‘JILLAROO SCHOOL CHANGED MY LIFE!’
Even faced with the worst drought ever, the romance of life as a jackaroo or jillaroo hasn’t lost its shine
The time has long passed since Tim Skerrett worried about things he could not change, like when it will rain again or how much water is left in his bores.
Instead, Tim, 62, is using his energy for positives – training up the next generation of drought fighters, cattlemen and cattlewomen who will take up the battle against the elements to forge a living on the land.
“Yep, it’s the worst drought we’ve seen and yep, we are battling,’’ Tim says, standing next to the paddocks of his Mulla Creek property, east of Tamworth in the New England region of NSW.
“But things are still going on out here. We’re still alive, at least for the next six months or whenever the water runs out.’’
Tim has been running the Leconfield Jillaroo and Jackaroo School on his property since 1997, using his knowledge of “natural horsemanship’’ to instil new skills into the next generation of farm owners and workers.
“It’s about teaching the students how the horses communicate with each other so they will begin to think like a horse and less like a human,’’ he says. “If you know what the horse is thinking and what the horse may do next, then you can be a partner with them.
“You have to communicate in horse talk. If you want to travel to Japan and speak with the locals, you need to learn Japanese. This is the same thing.’’
CITY SLICKERS
This type of horsemanship, derived from ranchers in the US, has a growing following. Tim heard of it more than 20 years ago and took it on immediately.
The school attracts a wide range of students old and young, city slickers and country folk, Australians and those from overseas. Agricultural science student Alex Lucas has taken on the course before she heads to Canada for a 12-week placement on a ranch near Alberta next year.
Alex, 21, is in her third year at Wagga Ag College after growing up on a beef and sheep property at Millicent in South Australia. But her mustering skills are on motorbikes, and she revels in a challenge.
“We’ve spent most of our time on the bikes but, like any country girl, I wanted more experience with horses,’’ Alex says. “And it
was the best week of my life! It’s a really nice way of learning to work with horses.’’
On the other side of the fence is Ashleigh Cooper, who grew up riding horses but wants to take it on as a career. So when the 25-year-old Queenslander decided she was taking a year of unpaid leave from the Australian Defence Force to chase her dream of running her own property, she gravitated towards the jillaroo school.
“I’ve experienced the drought here so I think I was expecting to see how dry it was,’’ Ashleigh says. “This hasn’t just happened overnight. I think people must have been living under rocks not to know how bad it is. But we’re still hearing there are jobs out there.’’
WORKING IN THE BUSH
That is the theme at Tim’s five-day course. The drought will break, there will be jobs, there will be careers and there will be a chance to earn a quid in the bush.
In turn, that attracts teenagers like Piper Stromquist, a 16-year-old from Sydney’s northern beaches who has no ambition to go to university but instead wants a job on a property.
“I’m looking at trying it out for a few years and see where it takes me,’’ Piper says after her first five-day course. “I wanted to do something totally different and this is really attractive to me.’’
This is also what makes Tim happy. He’s a man who sees as many backpackers and overseas students as he does Aussie teenagers like Piper getting out of their comfort zone. “We don’t want sympathy out here, we want understanding,’’ Tim says. “We want these guys to learn their skills, use those skills and keep those skills.’’
MULLA CREEK
Tim’s family first moved to Mulla Creek in 1914. He lost his 95-year-old father, Brian, just a few months ago.
Before Brian died, he described the drought as the worst he had seen.
“It’s just about the water,’’ Tim says. “We have a couple of bores so we’re lucky. They’re still going but who knows how much water is down there. We can’t worry about it. We just have to keep going.’’
‘It’s about teaching the students how the horses communicate’