BEEF WEEK 2026 East Gippsland Newspapers 3 Thursday, January 29, 2026 THE JOURNEY The first day was from the Benambra saleyards around to Estates’yards, with blokes and hessian super bags or flapping oilskins helping to turn them round the corner. On to Omeo the second day where they would wait for the Omeo weaners to be painted up, and again blokes would stand with hessian bags to help turn the cattle towards Swifts Creek. Next camp was Huggins yards at the bottom of The Gap, then onto Reid’s Woolshed near Swifts Creek, where Tim remembers Joe Fitz turning up with baskets full of veggies on a tractor. The mob would then take the old road from Doctors Flat to Ensay and follow the Tambo River along to arrive at the Ensay saleyards, rather close to the Ensay pub for the drovers. The next camp, Pilso said, was four miles down the road at Reedy Flat, which was always a nervy camp with the fresh Ensay weaners in the mob. Often the cattle would bolt during the night. Some drovers blamed a certain bike-riding local for stirring the cattle up at night. On through the bush to Sommerville’s paddock at Tambo Crossing, or Bill Flynn’s yards, then to a wire yard in the clear country at Double Bridges. The following night’s camp was at Evans’ paddock at Ramrod Creek near Bruthen, then onto Leo Hamilton’s paddock at the Sand Hill. The final camp was called‘Yellow Waterholes’or Macnamara’s Waterhole out the back of Lucknow and on the very last day the mob would cross the river over the bridge into Bairnsdale. The drovers would turn them to the left past the old Imperial Hotel and the Butter Factory, taking the back road to the Bairnsdale Saleyards where their new owners would take over. LAURIE HISCOCK’S DIARY According to Laurie Hiscock’s work diary, his first trip as boss drover in 1979, 408 cattle left Benambra in the mob, the owners charged $2.40 a head; 364 head joined the mob from Omeo, at $2.30/head and 144 from Ensay joined the mob at a charge of $2.10/head. Also at Ensay, 128 head were taken out for the Treasures, with the total to Bairnsdale 788 head. The drovers on the trip‘all or part of time’were: Leon Ford, Dennis Neal, Ken Howlett, Tim Woodgate, John Jennings, Bert Lee, Peter Richards and Rick Morgan. Laurie, born in 1943, was 36 on his first boss drover trip. Sadly he passed away in September, 2016. Laurie and his wife Anne were married in 1966 and bought their farm at Ensay in 1974. His dairy shows in 1980 the charge per beast from Benambra rising to $3.30/head and the total to Bairnsdale at 689 head. Nine head were taken out for T Farmer at Ensay, and the‘men’on the trip were John Jennings, Peter Richards, Tim Woodgate and Dallas Jennings, and part time were Dennis Neal, Bert Lee and P Commins. Simon Turner and B Mitchell were added to the list of drovers in 1981 when the mob size reached a mighty 1299 head. In 1982 the mob dropped back to 461 head, with ‘nil’cattle joining the mob from Ensay, and Laurie’s sons Michael and Jim Hiscock, plus John McMahon listed as drovers. The diary entries continue each year until 1984, with the 1983 entry stating: ‘Too dry, drought conditions the worst on record. Tambo River dry down to below Swifts Creek, in holes only to Ensay. Farmers had pumps on most water holes.’ The final 1984 trip lists the price at $4.10/head from Benambra, with a total 477 driven to Bairnsdale and the drovers including John Jennings, Tim Woodgate, John McMahon, Greg Counihan, Dick Leatham, and part time, D Neal, S Neal and B Lee. Laurie’s wife Anne said Laurie loved the droving trips. “He had always been friends with Leon Ford and it was something he always wanted to do,” Anne said. Laurie went two or three times with Mr Ford before he took on the boss drover role, even spending a month on the road with him, droving cattle all the way to Glenmaggie. “It was an achievement for him,”she said. “They never lost a beast. They dropped one at Tambo Crossing once but it turned up a couple of months later and Laurie sorted it. “They could always account for every beast.” She also mentioned the camp at Reedy Creek, or Harmans, where the cattle would rush. Laurie found himself with another young bloke running in front of the rushing cattle dragging a stick on the bitumen to make noise to stop them running. The young fella told Laurie he couldn’t keep on running. “You’ve got to run or you’ll die,”Laurie told him. Anne said when Alan Taylor was boss drover, there was no truck to cart the gear, instead he used packhorses. “If it was a wet night they stayed in their oilkins all night, rather than get their blankets wet,”she said. TIM’S MEMORIES Tim’s job was always to take the first cut of about 80 to 100 head, and John Jennings would be in the lead, with John ‘Froggy’ McMahon taking the second cut. “You’d end up with nearly the same calves in front and behind you every day,”Tim said. Tim’s first droving trip was with Laurie Hiscock in 1979, when Leon Ford travelled with them for a few days, handing over the boss drover title to Laurie. He also remembers Alan Taylor, who would use a tea-towell to draft stock, he wouldn’t hit them with a cane. “He was a bit of a hero to me,”Tim said. “A legend. He would go droving from Omeo to Bairnsdale using just the one cracker on his whip. “I managed to do that twice.” He said everyone had three or four dogs each on the trips. “You had to swap them over, they didn’t last long because they’d get footsore,”he said. He remembers other drovers over the years being Greg Counihan, Dallas Jennings, Rita McMahon, Hayden Hamilton, Mick French and Billy Jim Mitchell. “Pilso was really good, he’d done the trip so many times. “It’s important to write down the history,” Tim said. “When we’re all gone no one will remember.” A few standout memories include at Haunted Stream the cattle would sometimes bump one off the edge and someone would have to go down and follow it along the river until it could come out and join the mob again. He said sometimes it was so hot the cattle would walk in the shade of the log trucks as they went slowly through the mob, and one time a petrol tank truck ran into the lead of the mob and rolled a few calves underneath, killing them. At Dirty Hollow near O’Donnell’s yards near Bruthen it was hot and a massive thunderstorm came through, leaving poor Ken Howlett with welt marks from the hail. Both Timmy and Pilso were grateful to be a part of the Drovers Reunion, held at the Counihan’s Wy Yung property in 2005. The reunion drew together generations of drovers, stockmen and bushmen. It was an extremely successful event and timely, as many of those in the photo have since passed on, much like the tradition of droving stock down country from Benambra. The next time you pass a cattle truck coming down the Great Alpine Road in March from the Mountain Calf Sales, spare a thought for the drovers who made the trek, the cattle that mobbed together, the dogs and the horses, who all played a role in the history of cattle sales and droving in the district. The Bairnsdale Advertiser thanks the interviewees for kindly allowing use of the photos from their collections, and to Anne Hiscock for sharing Laurie’s work diary. Some of the images are said to have been taken by the well-known Stock and Land photographer, Frank Johnson. laughter and livestock on the long road John Jennings’ blue truck at Bill Flynn’s yards at Tambo Crossing, from left, Froggy McMahon, Dick Leatham, a young Jim Hiscock, Peter Richards, Timmy Woodgate, Laurie Hiscock, Mick French and Michael Hiscock. (Supplied by Tim Woodgate) Pages of Laurie Hiscock’s work diary of each year he was boss driver from Benambra to Bairnsdale. (PS) Lunchtime at Evans’ paddock, Ramrod Creek about 1980, Tim Woodgate, John ‘Froggy’ McMahon, Michael Hiscock and Mick French. (Supplied by Tim Woodgate)
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