Each time I go there I learn something new and there’s no better time to check it out than during the Camooweal Drover’s Festival where you can sit down and have a yarn with legends of the field when checking out the exhibits.

The need for droving came out of what one exhibit at the museum called “the vision splendid”.

This was towards the end of the 19^th century when an explosion of overlanders drove their mobs from the south into the grasslands of the Northern Territory.

This expansion was not without cost as there was no consideration given to the prior owners of the land which they crossed and some of the more ambitious adventurers lacked a moral compass even as they used a magnetic one.

But that is not to dismiss the bravery and talents of many drovers that helped stock and set up the great stations of the Territory.

Their life was tough and once on the road it was a life of total commitment to the mob.

A decent cook was essential to morale and their stape was flour, beef, salt, sugar and tea leavened by the occasional vegetables they acquired on the road.

There wasn’t much time for relaxation, maybe a dice or card game or a chance to read at the dinner camp but mostly it was unending slog.

In the early years there were no roads and they came up from South Australia via the Telegraph Line or from the east via the “Queensland Road” which despite the name was little more than a barely-defined track.

They had to rely on buscraft and seasonal conditions to get through, often travelling one hundred miles or miles or more through scanty grasslands while taking care to avoid poisonous plants.

Supplies had to last months and often a new station or town had to be set up at the final destination.

As the Museum said “today’s cattle people still need the vision and skills of the overlanders” – Derek Barry