Australia's 'Cattle Stations' and Invisible Rivers

We leave Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park for Alice Springs ('Alice'), the biggest community in the Red Desert with about 27,000 people.  For comparison, Arlington, Mass. has about 43,000 people.  The drive to Alice is about 300 miles, so we take a 'tea break' at a cattle station.  

I'm getting used to the language:  'tea break' is a meal--lunch in this case; could be dinner.  Station is Australian for "ranch".  Ranches are not unique, but Australian cattle stations are uniquely large. 

The station where I'm having lunch is almost the size of my home state of Massachusetts.  This ranch is  6,200 square miles (Massachusetts is about 8,262 square miles).   And this isn't the largest ranch around.   Anna Creek Station is the largest in the world with over 10,000 square miles; that's roughly the size of Belgium.  In the dry Outback, vegetation is so sparse, a cow needs about three-quarters of a square mile to get enough food, whereas US ranches generally can sustain cattle in about 1/10th that space.  When your ranch is this big, your nearest neighbors could be 80 miles away.   If you say "Honey, I’m going to check the back 40,” you could be leaving by horse, motorbike, or helicopter and be gone for days. 

On the road again, we occasionally pass a few scraggly trees: gum (eucalyptus) trees, the occasional Mulga tree (more of a bush, really), which provides the wood for authentic boomerangs.  But mostly it’s flat, red, and with steadily decreasing greenery as we get further from Uluru.

  I wasn’t kidding.  Flat.  Red.  Desert.

As we drive through the Outback past cattle stations (ranches) the size of small European countries, my guide often points out ‘invisible’ rivers.  He says we’re passing a river.  I do not see a river.  He keeps pointing them out, and I keep not seeing them.  

I begin to suspect he’s playing a trick on me.

Finally, I quietly ask, “Where are these rivers of which you speak?” 

“Oh, they’re all dry now,” he says. 

'Seriously?'  I think.   Definitely suspect a trick.

“But you know where they are,” he goes on, “because the remaining underground water nourishes little clumps of trees.  In the rainy season, there’ll be flowing water where you see that growth.”

Ahahhhh… I begin to notice shallow, dry river beds where there are small clusters of trees.  Perhaps it’s not a trick.

The emptiness of the Outback creates some interesting challenges.  How do you provide medical care to people whose nearest neighbors are eighty miles away?  Solving this problem led to two unique Australian entities—the Royal Flying Doctor Service and The School of the Air.

At last, we arrive at Alice Springs.

Next: the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air

 Anna Creek had 16000 cattle until the 2008 drought. King Ranch of Texas, about 1300 square miles, can sustain 3000 head of cattle.