‘I would throw up’: Prince Harry reveals he avoided castrating cattle while working in Australia

Prince Harry has made a startling admission about a “difficult task” he refused to do while working as a jackaroo in Australia’s outback.

Prince Harry has reflected on his time as a jackaroo at Tooloombilla, in outback Queensland in his memoir Spare. Picture: AAP Image

The Duke of Sussex has revealed a “difficult task” he refused to do when he spent time as a jackaroo on an Australian cattle station as a teenager in late 2003.

The then 19-year-old spent nine weeks on Tooloombilla Station, about 700km northwest of Brisbane in outback Queensland, where performed many gruelling tasks on the 16,000 hectare property.

But one such job he “avoided” was castrating the cattle.

Prince Harry working as jackaroo is mustering bulls at Tooloombilla Station in central outback Queensland in November 2003. Picture: Patrick Hamilton

“The only job that I did not take care of, the only difficult task that I avoided, was cutting their testicles,” Prince Harry wrote in his memoir Spare, which is slated to be released in the coming days.

“Every time George (his station boss) pulled out that shiny long blade I would throw up in my hands. No way, man, I can’t. You do it.”

Prince Harry spent several weeks working as a jackaroo in Queensland in later 2003. Picture: AAP.

The station was owned by Annie and Noel Hill, who were friends of Princess Diana. Ms Hill has been the late Princess of Wales’ roommate when she was first dating the then Prince Charles.

The couple had three children, Nikki, Eustie and George, who despite being the same age as Prince Harry, became his boss.

Workdays consisted of getting up before dawn to complete a variety of farm jobs, as well as mustering cattle.

“From time to time, in the heat of the chase, you would fall out of your saddle when you hit a low branch and, sometimes, you would be knocked unconscious,” he wrote.

Prince Harry musters cattle on a horse called Guardsman on the outback property of Tooloombilla in central Queensland in late 2003. Picture: AP Photo

Prince Harry and George would often end their day with cigarettes and drinking beers on the veranda.

In his memoir, Prince Harry details how he lost so much weight from the work that he felt he was wasting away.

Prince Harry (right) rides with a station worker on a cattle station in outback Queensland. Picture: AAP

Prince Harry was encouraged to go to Australia after leaving Eton College by his father, who suggested he take a gap year.

“It was no secret, he tactfully told me, that I was not the ‘intellectual of the family’,” he wrote in Spare.

“He didn’t mean to hurt me. Still, I shuddered.”

During his time Down Under, Prince Harry earned himself the nickname Spike from George, after he posed for a photograph at Taronga Zoo holding an echidna, also named Spike, who’s quills stuck up like the young prince’s short hair.

It’s understood Prince Harry took on the nickname while talking to his security detail over walkie-talkies.

Originally published as ‘I would throw up’: Prince Harry reveals he avoided castrating cattle while working in Australia