In hindsight, chronic fatigue was
probably the main factor in one of
the strangest flying adventures I
have ever encountered
during the early eighties north
Western Kimberly
feral animal culls.
Kiwi Steve P was as tired as I was
and I respected his efforts to work
with me to determine who was going
to hunt the various map grids each
day when it would have been only
too easy to lose the plot.
10
hours flying a day, hunting in the
rocky ravines in the two reliable
yellow Hiller Uh12E helicopters; all day every day;
October - at the end of a busy
mustering/mining survey season;
oppressive ambient temperatures rising above 35
degrees C and tropical rainy season
humidity setting in made the flying
draw upon all our survival skills to
get the work done.
1500 rounds per sortie;
the military SLR rifle
barrels wearing out and occasionally splitting
due the high constant rate of fire;
great aboriginal shooters;
enthusiastic white shooters; donkeys
which ran like the hot Kimberly wind; feral
cats as big as dogs; wild
feral brumbies
racing across the hot black pebble
plains; magnificent ancient
multicoloured sandstone hills slumping nearly
vertically into the earth to form
gorges and cavernous valleys; sparsely settled; freedom to take
calculated risks; an adventurous
environment; continuous loud noise
and vibration; hunting with intense
concentration and no let up;
dehydration and exhaustion
- all
contributed to probably the only
place on the planet which could be
considered a helicopter pilot’s wild
west where he could pit his hunting
and flying skills
against nature - and no one would ever
know. I was in pig heaven.
We were averaging
about 110 animals per hour and often
more. Every ten animals downed I put
a live round in my shirt pocket to
help maintain an accurate count. The
muzzle shock wave from the SLR
seemed to travel around the inside
of the helicopter bubble - hitting
me in the forehead and making
me flinch in pain every time it
fired. On a later shoot
a year a year or so later in a
Bell47G 3B1, Macca the government
shooter from Hall creek ran out of
ammunition for a total of 450 plus
animals in less than 1.75 hours
flight time
After 4 weeks non stop the strain
started to show.
I wasn’t sleeping
very well due to the humidity at the
onset of the wet monsoon season
resulting in a bad case of prickly
heat itch for two weeks. With no way
to get any medication being so far
from civilisation I must have looked
like a mangy dog with family of
fleas living on it!!
The crackling of burning wood woke
us the morning we were camped near
the old El Questro river homestead - up and away
from the water so the crocs would
leave us alone.
Ultimate Guide to El Questro
Wilderness Park | RAC WA
Steve and I walked
over to the camp fire from different
directions looking for a cup of chow
while the boys cooked up a sizzling
breakfast. It was cold (25oC) and
grey and about 0530 am.
Any stranger
looking at us would have wondered why we
both looked so disheveled and vacant
in the eyes and kept looking all
around as if trying to see something
in the grey pre-dawn murk.
Never had
I been so tired.
The conversation went like this:
“Morning Stevie – did you get any
bloody sleep?”
“No bloody good mate – had a really
bad dream”
“Yeah – so did I - I dreamt the
bloody donkeys got us”
“You’re joking – so bloody did I”
Turns out we both had exactly the
same dream and that’s why we were
both not sure if we were really
awake or still dreaming as we walked
towards the campfire.
In the dream we had woken up vividly
to the rotor beat sound of a fast Hiller
helicopter coming up
the gorge about two feet above the
river and heading for our camp.
And – here’s the good
part – we both saw it being flown by
a donkey which was wearing a pair of
green David Clark aviation headsets,
a set of pilots sunglasses and a big
grin as its donkey shooter mate
leant out the door and took aim at
us with an SLR.
Not being sure if dreams came true,
we cancelled flying for the day and
slept like logs under a tree until
the next day.
Seems that it’s a common occurrence
– after a rather hectic pig shoot
with me in the New South Wales
Macquarie marshes the next year, one
of the shooters, "The Porker
Stalker", came up with the following
cartoon.
True Story
TC
