How ‘wet’ do we get?
Host: Legune Station
Written by Belinda Rasheed – Manager, Legune Station.
In the dry season it’s hot, in the wet season it’s hotter, and wetter, and everyone goes just a little bit crazy . . .
The annual ‘working season’ or ‘dry season’ (March to December) is our chance to be as productive as possible, working through 1st and 2nd round musters, grading roads, and all other general maintenance. For this period we can have 25+ staff working with us; heads down and working like crazy for the rain free time we have.
When November rolls around, and the cattle work is looking like its finishing up for the year, you would think everything quietens down. Not yet – we are like little ants before a big rain (literally) scurrying around packing everything up, battening down the hatches, and for most, in the nick of time, leaving for the year.
Can you spot James Thomas attempting to clean up?
The Rasheed Mob making the most of a break in the rain.
The year is done, cattle are put to high ground and everyone is planning their Christmas VAYCAY. Except Pommy aka ‘Pom Pom’ or ‘Pommius Maximus’.
The managers are around for most of the wet, and when they are away they are on the phone or email constantly back to the station, checking in with UK bred Pommius Maximus, the eccentric gardener-come-all-round extraordinaire. He is here for the entire wet with a mate or two on the Legune Compound Island, for all 1,780mm of it. To be sure you understand how wet, think of your back garden after it rains almost every day for five months . . .
Our only road to town clearing up after the last Wet.
Thinking of replicating Noah’s Arc and getting the hell out of there? Don’t panic just yet.
Oh, and don’t think about swimming to town . . . There are crocs everywhere.
It is fly-in-fly-out type wet, and even making it to the airstrip is a wild adventure which often results in being all kinds of bogged. As crazy as it sounds it is a fantastic adventure, the lightning shows are beyond any tourism campaign and flying about checking bores, cattle, and collecting stores in the station plane or a contracted helicopter makes for a good holiday in itself. Pommy has been living the tourists’ dream for four years now.
Just another scenic flight out towards our Northern Boundary.