I finally got around to do part two of my “Overcompensation Story time”. In this part I tell a bit how it was like to be working on the cattle station in the Australian Outback. In my attempt to “outmacho” myself I finally reached my limit with this adventure. I had two events which made me clear I should not push my luck any further.
The first one was when a colleague of mine sent me, by accident or not, into the wrong direction and I headed straight into the Simpson desert, with no water or any other equipment. And my motorbike went low on petrol.
After I found my way back to civilization, in the form of my manager’s truck, by pure luck, my manager said that “You’ve got a second birthday, mate. Do you have any idea how lucky your are you made it out alive?”
The second one was when we where sorting out cattle for sale. They chased them around the yards and yelled the number of the gate to me through which I should let them run. I was to open and close those gates. In one case I misunderstood the number and I opened the wrong gate. Before I could correct it, a full grown bull came in sight and without any hesitation charged at me with full speed.
I did not quite make it and all I heard was a bang and then I felt my body being thrown around wildly. All of a sudden I felt something hard in my hand and I grabbed it. By pure chance I got a hold of the top bar of the fence and I was able to pull myself on top of the fence and out of reach of the bull’s attack. I kicked the bull on the head as hard as I could until it finally gave up an ran away.
When my colleagues came running and saw me brushing of the dust, swearing at the the bull, with nothing but a few bruises they asked me the same question. Do you know how lucky you are? Nobody walks away from an attack like this…..”You should be dead, mate” is what one of them said.
So I decided it was time to leave. I didn’t care anymore about feeling manly. What probably saved my live, apart from getting hold of the fence, was the fact that the farmers cut the bull’s horns off when they are still little. This is what I was doing myself for many hours a day, earning my money.
Here is the story:
