‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ is poking along nicely each week although I’d love to see a lot more on the work and details of what work on a cattle station really entails, rather than just more of what the Jones family do in their time off.\u00a0 Which unfortunately could give anyone who doesn’t know any better, the false impression that every weekend on a cattle station\u00a0is time off.\u00a0 In just a few short episodes we’ve seen the Joneses and visitors\u00a0jet skiing and having a barra fishing competition and next week at a bush race meeting.\u00a0 The reality is that these\u00a0sorts of occasions are rare throughout the year, for most cattle station residents.\u00a0 The urban myth of the ‘fabulous relaxing rural lifestyle’ is still alive and kicking so it’s a pity that some viewers of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ will be encouraged to believe ‘the squatter’s dream’\u00a0still exists (if it ever really did).\u00a0 In reality the average bush resident works much harder and longer hours than the average city resident (they’re busy because they’re earning a crust, not because they’re rushing off to a restaurant, film, concert\u00a0or bookclub gathering, etc after knock off time), and on the few\u00a0occasions when there is actually a day spare, there’s often not the energy or enthusiasm to drive to the nearest waterhole or\u00a0it may be too wet to drive, or later in the year when the temperature peaks and a waterhole would be most appreciated – it may be too shallow or completely dry.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course people do try to make the most of whatever natural features they’re lucky enough to have on the place they live on, but it’s just that for most people it doesn’t happen often – mostly only if there are visitors to entertain (an unavoidable but welcome excuse to have some time off) or a film crew handy.\u00a0 The best analogy is that it’s like a flash verandah with a spectacular view – often the residents in the house are the ones with the least time to sit and appreciate it; they’re too busy earning a crust to keep it.<\/p>\n
From October onwards the work pace on northern cattle stations is often not quite so full on as it is during the cooler months of May-August, but it’s too hot during the last few months of the year and people are getting too tired for much to happen on the social gathering front (race meetings, campdrafts, rodeos etc).\u00a0 It’s when dummy spits occur because staff have had enough and they are feeling the heat and tired from the long hours.\u00a0\u00a0 In the Top End in a good year early storms from October onwards can start to drop a few inches of rain or more in the one hit – while in other years the heat and humidity just keeps building until it finally rains in December or early January.<\/p>\n
In northern Australia social events such as campdrafts, rodeos and races (often held on the same weekend) are jammed into a circuit which runs during the few short (temperate) winter months.\u00a0 By this time most cattle stations have their first round of mustering completed so staff are able to have a few weekends off to travel away to social events (usually at least a few hours drive away, if not a half-day or full-day’s drive.)\u00a0 Then it’s flat chat back into the second round of mustering around mid August.\u00a0 When mustering is in full swing it is common for everyone to be working 6-7 days\/week, for weeks on end.\u00a0 Typically, residents on stations in the Top End would visit the Katherine Show (campdraft, rodeo etc) and two or three other weekends, such as the big weekend at Timber Creek.\u00a0 There are a few cattle station families that attend every campdraft, week after week during the circuit, \u00a0however they are the exception rather than the norm.\u00a0 Most people in the bush simply couldn’t afford to stop work on Friday and not start again until the following Monday or Tuesday, just as few in the city can afford such a luxury.<\/p>\n
In the meantime I hope the average viewer is perceptive enough to pick up on good points made about various basic but different aspects of life on cattle stations.\u00a0 For example, access to medical care and everything that entails\u00a0(including\u00a0the fact that the RFDS doesn’t service the top of the Northern Territory, aerial medical evacuation services have been covered by the NT-govt funded Air Med, since WWII but Air Med is soon to be replaced by Careflight).\u00a0 And education –\u00a0primary education at home by correspondence lessons, and unavoidable leaving home to attend boarding school.\u00a0 These issues\u00a0were skipped over fairly quickly and few probably put\u00a0thought into the implications of, for example, starting to have a heart attack and not being able to get to the nearest hospital – even by the very fastest means – for more than an hour.\u00a0 It would have been an opportune time to trot out a simple but sobering statistic regarding the mortality rate comparison for heart attacks and heart disease in the bush compared to Australian urban areas.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, in 2006\u00a0 the AMA (Australian Medical Association) said that rural blokes were 31% more likely to die from heart disease in a rural area, and women 21%.\u00a0 And that was just in Victoria, Australia’s most densely populated state.\u00a0 There are equally appalling statistics in other health fields – for example survival rates for breast cancer (women in the bush are far more likely to die).\u00a0\u00a0A 2004\u00a0study\u00a0mentioned in the Medical Journal of Australia reported\u00a0that cancer sufferers in regional areas were 35% more likely to die within 5 years of diagnosis.\u00a0 For some cancers, remote area resident cancer sufferers were up to 3 times more likely to die within 5 years.<\/p>\n
I guess the producers didn’t want to bog ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ down with too much reality but to me including more on the work front and \u00a0trotting out a few more pithy bits of real-life\u00a0 info would give the series more teeth and balance the constant images of uncommonly spectacular scenery and misleadingly prolific recreational antics.\u00a0 Too much of the latter and not enough of the former is like having chips or chocolate for dinner – it doesn’t leave you feeling satisfied or healthy.<\/p>\n
Interesting to note the farm safety fuss seems to have died down – I’d have thought there would be discussion after every episode of “Keeping up with the Joneses’, because in every episode there’s something noticeably topical.\u00a0 From choppers flying in an extravagant fashion to young blokes somersaulting backwards into a rocky river (wheelchair here we come).<\/p>\n
Everyone who is enjoying watching ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ will also enjoy the best-selling coffee table style books ‘A Million Acre Masterpiece’ and ‘Life as an Australian Horseman’.\u00a0 These unique books contain more than 500 photos taken on Australia’s largest cattle stations and every photo has a short but interesting caption, to help those unfamiliar with these cattle stations understand more about outback life.\u00a0 These books\u00a0are ideal Christmas gifts.\u00a0 Orders for 2 or more books come with a free calico carrybag and a good discount, books can be personally signed and mailed direct to anywhere in the world.\u00a0 The books\u00a0also come with a money-back guarantee of satisfaction.\u00a0 For more information on these outback\u00a0books, visit the Book Contents<\/a> page, or visit the Testimonials<\/a> page to read comments from other book purchasers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ is poking along nicely each week although I’d love to see a lot more on the work and details of what work on a cattle station really entails, rather than just more of what the Jones family do in their time off.\u00a0 Which unfortunately could give anyone who doesn’t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,11,217],"tags":[82,179,214,218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2132,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions\/2132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}