Station hands enjoy muster party

The end of muster was marked with annual celebrations at the Iron Clad Hotel last weekend, with many station workers taking the chance to let down their hair after what was a busy and drier than normal season for pastoralists.

Many of the extra staff brought into the Pilbara’s stations had already left for the year with the season being done and dusted earlier then normal, but it didn’t stop those still in town from enjoying the festivities.

Limestone Station general manager Cam Brooks said he had a marvellous season despite the below-average rainfall.

He said normally the average rainfall around Marble Bar was about 365mm, but this year there had only been about 240mm.

“It’s pretty dry around the traps,” Mr Brooks said.

“But it doesn’t matter if it does rain or it doesn’t rain — there’s not much you can do about that.

“You just keep charging along.”

Mr Brooks said his station had started mustering cattle at the beginning of June and finished at the end of July, covering about 2 million acres of land rounding up about 15,500 head of cattle.

He said while condition and size of the cattle was down a little bit, the price was “very good” so things had levelled out.

Over at Yarrie Station, Annabelle Coppin said mustering started in April and ran right through until August.

“We’re all finished for now, (but) it was definitely a very challenging year because of the dry times,” she said.

“It just meant that we haven’t really made the most of the beef boom at the moment because of the lack of rain ... luckily the market was strong but any of the extra margin has gone into the extra costs because of the dry season.” Mustering at Yandeyarra began in the middle of May and finished about two weeks ago.

Station manager Ian Hayes said while it was dry, you couldn’t argue with Mother Nature.

He added he had gotten a “fair few cattle” away and considering the conditions everything went pretty well.