Dingo trapper Norm can't escape world's biggest rock

FOR dingo trapper Norm Ryan, Mount Augustus or "Burringurrah" has been like a magnet.

Trapper Norm Ryan

FOR dingo trapper Norm Ryan, Mount Augustus or "Burringurrah" has been like a magnet.

He first saw the world's largest rock -- twice the size of Uluru -- in 1964, when he was making his way north towards the Kimberley in search of work as a horse breaker.

But the pull of Burringurrah kept Ryan in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia, 430km inland from Carnarvon and 850km north of Perth, for a decade. "I fell in love with that rock," Ryan says.

"When I have left it has been like a magnet pulling me back."

A dingo trapper in a beat-up Toyota Land Cruiser, Ryan still works around Burringurrah, averaging 300 dogs a year.

He lashes the scalps and tails to the roo bar like a semaphore of success.

Unlike Uluru, which is a monolith and was exposed as the surrounding landscape weathered away over millions of years, Burringurrah is a monocline and was pushed up as the earth buckled about 900 million years ago.

Burringurrah is one of eight uniquely Australian landscapes that will be showcased to celebrate the relaunch of The Weekend Australian Magazine over the next four weeks.

Almost a decade of drought has cut the cattle herd on the 404,000ha Mount Augustus cattle property to only 5000, one head for every 81ha.

But recent rains have brought some life back to the country.

Pastoralist Don Hammarquist, who has spent the past month rounding up the herd by aeroplane, says things are on the mend.

The cleanskin bulls that went into hiding in the hills during the dry have come back to join the valley herds. "In a couple of years we will see a big improvement," Hammarquist says. "Three years will be healthy."

According to Ryan, the harsh country around Burringurrah "has a lot of heart in it."

"On the east coast now you can get a good rain but then be more or less back in drought again. Here you get four or five inches (10 or 12.5cm) and that can carry you through for a couple of years."

It is, Ryan says, the fastest fattening country in the nation. You just have to know how to read the landscape.

"The animals know when it is going to rain," Ryan says.

"But I take notice of the emu rather than the kangaroo. If you spit on the country the kangaroo can survive on that but the emu can't, he's got to have seed.

"If there is not enough rain to grow seed the emu is not going to lay any eggs. There used to be a lot of emus here but this drought took them away."