It's about midday on Umbearra Station, and owners Angus and Kimberley McKay are sitting down for lunch with their crew, who are recapping the antics of the William Creek races held the weekend just gone.
Sixteen years ago, when Mrs McKay first arrived on the remote cattle property, 300 kilometres south of Alice Springs, the dining room set-up looked a little different.
"I was the only female, and we'd have a whole table of males," she said.
Now, the tables have turned, and it is Mr McKay who is sitting at a full table of females, eating a lunch of freshly made quiche and salad.
Since 2019, the cattle station has only been able to hire women— a first for the operation that has been in the McKay family since 1962.
However, the change has come with some quite radical benefits.
"Going from having an all-male crew to an all-female crew, we've noticed our repairs and maintenance has gone down $24,000 a year," Mrs McKay said.
Mr McKay said he was initially surprised but said it made sense when he thought about it.
"We put girls on new motorbikes at the start of the season, and by the end, the bikes are still good," he said.
"It hasn't been cartwheeled across the flat a dozen times.
"I guess it's their own self-preservation that helps them look after it."
Silver lining to staff shortages
Staff shortages have been a major issue across the country, and the cattle industry has been no exception.
"We advertised, and I think we had 19 females and one male apply," Mr McKay said.
"There's definitely been a lot more women applying for these positions."
He said he was surrounded by women when he sat at the dinner table.
"I've got two daughters and five girls working for us … smoko conversation … it's different," he said.
The girls have proven to be a dynamic workforce.
"They don't just help out with the cattle work and the station work," Mrs McKay said.
"They're flexible to come in and help with the children, the meals or the garden.
"Everyone does every job these days. Station hands are not just station hands."
COVID decimates recruitment pool
Like many rural operators in regional Australia, the pastoral industry often relied on travelling backpackers for labour.
But the recruitment pool has been shallow as a result of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
On the other hand, the rise of rural social media pages promoting the cattle station lifestyle has bought images of red dirt sunsets and a rustic "hard yakka" to a previously untapped audience in capital cities and larger towns.
"You get a couple of girls out in the camp … putting it on social media, then others think, 'She looks like me. If she can do it, I can do it. I could see myself on a horse or a motorbike in the Territory'," Mr McKay said.
"I think it's given them confidence to actually come up here and have a go."
Staff shortages have not only altered the make-up of Umbearra Station's stock camp but also changed the way the McKays recruited their workers.
"We now focus more on character references than skills," Mrs McKay said.
"It's way more important to have a good workplace culture."
According to the couple, the strategy has paid off.
"I feel we've got a good culture at the moment, which has a lot to do with the girls working with us … everyone gets along," she said.
"It's been a really good year staff-wise."
From nanny to station hand
Staff member Kelly Jannsen has become irreplaceable to the McKay family.
She flew across from the Netherlands and started on Umbearra Station four years ago.
Ms Jannsen started as a nanny but is now the station's leading hand.
"I did not see myself in this position at all, and I did not know I would like it as much as I do right now," she said.
"It's impossible to describe to people that haven't experienced it, especially coming from the Netherlands … Umbearra is a quarter of the Netherlands."
She said she recently started learning how to work the grader.
"Before I got here, I didn't know what a grader even was," she said.
"We only have bitumen all through the Netherlands."
She said it would be the people she had met who she remembered the most.
"Definitely, all the crews that I've been working with, all the girls, they're like family," she said.
