THE SAYING goes that behind every great man there's a great woman - and that is certainly true for Val Oldfield.
Four years ago she decided to write a memoir centred on her life at Mungeranie Station, via Marree, in the 1960s, and has dedicated the book to her late daughter Suzie and all outback women.
Covering 8287 square kilometres and more than 700 kilometres from Adelaide on the Birdsville Track, Mungeranie, was a world away from Val's previous life in the city.
"I decided to write this mainly as a tribute to the women of the outback," said Val, who once again lives in Adelaide.
"Men got the glory, but behind their success were their wives,"
Val says in her No beating about the Bush, book written in combination with author and former Aussie test cricketer Ashley Mallett.
"It took me four years to complete," she said.
"I had no idea that it would be so much work, money, sweat and tears."
The daughter of racehorse trainer Wally Burnard, Val spent her childhood and teen years excerising racehorses along the beach at Semaphore Park, opposite her family home.
At 20, she fell in love with the son of family friends, Eric Oldfield.
It was a whirlwind romance - she met Eric only six weeks before they decided to marry.
"I was not aware how hard the life was up there," she said. "I was very immature and had never lived away from home ."
Before the engagement, her parents requested that she should experience what life would be like should she marry Eric.
So Val travelled to Cowrie Station and stayed several weeks with Eric's brother Claude and his wife Barbara.
"The first week I was there we had dreadful dust storms," Val said. "If you went to have a cup of tea it would be full of sand. Meat was gritty and we had to wash the dishes in the bathroom, because it was the only place protected enough, not to get full of dust.
"I then contracted measles from one of James and Nancy's children (Val travelled by car with Eric's other brother's family), so I ended up very sick and was taken back to Adelaide."
Despite the harsh awakening, Val said love still overcame any concerns she had about station life.
"Once we were married and at Mungeranie, Eric was away for a good part of the time," she said. "One time I thought I had to spend five weeks on my own during a cattle muster - so I wrote a list of jobs on the wall and decided to do one a day to keep my sanity. Eric came back after three weeks because he was worried about leaving me for so long on my own."
A Royal Flying Doctor Service radio was one of the only points of contact with the outside world.
"There was an 18 metre wireless tower but service would drop in and out," Val said.
"Half the time I didn't know what day it was, as every day was the same. "I would listen to the radiogram, read books and write letters to occupy my time.
"We also had what we called cockatoo sessions on the RFDS radio where we spoke to other stations nearby, which were all owned by Oldfield family members. But conversation could be hard as there was nothing to talk about."
Although Val's cousin Joan Dunn lived at Kalamurina Station, on the edge of the Simpson Desert west of Mungeranie, Val was not able to visit her often, because the journey was difficult.
Eric and other station hands would head-off on horseback in the early years, to muster and check on the cattle and watering points.
And being located on the BirdsvilleTrack meant cars passed through only "every five days or so", adding to Val's sense of isolation.
Despite the remoteness, Val was quite entrepreneurial, raising 'poddy' calves that were born during cattle drives along the track, that otherwise would have been killed or left to starve.
"Drovers used to come down the track, so I would go and trade polished gemstones with them for the calves," she said. "I ended up with 300 poddy calves.
"It was a way I could be independent and earn my own income."
Val also made morning or afternoon teas for visitors brought up the track by tourism operator Dick Lang, made jewellery and was a Vanda Beauty counsellor - giving outback women makeovers and pampering sessions.
She also collected aboriginal artefacts and sent them to her uncle. Many of them are now in the South Australian Museum.
Val had three children at Mungeranie - Suzie, Ken and Martin.
Every three to four months Val and Eric and the kids would head to Adelaide for a week to catch-up with their family and friends, and restock their food and clothing.
"I often bought three sizes in advance for the children," Val said.
"A week just went in a flash when we were down there."
* Full report in Stock Journal, August 15 issue, 2013.
