FROM drafting cattle to adding up sales weight figures to overseeing safety regulations, managing livestock health and welfare on-board livestock vessels comes with a host of responsibilities.
For one of the country’s longest serving ship-stockmen, Barry Gunson, shaping public perception of the livestock industry is all part of a day’s work.
Growing up on a sheep property in Whangarei, New Zealand, there was little to no wonder as to what career path Barry would choose.
Upon graduating from high school Barry accepted work on an all-servicing property in the Southern Lakes district.
But the cold proved too much for the born-and-bred Kiwi, packing his bags to head for the warmer shores of Australia.
“It was so damn cold, absolutely freezing in the winter time.” Barry said.
“I used to read the post magazines about the big open spaces in the Top End, so that’s where I headed.”
Barry arrived in Sydney in 1971 determined to secure himself a job in the northern cattle industry.
It wasn’t long before he was rubbing shoulders with Vestry Pastoral Inspector Cecil Watts, one of the largest cattle empires of the north.
“When I first met Cec he said we have plenty of offerings where do you want to go – South America, South Africa or Northern Territory,” Barry said.
“In those days Vestry’s would run cattle from Western Australia to Queensland and still be on their own properties.”
With the wide-open desert of the Territory firmly planted in the back of his mind Barry headed north as a jackaroo on Manbulloo Station, otherwise known as the bullock depot for NT.
“I had an interesting start at Manbulloo, heading there as a first year jackaroo only to qualify to third year after three months,” Barry said.
By 1973, Barry had switched course opting to work for a contract musterer on Roper Valley and Mataranka Station.
“It was definitely an eye opener working for a contractor (Dave Hansen),” he said.
“We did everything from mustering to end of season bull catching.”
The departure of head stockman at Roper Valley saw Barry take on the role during which he met his wife Kathryn Fitzpatrick had come up from New South Wales and was teaching at the Aboriginal camp there,” Barry said.
The couple married in 1976 residing in Darwin for just 12 months before they traded their house for a caravan.
“We were going to travel Australia but we got as far as Katherine when we decided to go say goodbye to good friends Dave and Jenny Hansen,” Dave had given up contracting and taken over as manager. Barry said.
“We stayed on a week or two and that became a month before I ended up helping Dave run the Mataranka camp.”
In 1978, Dave and Jenny said their goodbye’s offering Barry the stations manager’s role.
“It wasn’t a large property, only 3000 square kilometres, but a big enough challenge for me,” Barry said.
Shortly after Barry took over as manager, Mataranka along with Coolibah, Roper Valley and Bradshaw station were owned by an Israeli company called Uni Beef.
“The company became involved with a methanol alcohol project on Mataranka station and I changed from cattle to work on this new project,” he said.
“I worked there for about three years before it closed down and sold up.”
In1981 Barry decided to try a new business venture starting the Mataranka Homestead Tourist Resort.
“I used to work on the fishing tours while another mate worked the trail rides and drove the donkey wagon,” he said.
“But that didn’t do too well so we packed up and headed back out to the stations.”
Barry continued to work as a manager at Hodson Downs before transferring to Elsey station where he stayed for the next five years.
Returning to Darwin in 1987 Barry paid a visit to good friend Sid Parker who is today considered one of the founding members in the live export trade.
“Having worked as a station manager for many years I was aware of the growing markets over in Malaysia and Indonesia,” Barry said.
“We had sold plenty of steers to overseas markets.”
Barry headed to Sid in hope of gaining advice on where to go on an overseas business holiday, but Sid had something better in mind.
“I wanted to spend a week over there to have a look at their feedlots and see how our cattle finished off,” Barry said.
“But Sid had a ship going out in a few days and recommended I go onboard as a stockman.”
Barry spent a week travelling on board the MV Desa, studying the overseas feedlots and export operations.
When returning home he received a call from Sid, Export Manager of Carabao, asking if he would do another trip as the ship’s stockman.
Today his first trip out of the Port of Wyndham is merely a memory with Barry having sailed through the trades ups and downs of the last 27 years.
Carabao officially weighed the anchor in the mid 1990’s with Barry joining David Heath, the then manager of Northern Australian Cattle Company (NACC) which was purchased by Elders International.
“I mainly did short haul trips to places like East and West Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Brunei in my first 10 years before I started doing some longer haul ventures which are now up to China, Russia, Mexico, Japan Turkey, Pakistan and Qatar,” Barry said.
Elders International have more recently brought profit from buying cattle in Uruguay, a country south east in South America and shipping it to China.
“I’ve done the whole nine trips from Uruguay. Shipping the heifers to China meant close to 36 days sailing,” Barry said.
“There is a lot of ocean between there and China and it’s pretty rough.”
Barry’s time as a senior ship-stockman has seen him sail across all oceans, seas, canals and even into the Black Sea and Baltic Sea listing him as a familiar face in the world export trade.
Today he continues to be a strong cattle identity throughout the north in between being a advocacy work for the live-ex trade.
