Whirlwind few years contracting in Pilbara
Mustering business launched with a toddler and newborn baby at tow
YOU could almost say Kayde Lehman is living a life of luxury these days.
She has access to 24-hour power, can watch the telly every night if she wishes and has a real bed to sleep in – that’s not even mentioning the choice of running air-conditioning all night during the heat of a Pilbara summer.
It’s what many of us take for granted, and would most likely hate to give up, but Kayde said she still misses life on the road when she was running a contract mustering camp, when all these small luxuries were few and far between.
“I do miss it,” she said. “Every night we had a campfire, no one had technology and we all sat around and had a yarn, I miss that kind of stuff, but the travelling… not so much. Three days trekking with the kids to the next job – I don’t miss that.”
From 2015 until April this year Kayde and her husband Nat, along with their sons four-year-old Harley and two-year-old Jace, journeyed with their business NKL Contracting.
Working in the beef industry was nothing new for the couple.
Since leaving school they have both worked as contractors, with the top end of Australia – from Queensland, to the Northern Territory and across to Western Australia – as their sprawling workplace.
Starting their own stock camp was a new venture and the pair dived head-first into their business while still navigating the early days of parenting.
For Kayde, whose roles included mum, station-hand, bookkeeper, camp cook and stores manager, it was a whirlwind few years.
The young family have now settled into a permanent role as managers on a cattle station in the Pilbara, and this week Kayde caught up with the Rural Weekly to share some of her favourite memories and photos from that time.
CHANGE OF PACE
Kayde described her family’s choice to take a station manager role as “settling down”. However, the couple are now responsible for overseeing all operations on Uaroo Station, so while they may have “settled” into a permanent location, there hasn’t been much slowing down.
“I do like to keep busy,” she said.
Growing up in Chillagoe, a small town in far north Queensland, no one was too surprised when Kayde decided to find work as a ringer.
“We spent most of our time out on stations when we were growing up,” she said.
“Dad was a builder, so we used to go out with him a lot.”
After finishing school, then gaining some experience in the cattle industry, Kayde joined R and R White Contract Mustering’s team in 2008.
The job quickly got under her skin. She embraced the remote landscapes, enjoyed camping out at night and felt fulfilled when working horses.
After meeting Nat, a man who shared similar interests, the duo racked up about 10 years experience in the industry before launching their own NKL Contracting team.
THE EARLY DAYS
After buying equipment from another stock camp, they got to work on Tipperary Station in the Northern Territory.
By this stage, Harley was a toddler and Jace was just a newborn.
Kayde said she will never forget Jace’s first few weeks, when he lived alongside the crew, camping out during a hot and humid NT wet season.
When this job wrapped up, the pair made the big shift across to the Pilbara, after securing work on two stations. As moving to Western Australia was a “trial run”, the couple only took a trailer of bikes and tent to live in.
It was a humble beginning, made all the more challenging with two babies on the hop, but the pair made it work.
Soon enough their stock camp had between eight and 10 ringers, and the bulk of Kayde’s days were spent running the business’s books, preparing food for the hungry crew and looking after her boys.
Finding skilled staff was challenging, but Kayde said they managed to find a terrific team of dedicated workers.
“We just kind of got lucky,” she said. “We had a good crew the first year, and a few of them came back the following year, and the rest we found through word of mouth.”
Kayde said the best part about contract mustering was the team quickly formed a strong bond and became like “family”.
SNAPPING HOBBY
Back in 2012, when Kayde was still in the thick of her job on the land, she was thrown from a horse and sustained a broken arm, forcing her to scale back to light duties while she healed.
“It meant that I was stuck cooking, and following the mob in the Toyota, carting the water and the Esky,” she said.
Having a less physical job meant she was able to focus more on photography – an old hobby which had sat idle for a while.
“That was when I really
started to get into it, because I had more of a chance to pull my camera out,” she said.
“I learnt everything just by looking things up on YouTube and asking lots of questions.”
Using trial and error to master her craft, Kayde developed her own style and has now picked up some work taking professional photos for clients.
“I much prefer taking photos of the real-life stuff, like photos of our workers working, rather than the landscape type stuff,” she said.
Kayde has a knack for seamlessly floating around the crew, snapping pictures while most are unaware she is even capturing the moment.
Each of her images tells
some type of story, like a picture of their camp branding calves in board shorts, all with flushed cheeks from the heat, while they work smoothly as a team on a hot day.
JUGGLING ACT
While Kayde loved the crew, and still enjoyed living remotely, she deeply missed being a station hand.
She jokes now that the stress of balancing the cooking, managing the accounts of the business and motherhood, without the joy of much horse work, turned into her “a bit of a dragon”.
“I wasn’t the easiest person to get along with last year. I was a little bit tired and cranky, I wasn’t my usual happy self,” she said.
“It’s not until you do something that you don’t enjoy doing, that you realise how lucky you are to go to work every day and absolutely love what you do.”
During the last six months the family spent contracting, they hired a full-time camp cook.
While this made a world of difference to Kayde (who says she has now learned she can’t do it all) she felt the kids needed some stability.
Harley and Jace have now settled into their home, but still much prefer being outside.
“I am just so grateful that we did what we did for the first few years of our life,” she said.
“I think it’s ingrained into
them now.”
She joked the biggest struggle was getting them to wear clothes to the kitchen.
NEXT STEP
Already with a long list of skills to her name, Kayde is now determined to add fashion designer to the mix.
She has always loved nice clothes and has recently launched Spinifex and Co, a brand still in its infancy but geared at producing quality western wear.
“I am targeting outback women,” she said.
“I am just doing a line of campdrafting blouses to start with, then going into a line of simple linen clothing. I want something very breathable for the Pilbara.”
Natural tones and soft fabrics are what Kayde looks for in her own shirts.
At the moment she feels the market is currently dominated with overly bright floral prints.
“I personally didn’t really like that,” she said.
“That’s when I thought there was a market for something different. I have gone for softer fabrics, rather than the starchy cotton.”
While it may be easier to run a fashion line in an urban location, Kayde shrugged off the idea she would ever give up life on the land.
“I like my space,” she said.