Name: Bronwyn Carr
Age: 21
Family status: Single
Job: Mustering Pilot
Religion: Not religious, but not atheist either
For the past two days, we´ve been driving north-west on the Oodnadata track, away from Adelaide, the capital of South Australia and deeper and deeper into the Outback. The track is really only a dirt road. Clouds of fine dust stream through unknown halls on the bus and we breathe them in unwillingly as we absorb the nothingness of the Outback. The landscape changes slowly as trees turn into low bushes, and low bushes turn into very small bushes and then start disappearing altogether. We don´t see the occasional emu or kangaroo running along the road anymore. It is a desert.
South Australia is the driest state of the driest continent on Earth, and it is the 10-th year of a severe drought. As the locals say - every drop counts. Water is sparse here, so we are drinking beer tonight, says our guide, and pulls the buss in front of a lonely pub along the road. Welcome to William Creek, the middle of - pause - nowhere. The town has a population of 8 people and a pub. This is the "real" Australia. This is where I meet Bronwyn.
She is just a young girl in blue jeans, a checkered shirt and a cowboy hat. She is easy going and casual, but also pleasantly humble. She could be a tour guide, or a city sleek on an Outback adventure. Turns out, she is neither. She is a mustering pilot at Anna Creek Station (ranch), 17 km up the road. I can´t quite get it. A "what" pilot? A mustering pilot, she spells it for me - I hurdle the cattle with a plane, while the motorcycle guys direct it on the ground. Now, that is unusual!
Bronwyn wants to fly planes for the Royal Flying Doctors Service, but needs at least 3,000 flight hours to apply for that job. She is muttering cattle until she builds up the hours. Flying planes for the RFDS is not an easy task. As Bronwyn puts it - it is very hands on flying - there is no support from ground navigation, weather conditions are not always perfect, they even have to land the plane on the high way some times. In summary - it is not like flying a plane from one airport to another. That gig won´t excite a girl like Bronwyn. She got her commercial pilots license when she was 16.
"I could fly a plane before I could drive a car. I had to take the buss to the airport", she smiles remembering, "or my parents would give me a lift. They were very supportive, although we don´t have other pilots in the family." Flying is an expensive hobby, so Bronwyn was lucky that her parents were so understanding, but she also got a scholarship. Who would give a scholarship for that?-I wonder outloud. The Australian Women Pilot´s Association would - she answers. Right! That makes perfect sense of course. Do we even have a single women pilot in Bulgaria? Women pilots are still a minority in Australia, but things are changing. One in three of Bronwyn´s class mates at the flight school were women.
She fell in love with flying in Frankfurt, at the age of four. Her dad is English, so the family was in rout to the UK via Frankfurt. The pilots invited little Bronwyn to sit with them for a while in the cockpit. And right there and then, amongst all the dials and gadgets, she knew that she wants to be a pilot. The rest is history, so to say. She got her commercial license, then got a bachelors in aviation and four months ago moved to the outback to mutter cattle with a 4 sitter Cessna 172.
Bronwyn got here to fly planes, but found herself involved in all sorts of other activities, like fixing pumps and windmills, and even helping with cattle slaughter, which she admits is not her favorite. "I´m a pilot, but if there is an emergency, I don´t just sit there because it is not my job." When you are one of 10 people on a farm of 6mln acres (larger that the size of Belgium), you have to be resourceful and you have to be part of the team. It is not like living in Melbourne, where Bronwyn grew up. She has most of the conveniences of city life, like AC and internet, but life is different. She gets up at 4:30am and some times camps under the stars, which I am doing tonight.
Tomorrow, at sunrise I´m flying with Bronwyn to the Painted rocks and she promises to show me some cattle action too. She assures me that it will be a smooth flight. When she mutters the cattle, she flies as low as the tops of the trees, but it won´t be as extreme tomorrow, so I can relax. I am relaxed, but very excited about chasing cows with a plane. At the end of the day, girls just want to have fun.
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Hugs & Kisses, Vik
