen acres big and we fifteen thousand acres.

(00:46):
We said, oh, this must be your biggest paddock and
he's like, oh, no, one's over thirty thousand, and we're
just like, oh my goodness. You know, it was sixty
kilometers in to end that property, which is pretty.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Much that is literally actually haggle to gore enormous, amazing
and they're running it off the sniff the sniff of
an oily rag.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, because you know, on that one we said, oh,
how many staff have you got on the place? And
he was driving us around the property and then we
bus at that stage and he said, you're looking at
him and we we're just like, oh my goodness. But
I guess you know, if you've only got eight paddocks
you're fencing hopefully it's pretty good. You're not out there
fixing it all the time. And just different way of farming.
And we talk about, you know, how many stock units

(01:29):
to the heat dear? You might have no two or
three stock units to the heat dear for some of
those harder properties to farm. But they're like, you know,
stop acres to the stock. So it was twenty acres
to a cow and cast unit and it just yeah,
everything was so so different to what we expected. But
an incredible tool party. There were twenty four of us,

(01:51):
and there's something about traveling with farmers, you know, they
just asked the most interesting questions and we all had
an absolute.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Ball and they never sleep in they never missed the bus.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
No, absolutely, absolutely, one of the main take homes for us, though,
Jamie was the one thing that the Aussies can brag
to us about because they cannot brag about the Wallabees mood.
It's a bit of a sad situation, but they can
legitimately brag about their topsoil. So like here in New Zealand,
we might have out of no. Six inches of top
soil like fifteen centimeters the last property we're on, and

(02:22):
we asked this at every property, how much topsoil have
you got? Oh that you know, six hundred million meters
to a meter sixty centimeters to a meter of topsoil.
Our jaws hit the floor.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Did you get to shoot a dingo? Can I say that?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Are you allowed to shoot dingos?

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Two?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yep, yep you can. The rules, You've got to have
a bit of a permit. But honestly, I would love
to go over there and just shoot their pests. I
think it would be a great job to me.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Jamie. Well, you get into one of those thirty thousand acrepatics,
you could have it all to yourself for a few weeks.
Hi Ro, good to see you back. In one piece.
Look forward to catching up with you at field days.
Rowena duncanm they're wrapping the country