Carley Pryce

I’d lived in town my whole life, so I didn’t have any experience growing up on a farm. I hated high school. When I said I wanted to leave my parents told me I had to get Level 2 and a full-time job. So that’s what I did: I got a job rousing, which I’d done before on school holidays, and left.

I was sixteen, but I really believed I didn’t have to do what everyone else was doing. My friends thought you had to go to uni straight after school, even if you didn’t know what you wanted to do. That didn’t sound fun to me. But while I was rousing I thought, “Oh, it would be fun being the person outside the shed dealing with the stock.”

I don’t make big plans, and it was my mum who saw an ad for the Growing Future Farmers programme. I didn’t even know that shepherding was a thing, but I thought, “May as well.” I got accepted and was placed at Patitapu Station in Alfredton. I said to Mum and Dad, “See you in two years,” and off I went. I was taught how to shear, drive tractors, tag cattle, train and work dogs, and stockmanship. When you find the right people to train you, it all just falls into place. I enjoy being in the yards sorting up the stock into neat lines, mustering cattle, sheep-working my dogs and the serenity of being the only one out on the hills in the sunshine.

I graduated at the end of 2021 and was lucky to get a full-time job on the station. Even though it’s just for the next year or so, it gives me time to get my dog team built up and put everything I have learnt into practice. Asking questions and just learning as much as I can is important. I now have a “big-girl job,” so yeah, that’s pretty awesome. It’s way better than being in the classroom.