Working out of a floodwater isolated station called Opium Creek (that’s another story) on the Mary river flood plains, I had won a contract and was aerial spraying Mimosa Pigra for the NT Govt. Some days were simply too hot or stormy even for the system I had developed for spraying above 25 oC.
Because of the problem with the big lizards (saltwater man eating crocodiles) on the flood plains, I always had a stainless steel Ruger .38 pistol and a Sako .243 rifle in the machine in case I survived the crash if something went wrong. I still get little flashback thoughts of what if it really happened and I was sitting hunched up on the rotor head of the helicopter sticking only a foot or so out of the water with one cartridge left and a couple of big hungry crocs eyeing me up – maybe general Custer felt the same.
For two days the heat was stifling – too hot to spray because of the overcast almost 100% humidity, so Joe, the station manager, asked me if we could do a bit of wild pig culling instead. Not needing extra encouragement - away we went blazing at every pig we could see – not a hard thing to do from the air as they were slowed down when running thru the flood plain shallows.
Some of the oinkers looked to be in prime condition and we salivated as we thought of them being a better feed than the tins of food we had been heating up for the last week or so.
I put the skids about 6 inches in the water and told Joe to get out and tie a couple of dead pigs onto the cargo hook so we could take them home.
The problem started when we got home – everyone knows that wild pig has to be cooked hot and right through to get rid of any parasites which could decommission your stomach and a few other things. However you can’t cook a pig in an LPG stove which has run out of gas just at the wrong time.
Two of the Station ringers were cane farmers from Queensland up in the Territory to earn a bit of extra cash and see what all the excitement was about. These boys were Oz ingenuity at its best.
“You mob go and have a few coldies – we’ll sort this out” was their catch cry whenever their services were needed. On this particular day they did well.
After we had a bit of a wash and clean standing outside in a tropical downpour, Joe and I retreated into the Homestead for a beer with his family and a yakkity yak.
It was getting on dark when I woke up on the couch and I could smell the tantalizing aroma of pig cooking over an open fire. Joe was outside supervising the cane farmers' contraption and what a sight it was. They had raided the station dump and made a spit.
The container for the wood was a 44 Gallon AVGAS drum gas-axed vertically and then butt welded end to end. Over this they has welded up a sort of A frame at each end and, utilising an old washing machine electric motor, pulleys from something else, a spare generator plant belt, the tail shaft out of an old car and the gearbox out of a wrecked Suzuki 4WD, the pig was turning and roasting over the hot coals.
“Boys” I said – “Boys you have done well”
“Tc” – they said (like the Ads on TV) – “there’s more - tell us what you think about this special not found in the shops feature?”
With that they proceeded to the contraption and demonstrated that the influence of a few warm beers did nothing to their prospective formula 1 racing driver skills by swiftly changing gear with the gearbox shifter and making verbal V8 engine sounds and screeching tire effects while making that big fat pig whiz around faster or slower.