Our first outback trip in 1991. We travelled to the Kimberley region, W.A., setting out with Landcruiser, trailer, our four sons, Ben, Daniel, Jamie and Paul, and family dog ‘Jock’. Our eldest daughter, Leah, was working in Toowoomba, and stayed behind. Helen was pregnant with our youngest daughter Jessica, born in derby, W.A. in August of that year. For the first two years of “The Trip”, we travelled with a Land Cruiser and trailer.
We’d heard that horse work in the North was finished; that helicopters and motorbikes had taken over; so with some uncertainty we ventured into the Kimberley to look for work repairing saddles. Our first break came with a caretaking job at Bedford Downs, owned at the time by Angus McClymont – A big bloke with a big voice, and a big heart to allow Lyle to repair some of the saddles. We soon discovered that horse work was very much alive in the Kimberley, and we spent 6 months moving between several stations doing a lot of saddle repair.