Northern Territory Cattle Stations - Tobermorey to Jervois along The Plenty Highway

After a leisurely morning and a wonderful chat to an incredible lady whom we camped alongside, Julia Francis, who rides solo around Australia (@Ozgirlbike), we drove out the gates of Tobermorey Station to head onto The Plenty Highway. We were a little anxious as to what was in store as we crossed this ‘bucket list’ icon towards Alice Springs, but we were informed that the road had recently been graded with advice to watch for bull dust patches and soft spots (after the recent WA cyclone rains). When we say highway, we really mean red dirt road often full of corrugations, but we were pleasantly surprised with the condition and the fact that the road was wide (as opposed to our experience on the ‘Dangie’ the previous day). Sippy let down the tyres to 30psi and off we motored, sitting at around 70km/hour.

Again, we marveled at the changing scenery, the giant termite mounds, the rich red of the dirt road, and the big, blue sky. It was amazing to stop every now and then and feel the silence and embrace the remoteness. We had fun flying the drone and at one stage lying down on the ‘highway’ – we only passed a few vehicles all day.

We arrived at Jervois Station in the early afternoon and were greeted by the lovely station owners and warmly welcomed by their two very affectionate donkeys. After setting up, we pulled out the chairs, lit a campfire and put a chicken and sweet potatoes to roast in the Weber. During the afternoon the BT became surrounded by many inquisitive cattle, including a few cute black angus calves wanting to know what we were doing camping in their paddock.

Jervois Station runs 8,000 breeders over 1.2 million hectares! One of their major customers is McDonalds, desiring their Angus beef for their meat patties. The station has no paddocks (except around the house and campground), as they have too many camels roaming through that would destroy the fences. Jervois mostly truck their cattle to SA to fatten, where the owners have another property, as the land they occupy in the NT does not normally have enough feed. That is not currently the case as we were informed that there is the best feed in 7 years presently available, thanks to the summer floods. There was an awful lot of grass for the Herefords and Angus to get through!