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of the blokes grabbed a grasshopper and snuck up behind this girl. He put the grasshoper down the back of her t-shirt. The girl let out a cooee and boy, did she cut some capers—much to the delight of her tormentor and the onlookers drinking in the pub. These were wild boys, the type that make the bush proud. “If this is the Territory, take me home!” I told Greg.
    Then we were back on the road. Greg and I spent a day and a night on the bus before we arrived at a place called Threeways, the junction where all the buses met and fuelled up before taking off in three different directions. Greg and I wanted to get on the bus for Katherine, and we caught what we hoped was the right one. Travelling along the highway, we weren’t sure whether we were on the right bus or not. Greg was only fifteen, I was just a year older, and we were both really shy and didn’t feel game enough to go on up and ask the driver if we were in fact on the way to Katherine. We sat there like two stuffed dummies—until I realised that if we were on the wrong bus, it was quite serious. Forgetting my shyness, I leapt out of my seat and went up to the driver. I was one happy bloke when he named Katherine as his destination.
    We finally arrived at Katherine about ten o’clock next morning, and from the bus stop we were driven out to the airstrip, where we sat on our swags expecting someone to come along in a car or truck to take us the last two hundred kilometres of our journey. Suddenly a young,skinny fellow approached us and asked our names. We told him. “You’re the two boys I have to take out to Auvergne,” he said. “Come over and throw your gear into that little blue plane over there.”
    Straight away I wanted to bail out. Flying was not for me! I was scared of heights—at home in Mitchell, even the house roof was too high for me. I felt safe firmly rooted to the ground. I had always wanted to go to New Zealand, but wouldn’t travel by ship in case it sank in the sea, and I wouldn’t travel by plane in case it fell out of the sky. And now Greg and I were expected to fly to Auvergne.
    All Greg could say was, “I want the front seat!” He could have the whole bloody plane for all I cared. Somehow, getting up all my courage and with my poor old legs feeling like jelly, I managed to climb in the back. I still don’t really know how the pilot and Greg between them conned me on board, and I can’t recall very much about the flight—but I was sure glad to step out and feel the ground beneath my feet once more when we arrived! I couldn’t get away from that little blue plane quick enough. “That Billy’s a quiet boy,” said the pilot.
    Auvergne was a big place, bigger than any station I’d known before. You could go ninety kilometres in one direction and still not reach the boundary. We soon settled in and began work with the horses. But that first week I nearly blew it. One morning, Greg and I went down to the horse yards on our own and started riding some of the young horses without supervision. As a result I got a smack on the jaw from the head stockman. Luckily for me, he couldn’t hit real hard. I told him to stick his job. Feeling that I had made better starts in a new place, I went to get my gear, ready to leave—then the boss appeared and told me I still had my job. But I was removed from being with the horses to working in the house yard. I had to mow, rake the lawn and pick up fallen leaves. Talk about ruining a cowboy’s reputation!
    Then we were told we’d be working on a muster using helicopters. Before it started we had a free weekend and one of the ringers, a young bloke called Geoff Miller, took Greg and me to swim in the river. I dived in and swam about eighty metres to the other side, to sunbake on some rocks. As I lay in the sun I sang out to Geoff: “Hey, let’s go fishing!”
    â€œNo fish here, mate—the crocs