"There's nowhere in the world I'd rather be"
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ|August 2023
Girlie Goody has run her Central Queensland cattle property solo for 45 years, battling through drought, disbelieving bank managers and broken bones. And in this tough environment, she’s thrived, blazing a trail for women on the land.
JESSICA HOWARD
"There's nowhere in the world I'd rather be"

Don’t bend that bar,” Girlie Goody teases, as I bounce like a human pinball around the cab of her Toyota LandCruiser with a white-knuckle grip on the safety rail. We’re lurching into a washed-out creek that cuts through the hills of her cattle property near Monto, 150 kilometres south-west of Gladstone in Central Queensland, and we’re on the hunt for cattle hiding in the scrub.

Peering over the wheel, Girlie reaches down to “add more horses” and knock the ute into four-wheel drive. She’s covered this track almost daily over every one of her 83 years – first in a saddle, then later on four wheels, when her joyrides became matters of business – and she knows this country as well as she knows herself.

Girlie’s property, Malakoff, is a 3200-hectare tract of land like a handprint on the western side of the Great Dividing Range. It was virgin forest when her father, Hector, selected it in 1928. He cleared a pad and built a basic house with scavenged fittings, and with his wife, Dorrie, set about filling it with children. Girlie was the fifth of six, born Elma Joyce, the only girl, which is perhaps how she earned her moniker.

“I think it was my father who gave it to me,” she says, “probably because he couldn’t remember my name.”

“He’d muster all week,” Girlie recalls, “and on the weekend, canter into town and get a couple of starts at the races with last week’s sweat all over him. Then he’d come home and do some more mustering.”

この記事は Australian Women’s Weekly NZ の August 2023 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

この記事は Australian Women’s Weekly NZ の August 2023 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY NZのその他の記事すべて表示
PRETTY WOMAN
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

PRETTY WOMAN

Dial up the joy with a mood-boosting self-care session done in the privacy of your own home. It’s a blissful way to banish the winter blues.

time-read
3 分  |
July 2024
Hitting a nerve
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Hitting a nerve

Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes could aid physical and mental wellbeing.

time-read
5 分  |
July 2024
Winter dinner winners
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Winter dinner winners

Looking for some thrifty inspiration for weeknight dinners? Try our tasty line-up of budget-concious recipes that are bound to please everyone at the table.

time-read
3 分  |
July 2024
Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE

Auckland author Sacha Jones reveals how dancing led her to develop an eating disorder and why she's now on a mission to educate other women.

time-read
7 分  |
July 2024
MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN

When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.

time-read
8 分  |
July 2024
A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS Meghan's reinvention
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS Meghan's reinvention

With the launch of her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard, the duchess is chasing a new kind of stardom far away from royal restrictions.

time-read
10+ 分  |
July 2024
Spotlight on Vitamin D
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Spotlight on Vitamin D

Sunlight is the best source of vitamin D, but safe sun exposure is still essential.

time-read
2 分  |
May 2024
Coming up roses
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Coming up roses

Driven by a renewed interest in the flower’s power, a rose renaissance is dawning.

time-read
3 分  |
May 2024
'I was given a 5% chance of survival'
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

'I was given a 5% chance of survival'

When Caroline Laner Breure was hit by a car in an horrific accident on a Spanish holiday with her boyfriend, her body and her dreams were shattered. Somehow she found the will to go on living.

time-read
5 分  |
May 2024
Time to celebrate our mothers
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Time to celebrate our mothers

Author Kathy Lette gives a heartfelt thank you to her magnificent mum, Val - a baker of fairy cakes with the patience of a saint.

time-read
4 分  |
May 2024