Here I am, leaning out of a helicopter trying to capture, with my puny camera, the magnificent expanse of red savannah speckled with ghost and salmon gums. Burnished escarpments rear up over ribbons of creek water coiling around the rugged landscape.
Just below me, sleek orange-legged jabiru ride the airways, their black and white wings outstretched above a blue billabong dotted with water buffalo.
We are heading towards a dusty mob of white and golden cattle being rounded up by half a dozen station hands on horses and quad-bikes. I am heli-mustering with Morgan Lorimer, the manager of the 1350-square-kilometre Conways Cattle Station, just south of Arnhem Land. It is the newest of just a handful of stations in the Northern Territory that welcome visitors.
Opening Conways to guests was the brainchild of Nicky Lorimer, who followed her husband to the Northern Territory from Sydney's northern beaches six years ago.
They met when Morgan was making up to $1200-a-day shoeing horses in Sydney so he could return to the Top End to start his own herd of cattle.
"Now I want to show other people this spectacular landscape," she says. "In spite of the fact that the outback is an Australian icon, it's not easy for people to stay on cattle stations. To see this remarkable countryside for a few days is an experience everyone should have."
At Conways, guests share a delightful purpose-built lodge with the garrulous young station hands. It is set under soaring ghost gums beside a creek and the wraparound veranda, supported by gnarled, polished lancewood poles, is a great place to relax and watch the colourful bird life or admire the honest mounds of torn and dusty work boots that adorn the front door.
There are also domed fly tents with real Aussie swag camp beds for adults or children who want to sleep under the stars.
The spacious Italian-tiled living space has lots of comfy couches, a flat-screen television and DVD player perched on a handcrafted stand made of railway tiles. Black-horned, bleached buffalo skulls peer down from the mushroom-coloured walls. A mahogany slab workbench perched atop a corrugated tin stand is where everyone gathers at the end of the day to share a glass of wine or a few beers while dinner is prepared.
The young jillaroos and jackaroos tend to come from properties down south, and many of them have, or are working towards, TAFE certificates and university degrees. The current batch of staff include a former teacher from the Katherine School of the Air, a butcher and a bunch of bushies.
Talk is lively around the table as tales, tall and true, are shared about luring bulls from the bushes, shooting pigs, birthing calves and the sheer joy of riding in the saddle all day for a living. Quad-bike jackaroo Matt comes in after hanging out his washing in the dark and talks about spending the off-season as a hunting guide in New Zealand.
Whip-cracking champion Jack asks whether any of us city riders have ever gone swimming in the ocean with a horse. "It's absolutely magical," he says, his eyes lighting up.
Sisters Nicky and Sarah laugh about how all the boys thought they might actually prance around like McLeod's daughters when they first arrived. "But when we mended fences and mustered all day beside them they gave us the OK," Nicky says.
Conways runs 4500 head of mainly Brahman cattle and operates a buffalo safari hunting business. Our family of five from Melbourne enjoyed a three-day visit during the past dry season. Initially I was a little concerned that there wouldn't be enough to do since there is no organised agenda of activities, but flexibility and serendipity proved to be a major part of the appeal.
Within half an hour of arriving and after a delectable lunch of roast-beef sandwiches and gourmet salads, Matt, Jack and Hamish invite my three daughters for a spot of fishing since it's Saturday afternoon and their work is done. They all pile into a couple of jeeps with a cooler of drinks and head for a barramundi pool deep in the bush and return later, laden with fish and easygoing camaraderie.
Morgan takes the oldies on a cattle station tour and we learn all the ins and outs of managing a property double the size of Singapore and two hours' drive from the nearest major settlement, Katherine. Afterwards we take a nap in the shade of the gum trees.
Early the next morning the children collect eggs, which are still warm from the hens, and we cook up a hearty breakfast. The station hands are off to hunt a feral bull and ask whether we would like to come along. Daughters one and two are up for it, while the youngest is content to bottle-feed the poddy calves who have lost their mothers.
People who are serious about hunting may join 25-year-old George Stewart for a rip-roaring adventure in the bull catcher for cull hunts of buffalo, wild boar and donkey.
For those after trophy prizes, George also runs guided hunts from a safari camp along the northern end of the property.
A jump in the clear waters of Maiwock Creek makes for a refreshing end to our first hunt. And the bird life is remarkable. Endangered Gouldian finches and red goshawk have both been sighted at Conways recently and Nicky is full of plans for this year, including creating a 15-kilometre wildlife corridor along Maiwock Creek.
We are lucky that mustering is on the agenda the next day and we take turns in the helicopter and jeeps to check in on the action. One daughter and I trade places with two jackaroos to ride home from the muster. Nicky gives the two other daughters a riding lesson and demonstrates how brumbies are broken in to become working horses on the station.
As a crimson sun starts to rise above the savannah early next morning, we watch the just-mustered six-month weaners (steers that have recently been taken off their mothers' milk) being loaded onto a road train, which takes off in a cloud of dust to a fattening farm in the north. In a year they will be live-exported to Indonesia.
I watch the admiration on the faces of my suburban children as they marvel at the station hands' ease with the physical world ... how they tie ropes, ride horses, crack whips, fix fan belts, kill snakes and, yes, carve up a bull.
That same can-do attitude is good medicine for city-slicker parents as well.
As Morgan waves us goodbye he smiles. "Maybe the kids might want to come back and work with us for a while. Time in the bush is good grounding for the rest of your life."
TRIP NOTES
Virgin Blue, Qantas and Jetstar have regular flights to Darwin from all capital cities. From there, it is a six-hour drive to Conways via Katherine. Alternatively you can take the Ghan train from Adelaide or Darwin to Katherine and then drive two hours to Conways.
Conways is on the Central Arnhem Road, 132 kilometres from its junction with the Stuart Highway, 50 kilometres south of Katherine. Dinner, bed and breakfast: $350 a night for a room (one queen and one king single bed, ensuite); $200 a night for a tent (two single camp beds) with a share bathroom. Morgan and Nicky Lorimer, phone/fax (08) 8975 4252, email nicky@secondglanceimages.com. Activities include farm tours, dog and horse demonstrations, riding lessons and fishing. Hunting and helicopter rides cost extra. Hunting information is at www.leithenvalley.co.nz.
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