Boots and bridles

Every horse-mad girl dreams of finding adventure on an outback station. Michael Sheather meets up with the women who are turning that dream into reality at jillaroo school.

You can hear the girls long before you see them. Whooping and hollering from their saddles like veteran outback cowboys, Julia, Cynthia, Feya, Samira, Josephine and Alyssa are hidden from sight behind the lip of a craggy ridge, taking the lead to guide a herd of Black Angus cattle along a heavily timbered and precariously sloping bush track. They are driving their charges to a cattle yard on a property in the remote hill country outside Tamworth in NSW. And the sounds filling the air are of pure joy.

It’s mid afternoon and desperately dry and hot. The paddocks on the lower slopes of the 518-hectare property, Leconfield, are parched by a drought that holds the country in a vice-like grip. Thick red dust rises in clouds around the girls as they crest the ridge, waving their hats and scarves like the banners of an approaching army. Beneath their throaty yells, the deep and constant lowing from 50 head of cattle beats a rhythmic accompaniment.

Each young woman guides her horse with a deft combination of gentle lead work and pressure from the knees, first one way then the other as together they top the ridge and carefully negotiate their way down a rock-strewn slope.

“Get around, get around,” bellows Samira, 25, in a prominent Dutch accent.

“Up, up, keep it up – keep ’em on the high side of the track or we’ll start to lose them,” says German-born Cynthia, 24.

“Heeyah, get on there, get ’em up ... come on,” yells Alyssa, a 23-year-old student teacher from Melbourne.

This posse of 20-something novice jillaroos is firmly in control of this herd, a remarkable feat considering they are on only the third day of a five-day instructional course teaching them the skills they will need to work on an outback station.

“That was one of the most awesome things I have ever done,” exclaims Alyssa, after the cattle are finally secured. “I can still feel the adrenalin pumping through me. I was so nervous when we started out but as we got going along the track, we got our confidence and everything we’ve learned came together. Honestly, it was almost life-changing.”

And, in a way, changing lives is what most people are seeking when they come to Leconfield Jackaroo and Jillaroo School. Alyssa and the other girls are among 14 students taking the course, which includes instruction in sheep and cattle mustering, fencing, land care, horseriding, calf wrestling, lassoing and whip cracking.

Most importantly, though, the owner and operator of Leconfield, Tim Skerrett, teaches the rudiments of natural horsemanship, which promotes a set of skills that bonds a jillaroo or jackaroo to their beast in a practically mystical merger of humanity and horseflesh.

“My father, also named Tim, started the original school on his property, which is just down the road,” says Tim, 61. “He started that in 1982 and when I was growing up, I worked there helping to train people. Dad ran that school for the next 15 years.

“Dad wanted to retire. Another company approached him to start a school, but he didn’t want to do that so instead, I picked up the reins and I started up my own