So why do they have a dog fence and what is its purpose?
The answer is quite simple, to keep the wild Dingo away from the sheep, it is cattle country on the north side of the fence and sheep on the other. The Dingo unlike its other native friends, gets quite a bad rap in the media; nearly every tourist wants to cuddle a Koala, but a Dingo? I don’t think so.
The reputation of the Dingo has suffered ever since “The Dingo got my baby” affair at Ayers Rock back in the 1970’s,recent attacks on tourists at Fraser Island in Queensland, serve to remind us that they are after all a wild animal.

Just like me with my English and Australian passports the Dingo also has dual citizenship; it is known as a native animal north of the fence and a pest to the south. The Australian Dingo is said to have originally come from Southern Asia and was introduced to Australia sometime between 3000 and 4000 years ago by Asian seafarers. Eventually with the help of Aboriginals who trained the Dingo for hunting purposes, it spread throughout the whole of Australia.

I was born in a country where farms are relatively small, so I was quite astounded when I first heard that some of the sheep and cattle stations here in Australia are larger in size than my homeland English counties and even more astounding they can even be larger than some small European countries. Properties this size can quite easily run thousands of sheep, so you can imagine how important it is then to keep them away from the wild Dingo. To give you an idea of just how important, one station in South Australia alone, lost over 11000 sheep due to Dingo attacks in the 1890s and as recently as 1991, one station lost 3000 sheep in a year.
 

Whilst travelling through some of these sheep stations I find it truly amazing that the sheep can actually survive, they sure do breed them tough out here.
The conditions are so harsh and totally alien to those of a sheep farm in England, yet they produce some of the best wool in the world.
The station owners assure me when asked that they run about 3000 sheep, some even more. Yet I have never seen more than a dozen in one spot, it goes to show just how big these properties really are.
                                        Another picture of the Dog Fence at Cameron Corner

A fence this size certainly needs to be regularly patrolled and maintained, that is the job of the fence riders who are employed by the Dog Fence board, a governing body set up to look after the running of the fence. I reckon the job of a fence rider would be fantastic, patrolling up and down a section of the fence, mending a few holes here and there. I can just imagine the solitude, camping out at night under the stars. It would be freezing cold in winter and the hot summer months would be horrendous especially with the flies. But oh for the warmth and glow of a campfire, a glass of red, taking in the silence of the desert, broken only by the howling call of a Dingo.

Of the total length of dog fence 5400km in all, some 2178km of it runs through South Australia, for the most part it disappears off on its own, out of view and out of reach into some very rough and remote country. There are places where it does come into public view at the side of the road or on 4wd tracks. These are the type of places to see the fence, as it is an offence to drive along the fence! (Excuse the pun) One of these places is at Cameron’s Corner, a remote part of Australia where the state borders of South Australia, NSW and Queensland meet. Cameron’s corner is virtually a one man town, but what a man. Bill Mitchell, who runs the corner store and campgrounds, is a real larger than life character. I met him during a recent camping trip, whilst the English nurse and I were passing through on our way to the Dig tree. Bill, shaven head, huge grin, takes my $5 camping fee for the night and puts it into a tin and says “That’s for the Doctor” The royal flying doctor in this case, and so I happily give him another $5 and say “Well give him that one too!” Bill explains how in a past life he was a truck driver and loathed being stuck behind a car of tourists, now he can’t get enough of them. Once during the quite months
of summer when the mercury hits 50, his till didn’t ring for four days! The quiet periods can be a blessing though and give him time to catch up on repairs and maintenance. Bill tells a great story of how each time he got up a ladder to fix the roof, the phone would ring, down the ladder answer the phone, up the ladder, phones rings, up down, up down and so on. He thought that someone must be on a hill watching
him!
Back at our camp site, it is our campsite because we are the only ones here, the wind is getting up and there is a dust storm brewing. Do we care? No, for we are both nicely snug inside the tent, a glass of Shiraz and a bowl of spaghetti. Eating by gaslight, perfect.
By the way, I must point out that it is the English nurse and I snug in the tent, not Bill, I hasten to add!
Next morning I am awaken early from my slumber by the drone of a low flying helicopter circling overhead. I can see Bill grinning madly and waving from the passenger seat. There he is, up there watching over his kingdom, he must have somehow talked the pilot into a free ride. The helicopter is part of an organised motorbike rally that is passing through the area.

There is a surveyor’s post outside of the store and with a hop, skip and a jump you can be in and out of 3 states of Australia in the blink of an eye. I have it on good authority that the corner store is a Queensland business with a NSW postcode and a South Australian phone number! The track from the store to the camping grounds runs alongside the fence. I stop the 4WD and walk up the fence to touch it. Standing there in this remote part of the world, I imagine that someone else, maybe thousand of kilometres away is also touching the fence at that same moment in time. The soil, vivid red in colour is littered with animal tracks that criss cross each other back and forth. You don’t have to be a tracker to read them, they ooze despair and confusion. I try to imagine how these native animals, Roos, Emus and the Dingo would feel after journeying for miles and miles, desperately searching for food and water, almost on their last legs. When all of a sudden they come upon this manmade barrier, some of them must curl up and die right there on the spot, exhausted.

An Emu, called Victor Meldrew exclaimed… “I don’t believe it! Why on earth would anyone want to put a bloody great big fence like this here for? I’m tired and I’m hungry all I want is food, water and a rest. Now I’m going to have to go around the bloody thing!”

  Top of Page