With his pet chihuahua and trusty gopher, 97yo grazier won’t slow down

Doug Harrison doesn’t do retirement. 

With his trusty gopher mobility scooter and his pet chihuahua by his side, the grazier prefers to scoot around his outback station while completing the day’s chores.

“I’m not as old as I look, I’m only 97,” he says.

Doug is a grazier from Langwell Station, 55 kilometres south of Broken Hill, where he still lives and works alongside his two sons and daughters-in-law.

There’s no stopping the lifelong grazier who continues to tend to the land that has been a part of his life since he was three.

“If you get to the stage where you haven’t got anything to do when you get up in the morning, what’s the point of getting up?” he says.

Now, with a cuppa in hand, Doug reflects on his time on the land and what has kept him going all this time. 

Life on the land

After leaving boarding school in Adelaide in 1946, Doug was immediately drawn back to a life on the land with sheep and cattle. 

At 17, he returned to Langwell Station to work alongside his father.

“If I had the brains, I probably would have liked to [have] gone and done an engineering course,” Doug said.

“[But] I decided to become a pastoralist, same as Dad did.”

Doug married his late wife Joy in 1952, who was working as a school teacher in Broken Hill at the time.

They went on to raise their three children, Chris, Mitch and Lesley, at Langwell.

Throughout his time as a grazier, Doug has seen many seasons come and go. 

One of his most vivid memories was the severe drought of 1982.

Doug recalls going out with a stock agent to inspect a mob of sheep at a water trough one day when they saw a dust storm rolling in.

The next day, when he went to check on the sheep, he found a very different scene.

“All you’d see on the ground was bumps,” he said.

None of the sheep survived. 

Learning to fly

Gaining a pilot’s licence was not something Doug initially thought was within reach.

He recalls never having been closer than 200 metres from an aircraft, let alone inside one.

His inability to make a kite fly as a kid also led him to think he was not capable.

Then, at the age of 23, after a few beers at Broken Hill’s old Oriental Hotel, Doug was talked into going for a flight with the local aero club instructor who was in town.

It was not a welcoming introduction to flying. 

“I was too proud not to do it.”

From there, Doug did not look back, and he eventually gained his commercial licence. He used it for mail runs, mustering, and an array of other jobs that took him around far-west NSW and beyond. 

He said flying a plane today is very different to when he started.

“For directions, the only instrument was a compass,” Doug said.

“Flying nowadays is no different to driving a motor car.” 

The heydays

Mitch Harrison, Doug’s middle son, has fond memories of growing up on the property. 

Mitch and his wife Ros live at the neighbouring property, Eagle Hawk, which the Harrison family also owns. 

As children, he says, they were always surrounded by interesting activities, including the gliding club, which Doug founded. 

Langwell Station was used as a base for the gliding club.

As kids, Mitch said they used to go up in the gliders with the pilots. They also had skydivers who would come out to the property during that time.

“All the local daredevils used to come out,” he said. 

“There were no instructions back then, bar a guy on the ground with a megaphone.” 

Mitch and his siblings were always involved, including getting up to some mischief.

“I remember one day, I don’t know who came up with the bright idea: ‘We’ll strap the kids in the parachute and let it go with the rope on it’,” Mitch recalled.

“And the problem was, it wasn’t tied to the car and [my brother] Chris was in [the parachute] … and of course, off went the parachute and then everyone was running after the rope.

“But they did catch it in time.”

Working with the sheep and cattle was also a family affair. 

“We’d get dumped off in the Land Rover and go and ride push bikes behind the sheep [when mustering],” Mitch said.

Today, Mitch is the owner and manager of the property. 

Chris Harrison, Doug’s eldest son, also helps when he’s not working as an aircraft mechanic. And Doug’s grandkids and daughter-in-laws, Ros and Deb, are also never far away.

“Things are slowing down; we don’t do as much as we used to,” Mitch said.

While they may not always see eye-to-eye, Mitch says he values his father’s expertise.

No stopping now

Life on Langwell looks very different to the days when Doug first started as a grazier in 1946.

The memories of a life well lived are reflected in his storytelling, family and the relics dotted around the property.

He is still working hard, albeit with a bit less responsibility, and some climate-controlled comfort in the summer months.

“In the hot weather, I’ll do anything, as long as I’m sitting in an air-conditioned motor car,” Doug said.

Every day is different: fencing one day or driving the tractor the next.

Whatever it is, he is happy to keep busy.