Nat and Sam “Greenhide” Sam Croker found sufficient water to make droving practicable. They found the Murranji Waterhole and pushing further west they also found Yellow Waterhole.

Like most early explorers, they were helped by Aboriginal people, in this case the Mudburra.

The Commonwealth Government took over the Northern Territory from South Australia on 1 January 1911 and, in 1917, established a depot at Newcastle Waters for the construction of 13 bores across the waterless land, a project that took seven years. Pic Willetts was the last drover to travel the Murranji Track in 1967. In this article we look at the exploits of another drover and Territory legend who knew Pic and lived at Camooweal at the same time. They were around the same age, and they often came across one another while droving. They blazed trails together and attended country race meetings together.

He was droving for a decade from 1954 to 1964 before becoming a wellknown station owner in the Northern Territory. That drover is Ian McBean.

For almost a century drovers moved along the Murranji Track despite scarce water, jungle-like scrub and its reputation as a death track.

In his well-researched and detailed book, The Murranji Track: Ghost Road of the Drovers, author and historian Darrell Lewis provided a definitive account of the track from the time of the Aborigines and early explorers to its opening by the legendary Nat Buchanan, and the beginning of the great droving era in 1904 to its demise in the 1960s.

In January 2007. Ian McBean wrote the foreword to Darrell Lewis’s book and in it he said: “It is a fact of life that none of us last forever and there are not many of us ex-boss drovers left who actually walked the cattle down the Murranji.”

That was 17 years ago, and Ian is still with us, now 93, very proud of his achievements and his blood line. Ian McBean was born in Melbourne on 10 August 1931 and grew up on a 1500-acre mixed farm, 10 miles from Urana in the Southern Riverina of New South Wales. While at school he read all he could about the vast Outback and the Northern Territory.

While on Gurley station, a 100,000-acre property in NSW, a mate of his, Bob Gartery, noticed an advertisement in Walkabout magazine for station hands at Elkedra station out of Alice Springs.

They wrote to the owner who told them they could start work the following February; this was in 1953.

They had recently turned 21 years of age and were young and adventurous, so they sold their cars, and both bought a saddle and swag, and ended up in Alice Springs via an old DC3 flight from Adelaide. Ian’s first droving job was to deliver a mob of steers to Jim Mortimer, who owned Andado station. Max Shepley was the boss drover and Ian was the horse tailer – the entry point in a drover’s team, responsible for getting horses to water and feed, and bringing them to camp in the morning.

After delivering the cattle they were given time off and Ian went to the Brunette races. In his younger years he was an amateur jockey at picnic races in northern New South Wales and had brought his racing pad with him to the Territory.

He inquired at the race club secretary’s office on Brunette Downs and asked him if there was any chance of getting a ride. He ended up with a ride in every race – in contrast to five years later when he was told by the ABC Amateur Race Club committee that, not only could he not ride, he could not attend the after-race social dance; in that year he had married an Aboriginal woman, Myrtle Macfarlane.

In 1954 he was lucky enough to win the Ladies Bracelet on a horse named Hug owned by Mrs White, whose family owned Brunette Downs at the time. This ringer from Alice

Springs was now highly regarded and was offered a job on Brunette Downs and so he advised John Driver on his return to Elkedra and moved up to Brunette later that year.

During 1954 all the Brunette Downs camp went to the Camooweal Races, and this was where Ian first met up with some of the drovers at that time, at Bruce Simpson’s old abode known as the Ringers Roost. Among these drovers were Pic Willetts, Roger “Stainless” Steele and Alan Peters. Ian was to spend the next 10 years contract droving and living in Camooweal on the NT and Queensland border.

In 1956, in partnership, Ian bought the Booth brothers’ droving plant.

It was offered on a share basis with Ian running the plant. They only had pack horses at this time so all of their needs were in eight packs – one shoeing pack, one beef pack, one flour pack, two canteen packs, two packs with tin tucker, tea and sugar, and one called the tucker pack, which had cooked tucker, sauce, treacle and plates. On top of these packs and canteens were the ringers’ swags with billycans, camp ovens, a .303 rifle, and an axe.

When Ian returned to Brunette in 1957, he bought his partners out and now owned his own droving plant; from horse tailer to boss drover in four years. Ian’s decade of droving can be broken down geographically into two parts – the first half of the decade was spent south-east across the Barkly Tablelands and into Queensland, while the second half took place in the north-west along the Murranji and from Top Springs to the Northern Territory/Western Australian border region.

In Pic Willett’s book Wind on the Cattle, he describes how he and Ian blazed the trail through Bullita station to the Barrak Barrak Gorge by breaking the tops off anthills, thus identifying and creating a shortcut to Auvergne station.

This was a complicated shortcut that required a lot of skill, ingenuity, and manpower, and was usually only carried out on a full moon.

In May 1963, Ian took delivery of 1250 shorthorn cattle from Auvergne and walked them through the short cut, down the Murranji and across the Barkly Tablelands to Avon Downs, a distance of 1500 kilometres.

On his return trip to Auvergne Ian took a mob of Avon Downs’ unbroken horses. He had about 150 and then he bought a few horses of his own to sell so about 180 horses in total, as well as 40 plant horses.

Travelling mobs of horses are worse than cattle as they are on the trot all the time and you need to watch them carefully. They will not camp like cattle, they feed all night and all old horse drovers will tell you: “Can’t travel your plant horses with them.“ Ian got them across the Barkly with difficulty and when he got to Newcastle Waters he met up with Pic Willetts who offered help on several occasions to settle the horses down before they entered the Murranji.

Once the horses were delivered, Ian started back to Headingly station with a herd of steers for Peter Ogden. Little did Ian know that a chance meeting at Top Springs on this drive would change his life from a drover to a station owner.

Ian was camped at Top Springs on his way to Queensland with this mob, and the Chief Veterinary Officer of the Animal Industry Branch of the Northern Territory, Goff Letts, camped with him overnight. Goff told Ian there were land ballots coming up on a number of Crown leases later in the year, one of which was called Innesvale. He explained the criteria one needed to enter the ballot and, as it appeared Ian would likely be eligible, he suggested that he lodge an application.

On finally delivering the steers to Peter Ogden at Headingly station, the plant was taken back to Camooweal. On arrival there, Ian found he had drawn first in the ballot for the 1500 square mile Innesvale block.

As soon as the 1964-1965 wet season was over, Ian swapped his house in Camooweal for a mob of horses, packed up an old Bedford truck, a Blitz, and a tractor, along with a ute and a caravan, with all the necessary goods and chattels, including dogs and chooks, and headed west to an unknown future in what was described as looking like a circus convoy.

After 16 years at Innesvale, Ian bought Bradshaw station, which at the time was one of the largest stations in the Northern Territory. After 15 years at Bradshaw he bought Bonalbo station in the Douglas-Daly region, a small property by Territory standards but with a high carrying capacity due to improved pasture.

Ian is now in retirement after serving the Northern Territory cattle industry for more than 60 years, from horse tailer to boss drover to station owner.

Arriving in the Northern Territory with nothing but a swag, a saddle, and a racing pad, he entered and excelled in one of the toughest Australian professions across some of Australia’s harshest country before becoming a station owner through a ballot for a block that had absolutely nothing on it except his dreams; and went on to be a significant contributor to the Northern Territory cattle industry.

Ian McBean’s services to the industry have been recognised as a Life Member of the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association.

Ian was also recognised in the 2012 Australia Day honours as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his contribution to the cattle industry.

Mates of the Murranji.

Established in late 2020 by well-known Central Australian, Krafty, the ‘Mates of the Murranji’ are a group of over 250 people who are committed to supporting the resurrection and promotion of the Newcastle Waters historic township and surrounding area. Territory Q looks after the Mates by recognising our stockman and celebrating the achievements of our drovers and rich pastoral history.

Mates of the Murranji.

If you would like to be kept up to date with the progress of Newcastle Waters, find out the date for the next mates muster and join the Mates of the Murranji, please email contact@matesofthemurranji.com.au