Driving is a big part of the job. Half your day is easily taken up by driving to and from the tenement you're in charge of, either to do an inspection or a multitude of mundane tasks. This occurs daily.
To manage our fatigue levels, we usually have another geologist working on the same tenement drive out with us and we swap driving duties on the drive back. On this occasion the project geologist accompanied us as she had some instructions for her drilling contractors.
After our tasks were finished we made our way back. We passed a water bore on the way out and MS asked if she had ever told us about the zombie cows. We hadn't.
She told us the about the first year she worked up in the MJ tenement. There was a bad drought that year. The livestock were getting skinny, and desperate. She saw how boney they had become, their ribs jutting out from their hides. She was driving past the same bore when she saw an emaciated cow feeding on the stomach contents of another animal presumably one of it's own.
At this point, I scowled in disgust. KS looked on, slack jaw gaping in disbelief. I imagined a zombie cow, dead eyes, mangled hide, protruding ribs and all , munching on the grisly contents of it's former mate's insides, mooing and bellowing away. Sensing our disgust, MS went on to explain it wasn't anything sinister. The drought had been very bad and the station owners hadn't managed the situation properly. They were reported for that.
It was then I got a sense of how hostile this land was. Even the most docile of creatures turn on you when the going gets rough. I guess it is a good analogy for the private sector in general. More so in the resources industry which gets extremely cut throat. I'm hoping I don't find a zombie cow chewing on my insides one day, but it's inevitable. Just the nature of the beast.
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