Memories of 1960s drought come flooding back

In the 1966 drought in the heart of NSW, Julie Wetzel was 12 when the photo­grapher came to capture her family’s most painful years.

Julie Payne on Cairo Station, central western NSW, where she lived as a child. Picture: Ryan Osland.

In the deepening drought of 1966, in the heart of western NSW, Julie Wetzel was 12 and on her school holidays when the photo­grapher came to capture her family’s most painful years.

The late David Moore, then working for National Geographic magazine, captured an image that has been shown in the National Gallery of Australia: a working family — a father, two daughters and a son — on Cairo station, southwest of Tilpa. They had never been through such hard times. Of their 7000 sheep, only 40 remained.

Julie Wetzel, now Julie Payne and 65 years old, revisited the property this week to find it again suffering through a big dry compared by many, including Malcolm Turnbull, to the horrific drought of the 1960s.

“I believe this drought is a lot more widespread,” Ms Payne said, standing in her old home. ­

However, she thought Cairo had fared worse in the drought during her childhood.

“I do believe back in 1966-68 it was extremely bad,” she said. “So bad we didn’t have any sheep left on the property.

“I can recall great dust storms that rolled in every afternoon without fail from the west. Starting off with the multi-coloured purples, blues, and going into ferocious red. Fine, fine silt dust.”

The iconic 1966 drought picture of Cairo station by David Moore. Laurie Wetzel with his three children [L-R] Julie (12), Ruth (8) and Steve (14) inspecting dry drinking troughs.

The earth is still red and the dust is still fine, though hardy scrub prevents the damaging sand dunes and rolling storms of the 1960s. Her father, Laurie, and brother, Steve, have long since passed away, but Ms Payne and her sister Ruth remember the toughest days.

“It was like living in hell,” Ruth Wetzel, now Ruth Laurie, said. “I remember when the storms came, you’d shut everything off but the sand would just pour through. I used to get a broom and create a little track.”

Ms Laurie, the youngest, was schooled at home, so saw the devastation for longest. Still, she speaks about the time with tenderness and a fond voice.

“I was a little kid out there with dad,” she said.

The dire scene was captured on film by Moore, who also took meticulous and vivid notes of his visit that day.

“Many properties in the ­Western Division area have known the spectre of drought but Cairo shows it graphically in the vast treeless areas where the whole surface is shifting with the wind,” Moore wrote.

“The moving sand reminds one of light snow blowing across the wastes of Antarctica … Wetzel and his children walk across to inspect a trough where sunlight is reflected from useless bore water.

“A dead sheep lies half buried in the foreground and the blades of the now-somewhat ridiculous windmill spin in the wind, pumping more water into the tank.”

Almost 40 years ago, the Wetzels sold Cairo station, after Steve passed away, and eventually Wayne Leigh took over the 19,000ha property.

For Ms Payne it was the start of a journey that took her away from the land. For several years she and her husband Peter ran a pub in Cobar until it burned down. Now Ms Payne is a councillor and her husband is a lawyer.

The drought in 1965 and in 2018.

The Leighs run Cairo as part of a larger operation, leasing another 16,000ha near the station and running the property from Geurie, near Dubbo.

“It’s the driest, the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Damon “Damo” Leigh, Wayne’s 17-year-old ­grandson, who often works on the property.

“It was only a couple of years ago there was clover everywhere and you couldn’t see the ground. The whole place was green, as far as you can see.”

Wayne Leigh said the drought had gone “on and on and on”.

Modern grazing has mitigated some of the risk involved with keeping some stock, and stricter landclearing rules mean dust isn’t quite as bad.

Spread throughout the enormous paddocks, several thousand sheep scrounge through the dust for the burrs of the clover plant. They offer some protein, and supplement the truckloads of hay brought in at great expense to tide the animals over until rain.

Whereas once about 10,000 sheep grazed on the property, the drought has cut the numbers to about 6000. But the going is still tough. The carcasses of several sheep and a lot of kangaroos lie under trees or in the middle of roads.

Mobile users click here to see David Moore’s notes

When Moore arrived that day in 1966, Ms Payne remembered they were creative in entertaining themselves.

“We actually had a bit of fun,” she said.

“We went out and found some freshly made sand hills and we rode pieces of tin down them like tobogganing, which we had never done before.

“In that respect, as bad as things were, we did have a bit of fun on that day.”

She has a sense of humour, like her late father.

Moore wrote: “Despite everything, Laurie Wetzel has an irrepressible sense of humour and shows no signs of being beaten. He said, (speaking about sheep), ‘They don’t look to be doing too good on that feed — I’ll have to shift them to another paddock.’ This, of course, is absolute irony as all his paddocks are ­completely devoid of any grass of any kind.”

“Damo” Leigh, who always wanted to continue in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, is optimistic about the property. “We’re always one day closer to rain,” he said.