Desert Vets - 8. DV Ch 8 - Bigger and Better

“So, we are still keeping the present owners on as permanent management of the station?” Marcus asked after nodding his head in understanding. “Yes, that is the plan which I put into place, when I negotiated the deal to purchase the property, and when I told them of my plans for us to live there, but at an alternative location, they were quite shocked at the news,” I relied,

“So, still no regrets about selling your Bi-plane?” Marcus asked me. “No, I realised some time ago that I hadn’t flown her for such a long time, and that it would be better if someone else got to fly her regularly. I will miss flying her, especially since it was my first plane, but I have no choice. If we want to live as we have planned, then we need to sell her,” I replied sadly.

“I’m quite looking forward to living in our new home, but do we need to have it located on our new station? Why not a bit closer to Kununurra?” Marcus asked me, “I don’t know why I suggested there, maybe just because we had just purchased the station… but you are right, we could have it closer to work, so we wont have to fly so far in each day,” I replied.

“Can we start looking at alternative sites for our home?” Marcus asked me, and I smiled, “yes why not,” I replied as I realised that my husband was right with us been able to relocated our new home nearly any where we want to. After finalising my day’s work in the office, Marcus and I headed for the hanger, as we still had to fly home to the base, and I was looking forward to be back home, even if it will be only for a short while longer.

I had contacted Jessica, and told her that I would be flying in, to see her in the morning, to speak about some planned changes, but because she was already in Halls Creek, along with her vet nurse, we would be diverting to there to see her, and I would speak to her two auxilliary staff by telephone, once back at the main office.

Marcus and I had a nice relaxing evening at home, and I headed to bed a little earlier than usual, as I was still feeling a bit tired from the trip up from Perth yesterday, and the alarm was set for us to be up at our usual time of 6am, to get ready for another busy day.

The following morning, we were in the air by 7am, and we arrived in Halls Creek about 45 minutes later, where Jessica was waiting to collect us, “Hey boss, nice to see you again, you have any supplies for me?” Jessica said after Marcus had shut everything off and I opened the side door.

“Yes, I remembered to pack some supplies for you, before leaving the office yesterday afternoon, how have you been going, has it been busy at all?” I replied, glad that Jessica sounded cheery, since she was stuck in the middle of the West Australian outback, with nothing in the way of recreation or social activities, apart from getting boozed up at the local pub, which was not her scene at all.

“Yes, but has been a bit slow here in Halls Creek and Warmun,” Jessica replied, “Yes, I noticed that with the paperwork, that is why I am about to make some changes, I would like to transfer you to Mable Bar… I know it is very remote, and there isn’t much out there apart from the heat, but there is a very modern vet clinic, as you well know, and you and your staff can live in the very close by station homestead, which our family still owns,” I announced to Jessica.

“Yes, I would like that, and Mable Bar is small but it is a nice area, with a friendly community,” Jessica replied, “Good to hear, Marcus and I will take over doing clinic runs to Halls Creek and Warmun, as we will be relocating closer to base shortly, so you and your two staff will just have Nullagine and Marble Bar and any surrounding stations to cover,” I said happily, pleased that Jessica was keen with the move.

“By the way, have you read the latest news on what’s happening around the Veterinary world, in our part of Oz?” Jessica asked, “No, I have been unconscious in hospital lately,” I replied with a smirk on my face, and Jessica laughed at this.

“Hm, smart arse bosses, I’m not sure if I should tell you now?” Jessica said to me and I put on a pouting sad face, which made Jessica laugh even more, “Alright enough with the faces, jeez. The Port Hedland company that I used to work for, and owns the practices in Newman and Derby, has put both of those practices up for sale,” Jessica informed me.

“Wow, that is a big turn around from trying to take over the whole area for themselves, any idea why?” I responded in shock, “Apparently another veterinary company, that I won’t mention, has been taking away a lot of their business, and they have decided to stop fighting and let the two smaller clinics go,” Jessica replied.

“Wow, now that is very interesting, I wonder if Marcus has heard about this?” I responded, “Did I just hear my name been mentioned?” Marcus said as he appeared from outside, “Yes dear, Jess was just telling me about Derby and Newman,” I replied, “Yes, I was going to mention that to you last night, but… well, we sort of got distracted,” Marcus said to me.

“Should we invest in those two practices, and retain the vets and staff that are currently there?” I asked Marcus, who was standing in front of the air conditioner to try and cool down. “Yes, that would be good, as long as we can retain the staff currently there, as we are stretched enough as it is with our current Vets,” Marcus replied.

“I agree with that, but we could also swap the vets around, if need be, what do you think Jess?” I said turning to Jess for her opinion, “Oh, asking me now, well I guess that would be fine, I wouldn’t mind doing short stints back at Newman, every now and then,” Jess replied.

“Good, we will look into the purchases as soon as we get back to base, and I will have to consult Auggie too, since he is a partner in this business,” I responded, and Marcus smiled and nodded his head in agreement. Once we had spent about an hour with Jess, assisting her when it suddenly got very busy at the practice, we caught a taxi back to the airport, and was soon in the air again, heading for Kununurra.

Less than a month later, our business had expanded to include Newman, Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Fitzroy Crossing and Derby, which meant we now had an additional four veterinarians, three vet nurses, and six auxiliary staff, and I had appointed Jessica to be area manager of the Pilbara region practices, while Auggie continues as senior manager of the Kimberly region practices and head office.

Any surgery that was too difficult for onsite vets, would be handled at headquarters, with the Twin Otter becoming an animal air ambulance, to transport animals to Kununurra, where they could be treated and recover, before been sent back home.

Our plans to have a new home base closer at our new cattle station near Wyndham had been put in hold, and instead, Marcus and I moved in the cottage at the families new property just out of town on Jabiru Road, while the Army now had full time staff based at the air base, as an outback desert survival training centre for all Army personnel in WA, with our former home, now the headquarters and senior staff quarters.

Apart from a three Hawkei’s, the base now has two 8-wheeled ASLAV light armoured vehicles, four Bushmaster Vehicles, six G-Wagon Landrovers, four UAV drones, and two MRH90 helicopters, all which are been used regularly as part of the training, with both campsites been put to use for accommodating army personnel, and the base soon had the nickname of “Hell Training Facility”.

I had decided to not remain as the District Veterinary Officer, as I had more important work running my practice, with Marcus and Auggie, especially now that it has expanded to cover most of the Kimberly District, and the central part of the Pilbara District.

When Marcus, Auggie and I had a meeting to discuss the proposal of the practice been involved in a television series, none of us were very keen on the idea, especially if it was going to take up a lot of extra time, that would be spent attending to patients, and with a suggestion from Auggie, we sent a response, which included a detailed expenses invoice, on how much we are expected to be reimbursed for staff time and use of our facilities.

The amount that we had tallied up was quite large, and we hoped that this would put the film production company off the idea of involving our practice. We were quite shocked when a week later, we received a response, which included an extra 10% to what we estimated that it would cost us for our time and use of our facilities, and all three of us were a little unsure what to do.

In the end, we decided that we are too busy to be able to deal with the filming of the television series, and we politely decline their request, and we thought that this would be the end of it, until about two weeks later, while I was at the Quarantine station.

“Err Jax, don’t look now, but it seems that we have gained the attention of a camera crew. I thought you had declined the offer for a film crew to do a programme about your business,” my brother said to me, as he walked up and stopped in front of me. “That’s bloody great, all we need when we are busy working,” I groaned. “What do you want me to do, Boss?” Rhodes asked me

I chuckled as and idea came to mind, “Oh, oh! I’ve got a feeling that you have something evil in mind,” my brother said to me, “Yeah, you could say that. When is the truck due to arrive to transport those cleared stock over the border?” I asked.

“In about two hours’ time, they are running a bit late, why is that?” Rhodes replied, “Ok, this is what I want you to do, gather all of your team, and get the horses ready, then…” I said as I began to explain my idea to my brother, and Rhodes was laughing loudly by the time I had finished. While I was explaining things, Rhodes changed position, so when I was talking to him, I could look over his shoulder in the direction of the hidden film crew, to see where they are located.

About half an hour later, as most of the stock team were working in or around the yards, a vehicle approached from the direction of the highway, having come from our family station of Newby. This particular old bomb, is well known for backfiring, and as such is usually banned from been anywhere near any cattle.

But in this case, it was part of the plan, as approached the yard, and stopped near me, and as predicted it backfired a few times, and a loud shout from the yards, warned everyone of the cattle been spooked by the noise, and that the gates had been opened to let the spooked cattle free of the confines of the yards, so none of them get injured, and as planned they headed straight towards the direction of the film crew.

We watched them head for the safety of their vehicles, so as to avoid the stampede, while the stock crew jumped onto their horses to round up the cattle, while I sent the station hand and his very noisy vehicle back to the homestead. Rhodes and I were both chuckling as we watched the film crew flee the area, returning to the highway, and I sent a message to the Kununurra Police, requesting that they detain and charge the intruders for trespassing, as well as breaking quarantine restrictions.

Half an hour later with the cattle rounded up and calmed down, and as I watched them been preparing to be loaded onto the truck, after doing a final check on all of the cattle, with the spooking and stampede appearing to have not caused any injuries, my mobile rang, with the call ID saying that it was Kununurra Police.

“Jexon Kendrik speaking,” I said answering the call, “Dr Kendrik, this is Senior Constable Appleton, we have detained the film crew, we will need to get a statement from you when you return to town, but first the Film director has informed me that they were nearly killed from a cattle stampede, is this true and what exactly happened,” the police officer asked.

“Well officer, one of the station stockmen came down to the station to pass on a message to me, as he couldn’t get hold of me on the phone or radio, the problem is that he came down here in his personal car, the one that regularly backfires, and as a result, when he stopped and it backfired, the car spooked the cattle we had in the yards, that we had ready to be loaded on a truck when it arrived.

To stop the cattle from getting harmed, the quarantine crew opened the gates, to stop them from getting crushed, and they stampeded out into the open paddock. We had no idea that there was anyone except the Quarantine station crew on the property, when the cattle stampeded, until we saw the film crew and their equipment fleeing for their two vehicle for safety.

When I realised who they were, that is when I contacted you guys, since they entered not only my families cattle station without permission, but also the quarantine station, which is clearly signposted, as been off limits to unauthorised people,” I explained to the officer. “I see, well I can see that they are in the wrong, and agree with you that you had no cause to think that anyone else apart from station staff would be on the property. We will be booking them on two offences, and releasing them to appear in court, have a good day, goodbye,” the officer said before ending the call.

“Well, I be… Your plan actually worked a lot better than we thought,” Rhodes said before laughing, and he gave me a slap on the back in congratulations, before going to help with the loading of the cattle. Once the cattle had been loaded and were on their way into WA, I packed up and drove back into town, calling into the police station to make a statement on what happened as promised.

While there, I learnt that the four members of the film crew, would be appearing before the local Magistrate at 10 am the next morning, and I informed the officer that I would be attending, and making my statement in court.