Quirky Facts
Did you know? ....
The ‘long paddock’ This is another name for the stock routes network because when times got tough in the grazing industry, stock would be sent out under the care of a droving team to graze along the stock routes until conditions improved back home.- Parts of the network are 40,000 years old. Some stock routes follow ancient Indigenous trading routes. Their continued use has immense cultural value today.
- Hollywood values the Stock Route Network 1. The Overlanders is a 1946 Australian film about drovers droving a large herd of cattle 1600 miles overland (ie using the Stock Routes Network) from the Northern Territory outback of Australia to pastures north of Brisbane, Queensland during World War 2. The film was one of several produced in Australia by Ealing Studios, and featured Chips Rafferty.
- Hollywood values the Stock Route Network 2. Australia, the new movie with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, includes the story of a cattle drive of 2000 head during World War 2 in the North of Australia. Released November 2008. Filmed in Bowen Qld and WA.
- Ngurra Kuju Walyja – One Country, One People: The Canning Stock Route Project (CSR Project) is a landmark cultural and artistic endeavour in Western Australia. Some of the State’s leading contemporary Aboriginal artists have contributed their knowledge to a rich cultural repository exploring the history and cultures of the Canning Stock Route. The Project comprises contemporary art, oral history, photography, film and interactive multimedia, a touring exhibition and a professional development program.
- The Bradfield Highway in Sydney is still designated as a Travelling Stock Route and livestock can still be herded across the Sydney Harbour Bridge if a grazier needed to.