The Naracoorte Regional Livestock Exchange has been Peter Sinclair's second home for the past 46 years - he even has a bed there.
Forty-four of those years have been spent as livestock caretaker, night watchman and drover.
Throughout the years he has been an integral part of the yards, meeting trucks at all hours of the night and, with help of his wife Lyndell, feeding the tens of thousands of sheep and cattle that have been held in the yard's holding paddocks, sometimes for up to a week.
This week he has called time on this career that has enabled him to work with livestock and meet some great people.
Peter's love of saleyards started early on when he would tag along with his father Gordon, who was a respected agent at Wangaratta, Vic.
In 1973 he followed in his father's footsteps, joining Denny Lascelles at Newmarket in Melbourne.
Three years later in 1976, he transferred to Naracoorte with the company.
"They were a beautiful new set of saleyards," he said.
Eighteen-months later the company offered Peter a promotion as Lake Bolac, Vic, branch manager but he turned it down.
"There were a lot of wool clients and no saleyards, I knew it wouldn't suit me," he said.
"The funny thing was the Denny Lascelles company house was right next door to the police station, that was little bit too close for me."
About the same time, the Naracoorte livestock agency firms decided to outsource the loading of trains from the yards and the feeding jobs.
About 80 per cent of the cattle and sheep sold were transported out by rail at the time
"Each agent had to supply men to load the train each week and each agency had to look after the paddocks for a month, which I used to do a bit with Dennys," he said.
Peter went to his area manager Frank Escott and received his blessing to apply for the tender. He started soon after.
The twice-weekly Naracoorte markets comprised yearlings and cows on Tuesday and sheep and cattle again on Friday with the cattle loaded the same day or the next.
The sheep often remained at the yards during the weekend.
"The Friday sheep markets were big, we used to put 4000 or 5000 sheep on the train every Monday for Murray Bridge Meat - I think we loaded 100 vans in one go once," he said.
"We also loaded a lot of cows to Gilbertsons and Jacksons in Melbourne."
Peter says most of the livestock were reasonable to handle but he remembers a big bull that took two weeks to calm down enough to put on the train.
As well as sheep and cattle, they also loaded horses and camels.
The train stopped in 1987 and was replaced by trucks and eventually B-doubles.
Peter's relationships with some of the meat companies continued with droving jobs.
He would count the cattle or sheep out of the selling pens to ensure an accurate count and move them to larger holding yards out the back.
"There has been an odd time when they have rung up and said 'Peter they were 25 lambs short' and I would just say 'they are not short' and just tell the transport bloke or the drover to count them again 'unless they were stolen, they are not short'," he said.
In the early 1980s Peter also took on the night watchman job in the eve of sale days.
"I had an old Landcruiser ute to sit in and used to wait out the front for the trucks to come," he said.
"I would get out and put the cattle down the back with the torch and get back in the ute."
Later the agents partitioned off a small part of the shed that stores the branding paint and Peter had a bed and stove in there.
As well as droving at the yards, Peter and Lyndell also had many longer trips, recalling one time they took 2000 Merino wethers eight kilometres from the Cadgee Road into Naracoorte and then through the township with just a motorbike, a Suzuki ute, a few dogs and their children.
Peter says the biggest improvement has been the roof over the cattle yards, erected about eight years ago, which made his life so much easier with livestock receivals and branding.
One memory that has stuck with Peter was being among those who had the difficult task of shooting thousands of nearly worthless sheep and burying them in pits.
This happened twice, in 1981 and again in 1989.
"It was pretty cruel thing to have to do but we just had to get on with it," he said.
Thankfully he will take away many happier memories, especially the Sinclair Brothers' Drovers Dog Perpetual Cup, which he organised with his brother Greg, a livestock carrier, for much of the 1980s.
On the final sale day for the year, after all the hard work was finished, many of those involved with the yards would compete to see whose dog could make its way though the yards the quickest or jump the highest onto a truck.
Not one to stand still for long, Peter also delivered fuel to farms for K&S Agencies for the past 35 years between his saleyard work.
He is retiring from this too.
"Someone said to me you will know when you want to retire - at Christmas time, after a few big weaner sales I knew," he said. "I only had to give three months notice but I wanted to give six months so they could find the right person to replace me."
Peter is looking forward to spending more time at the family's farm at Lochaber, more time with his seven grandchildren and with Lyndell, towing their caravan around Australia.
"I'll still come back and watch the sales or go up to the canteen for a coffee," he said.
