Bundarrah Days

WE just arrived home this morning from a great weekend at the Mountain Cattlemen's Get Together at Glenfalloch.

We got there on Saturday morning in time to listen to a few speakers at the People's Bushfire Review and the stories some told of their experiences this summer were harrowing to say the least. Having been burnt by the fires of 2003 we were able to empathise.

State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu was there and made the point strongly that the mega-fires of this summer did not have to happen. They were not an inevitability. They could have been prevented. He was right.

Apparently I appeared on the Channel Seven News on Saturday night but that was completely by accident. I happened to be walking one way and reporter Norm Beaman was right in my path looking for someone to interview. It ended up being me.

I made the point again that managed grazing on the high plains helps mitigate the threat of wildfire, especially if it is used in conjunction with a comprehensive program of fuel reduction burning in the forested valleys.

We had a bit of a win when one of the girls who came on our droving trip to the high plains in January took first prize in the photo competition for a picture she took at our hut.

She's got more than 200 pictures of the drove on CD which she's going to send us. That's a bonus because we didn't take anywhere near as many as we wanted due to flat batteries in the camera.