NQ contractor finds love on an outback fence line

In 2018 North Queensland contractor Brendan McGinnis had taken a fencing job along the Barkly Highway near Mount Isa and hired a crew to work with him. Little did he know he had just hired his future wife.

Jessica had just left her station hand position and was looking for her next adventure, when she applied for a fencing position at Mount Isa.

"I saw a fencing labourer advertised, I knew how to fence and it was something different to station life which I had been doing for the last 10 years," she said.

Living in the camp and working long days on an outback fence line, Brendan and Jess weren't expecting to find love, but they did.

"Within a week, we realised there was something definitely worth pursuing," Jess said.

"I knew it was true love the day I forgot the handbrake on the car while out working, it rolled down the hill and crashed. I thought I had just lost my job, meanwhile there was no yelling or screaming and I am still here."

Brendan said living and working in the camp required resilience and a strong work ethic, which he found in Jess.

"She has a very strong work ethic. It is what we both liked about each other initially. We also had a lot of similarities like working our horses and dogs and living this lifestyle and getting by with a lot less.

"She has been with me for so long now, doing it all. She knows it all and is better than anyone else we could employ."

Working and living with your spouse comes with its own challenges.

"There are a lot of days where there are arguments, but you just have to remember why you originally got together and not holding a grudge at the end of the day," Brendan said.

"It's probably the hardest thing going, to work and live together. It's hard to do what we do and not bicker and be working together."

"There is a lot of work to do so we don't bottle it up," Jess said.

"Just got to let it out when it annoys you, and let it roll off your back after it's all done.

"The best thing I love about our life is being away from everyone and learning a million different ways to do one thing.

"By working for different stations across different country, there is a lot of different tools to learn that you can bring to different jobs."

After six years of working side-by-side, Brendan and Jess got hitched in Charters Towers in February, and plan to keep living the life they love before settling on the land.

"We have a block at Monto that we are trying to get a bit of a start on and break into the industry," Brendan said. "But ideally we would like to end up somewhere in the bush, in the north."