Turning to Dusty

Andrew Mathieson
IT’S a familiar path Wally Harkness has walked for more than 15 years.
With a knock on the door, a charming smile and a decent meal under his arm, the lovable larrikin is a face the isolated and frail of Geelong’s eastern suburbs can trust.
With his body shaking and riddled with Parkinson’s disease, the irony of his service is not lost on the spritely 81-year-old.
“That’s why I deliver meals on wheels,” Wally smirks, “because when I get old I might need them myself.”
Casting aside notions of ageing gracefully, he knocks back repeated offers from elderly friends to play carpet bowls.
But the trademark stockman’s hat worn on every meal run tells another side to Wally’s past.
It tells of a time when in drovers’ circles up north the old-fashioned bushie was referred to as Dusty.
He remembers leaving school at 12 to work on a station in the north-west corner of Victoria.
It was hard yakka and the pay was a miserly two and sixpence (25 cents) for working seven days a week.
The lesson learnt in the early years was that droving would prove a hard existence and test Wally’s love of the land.
“When my pack horses got tired or I went broke – whichever one came first – I stopped and got a job,” he recounts.
“Occasionally there were more meal times than meals, though.
“I’ve never had much money but I’ve had some fun along the way.”
To make ends meet Wally would try his hand at roo-shooting, pig-catching, even dingo-trapping.
Capturing brumbies was another role that barely earned “dog-meat money”.
But Wally’s reputation for moving cattle and sheep grew and after 45 years was etched into the drover’s honour roll at the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach.
“They used to send an invitation each year but I’ve been a bit short a few times,” Wally drawls in typical drover style.
“The pocket was full enough but there wasn’t much in the wallet.”
Wally continued to run musters until he was 70 – or until the “hills somehow got steeper”.
The drover’s mind, more so than his body, is still as good as ever.
The memories of a few rough rides and wild adventures have been captured in a recent book, titled Great Australian Drover Stories.
“You know when you’re coming off with a horse,” Wally tells.
“You’ve got a few seconds to consider which shoulder you’re going to land on.
“There’s only one way into that saddle but, by gee, there are thousands of different ways out of it.”
Health checks have been a must over the years. An infra-ray test on his lungs once found that Wally had unknowingly broken 22 ribs.
It might have happened after a packhorse gave him a good kick, he reckons.
“I’ve had a couple of brokens arms, broken hands a few times, broken bones in each of the hands, a broken collarbone, broken legs and both feet broken,” Wally adds.
“Apart from that, I haven’t had anything wrong with me.”
Wally, though, still bares one scar on his right hand that “has nothing to do with horses”.
It happened after witnessing an aggressive man throw a lady to the ground in an attempt to take her taxi at Spencer Street train station.
“I naturally slapped him over the earhole,” Wally tells.
“He then pulled a knife on me and I didn’t have time to line him up properly.
“I hit him with the knuckle instead and that’s how I broke another bone.”