Fifty miles outside of Katherine in the opposite direction from yesterday, Tuesday 9 a.m.

In Devon, when you need to round up your beef cattle to take to market, you wander into a well-hedged lush green field with a dog and boy and shoo them gently up the ramp to a cattle truck that is parked in the gateway, have a few words with the driver and amble back to the farmhouse for a spot of lunch.

Rounding up cattle for market in Northern Australia – mustering they call it – is a bit different. Instead of a boy, a dog and a stick you need a six-wheel drive, converted Second World War personnel carrier, loaded with a half a mile of hessian, a hundred metal poles six or seven feet high; a modular corral and fencing kit, some spare wheels, engines, axles and gearboxes for the two stripped-down, four-wheel drive jeeps that are also obligatory, a huge dog called Alf, a couple of the ubiquitous fifty-gallon oil drums, a two-way radio, picks, shovels, axes, basic rations and the wherewithal to cook them, and last but not least, a couple of enormous eskies packed tightly with tinnies. You also need a helicopter, complete with pilot of course. It is very important that you start the day well before sun up so that you can be where the bulls are bright and early.