A Great Cattle Drive From Our Australian Correspondent The cattle country of north-western Aus- tralia-the North-West, as people in the south call it-lies in the Kimberley divi- sion, the white population of which is only a few hundred. Most of thetm live in Wyndham, on Cambridge Gulf, facing the Timor. Sea. Here the West Australian Government operates meat works which annually kill about 30,000 cattle from the large stations of the surrounding country, during the dry winter season ex- tending from April to September. When early in 1942 it seemed that nothing could prevent the Japanese from landing in the North-Wcst, it followed that Wyndham and other north-west ports must be evacu- ated and the works dismantled. No sooner had this decision been reached than, as it to complete its inevitability, the civilian airfield close to the town, which lies on the air route between Perth and Darwin, was bombed by Japanese aircraft. As the closing of the meat works de- prived the cattle owners of their normal market, it became essential to. find them another. Moreover, thousands of cattle| could not be left to provide food for the expected Japanese. It was decided that 5,700 head should be sent down to fatten- ing areas north of Perth and that 10,000 should be transported 1,800 mtiles over- land to Queensland. The southward movement was felatively simple, but the easterly trek was an unprecedented under- taking, a journey through country as wild and lonely as any in the world. Through the network of pedal wvireless sets, origi- nally established to enable settlers to call the Flying Doctor, but now providing all sorts of comnmunications with civilization, the Commonwealth Government asked cattle owners to muster bullocks suitable for fattening. It'offered them an advance of ?A2 1Os. a head, plus costs of droving and handling the cattle, with a final pay- ment when the stock had been disposed of in Queensland. THE DROVER'S CRAFT It was then so late in the droving season that it was difficult to procure drovers. By the timc they reached thc Kimberley from the Queens- land border, where they had been engaged, it was well into the middle of the year. The starting-point of the great trek was at Wave Hill, in the Kimbericy. From here the drovinb of cattle in drafts of about 1.350 began ini July, 1942. From Wave Hili the drovers followed the Murrinji stock route to Newcastic Waters, tn the centre of the Northern Tcrr- tory-a difficult enough journey even under normal conditions, for it contains several long stages on which cattle have no access to water. Unhappily in 1942 the season waas unmsualtv dry. Each droving plant contained five or six men and 40 or 50 horses. The master drover. the owner of the plant, had largely to riel upon the hielp of aborigines, since enlistmemns in the services had made the engagement of stufficient white men impracticable. The firsi job was to muster cattle at stations for delivery to t1C droving units,. which contracted to main- tain an average speed of 56 miles a week. Watchcs were invariably set at 6 o'clock sui- down, regardless of dlaylight saving, then oPerating as a var-timc emergency measure. Droving a big mob of cattle is always a hazardous -undertaking. Thcre can be no assurance of adcquate feed and water along a protracted stock route, and the cattle must often traverse areas infected by discasc. There is certain to be loss of beasts which cannot survivc dry stages betwcen drinking places, with other losses arising from breakawavs and stampedes when cattle spclling at night ar^ disttirbed by strange noises in the bush. When a mob becomes uncontrollable some run into trecs, others fall into creeks and river-gullics and are maimed or killed, and others are lost in dense bush.: Thirsty cattle will walk into any wind hlowing from the direction of run. To hold thlem upon their course against this attraction is one of the drover's most difficult jobs, especially when his iiorses are also tired and longing for water. The aggregate losscs on a iong trek can thus be heay. The skilled drover nceds an innate sense of the bush in country devoid of fences and communications. With tick he can avail him- self of the local know ledge of aborigines, familiar with the tcrrain as no passing stranger can be. An added misfortune in 1942 was that the natives, having learned-of Ihe appar- cnt imminence of a Japanese invasion, had tIcd far inland, and hence thcir help was lack- ing. Ever varying temperatures and constantly changing types of pasture further complicated the task. Most of thc country traversed was very different from the Kimberley in which the cattle had becn bred. There timber is sparse and grass and natural -water plentiful; but along the Murrinji route the timber is some- times dense and water is artificially supplied by artesian bores. At Newcastle WVaters the route joins another stock route, 700 miles long, which carries the catttle from the prairie-like regions of the Barkl'y Tableland, lying south- cast of the raillicads inside the bordcr of Qtceensland. whence they are railcd 500 miles more to fattening pastures on the northern and central coasts of Queensland. LOSS AND GAIN Here, after six mnonths' jot]rneying, all the mobs from the Kimberley cventuaily arrived to be spcllcd. After thc long railway journcy cattle become mtIscle-bound and long rest is necessary before they can be transferred to fattening dep6ts. The losses involved in walk- ing cattle over 1,300 miles of country in a bad season, in whiich t'here were outbreaks of discase and destructivc stampedes, wkere sub- stantial. About 3,000 beasts were missing when the long journey ended. Drovers' locses of horses were also hcavy. Nevertheless, this adventurous trek provided many hundreds of tons of mcat for service men in the South-West Pacific and elsewhere, which niight otherwise have heen a total loss. The cattle htirried from the WVest during tlsosc grim months when the invasion of AusLralia seemed inevitable fur- tiislied boneless beef for thc allied forces in their successful counter-offensive against thte Japanese. In pcace-time they might have made a lcisurely progress across Australia, occupy- ing. perhlaps, two or threce years. In war they had to be rushed across hard country. It is tlhis epic of thc Australian outback that Mr. Harry Watt, thc English film producer, has made thc subject of his film The Over- lanrders, now being shown here and in London. The idca of it germinated in an officc in Mel- bourne. Discussing with the Food Controller, Mr. J. F. Murphy, now chairman of the Aus- tralian Wool Realization Commission. tile possibility of pioducing documentary films iltistrating war-time advances in the processing of food in Australia. Mr. Watt venttired the opinion that somc phases of thc Atustralian war eilort woitld lend themsclvcs admirably to dramatization. Mr. Murpliy took hins to a wall map of the Commonwealth and told him of what Australian experts regarded as onc of the world's greatest cattie-droving feats. " That is the story I have been looking for,'' exclaimed Mr. Watt. MMuch of the film was made with assistance from the Commonwealthi Govern- ment, in the territory traversed by thc cattle. a landscape of strange beautv. A GREAT CATTLE DRIVE OVERLANDING AUSTRALIAN STOCK IN WAR-TIME AN EPIC OF TILE NORTH