Heart of the Nation: Omeo 3898

Looking after 4200 animals is all in a night’s work for Peter McMahon, watchman at Omeo’s annual calf sales.

Peter McMahon from Bairnsdale has been night watchman for 15 years. Picture: Zoe Phillips

It’s amazing the mischief that 4200 calves can get up to in a night.

When Peter McMahon is watching over them he relies more on sound than sight: the tell-tale creak of a swinging gate, say – calves have a knack for unwittingly opening them, apparently – or the plaintive bellow of a beast with its head stuck in the railings. That’s a different type of bellow to the 4199 other bellows, he says; you develop an ear for these things. He might be dozing in his swag when he hears it, but he’ll spring up to investigate. It’s a serious responsibility when these calves are making $850 a head at auction. “That’s a lot of money I’m looking after,” he says.

McMahon – nicknamed Pee-Wee, owing to his small stature – is pictured before the annual calf sales last month in Omeo, in Victoria’s High Country. He loves nightwatchman duties; it’s about carrying on a family tradition. McMahon was nine years old when he first joined his father on horseback droving trips. His old man – nicknamed Plugger, owing to his boxing-tent prowess – would move cattle from Benambra to Bairnsdale, a trip of 10 days; along the way they’d camp under the stars and young McMahon would fall asleep listening to the drovers’ yarns. It was a magical, formative experience. That world has disappeared now, of course: the last mob of cattle was brought down the Omeo Highway with horses in 1985, he says.

At 69, McMahon has two sons (who have no interest in cattle) and works three days a week in sales yards – drafting, marking and drenching livestock, whatever needs to be done. He loves the job, and the people; it’s in his blood. And he recalls the simple, straightforward advice that Plugger once gave a younger Pee-Wee in a different era, a different Australia: “Just do what you’re told and you’ll be right.”