“I drive 210km for my daughter to attend dance lessons"

What does it take to raise a young family in a remote part of the outback? Mother of three (and a half) Pauline MacDonnell outlines the highs and the lows. 

As told to Dilvin Yasa

"I grew up on a 17,000-acre cattle property in Arcadia Valley, Queensland, where I attended a school of just 15 students and the nearest town was an hours’ drive away. So when the time came for me to raise a family of my own with my husband Justin, I didn’t bat an eyelid at raising our kids in the bush. I’ve never really known anything else. 

Today I live on a 72,000 acre cattle property, Wallaroo, with Justin and our 3.5 children: seven-year-old Isla, six-year-old Struan, two-year-old Angus, and baby number four is due in September.

Our nearest school is the school I attended as a kid, which is only 15km away as the crow flies, but due to the spectacular sandstone cliffs that surround our property it’s a 160km round trip by car each day. Recently the school has really blown out in numbers, blooming from four students to nine, but my kids aren’t among them.

When I think about the time you’d lose each day, the wear and tear on your car on those dirt roads and the screaming toddler in the back seat, that would just about do my head in. So we’ve opted to educate our children through distance education. Our children have a one-hour online lesson with their teacher and class each day, and then we as parents need to jump in and teach a further three one-hour sessions to each of the students.

Living in such a remote location, I’m often asked about the pros and cons of raising a family this way and I’ll say the advantages far outweigh the negatives. On our property, they have space to run free, explore and get up to mischief and they’re always surrounded by animals.

As much as the feeding and caring of these animals teaches them responsibility, they’re also exposed to the laws of nature from an early age – new life, death, the birds and the bees, and where their food comes from. 

I think one of the things urban parents may not realise is how much control you have as a parent out here. Our TV blew up four years ago and we haven’t bothered replacing it. While we allow them to watch the odd movie on Dad’s iPad on weekends as a treat, I’m glad they’re not being exposed to all the negativity that’s on a 24-hour loop out there.  

Diet’s another good example, in that if I don’t buy it then it’s not available to the kids. Of course, feeding the tribe does require quite a bit of organisation – I can’t just pop to the shops every day. Instead, I tend to visit 'The Big Smoke' (Roma, population 7,000) maybe once every six weeks and buy up big, packing everything into meal-size servings once we get home before popping them into the freezer chests.

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Sometimes things can go awry – once I accidentally ran out of newborn nappies and had to drive 120km just to borrow some emergency ones from a friend. That taught me a valuable lesson and since then I’ve always had cloth nappies on standby. 

Of course for all the pros, there are some cons and they aren’t what you’d call insignificant. The biggest problem raising children on an isolated cattle property is their lack of interaction with other kids. Deep down, I hope this means that as a family unit my children will be super-close to their siblings as adults, but I do try to compensate for the isolation by going above and beyond with the smaller things.

For example, each week without fail I drive a 210km round trip to Rolleston so that Isla can attend one-hour dance lessons and Struan can join tennis lessons. Once a week is enough, though! The driving is exhausting – especially the homeward drive with the toddler protesting in the back seat the whole way home. And one does have to consider the cost of fuel involved. 

We do have an airstrip on the property that can be used by the flying doctor if necessary and, of course, I’m very fearful of anaphylactic reactions and always test the toddlers for peanuts or prawns when we’re visiting town in case they have a reaction. 

Finally, I’d say the biggest disadvantage of living where we live is the inevitable boarding school years. We’re nowhere near that yet, of course, but I already know that sending our children away to complete their high school years is going to break our hearts. 

As a full-time mum you do get frustrated that you can’t be more involved on the property, but I’m doing my best. Apart from the farm work, we recently launched Wallaroo Outback Retreat, a private lodge on our property which is glamping at its best. We have eight luxurious glamping tents, an atmospheric lodge and all the facilities you could ever need to get in tune with the bush without having to ‘rough it’, and I do what I can to help out with groups that come in.

I’m invested in growing the business but I have to put the kids first. Someone has to make the lunches, make the emergency spare parts delivery, check the dams for bogged cattle, run to town to collect the vaccine, and the list goes on.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain." 

Wallaroo Outback Retreat is available for small group bookings at $120 a night per tent with a two-night minimum. Groups can self-cater in the generous kitchen free of charge, or Pauline can organise a three-course camp oven dinner for an additional $30 per person. Dedicated tours of the cattle station and surrounding areas can be booked through Boobook Ecotours.