PEOPLE who work in Natural Resource Management spend hours on the road travelling to remote properties to help people on the land.
Often, at the end of a long day, they crawl into a swag for the night.
Scratch beneath the surface (use the mouse) to discover at least one compelling reason to love what they do.
What's the secret reward for NRM workers in remote locations?
Click Here to start scratching (by moving the mouse)
SUN UP... and the occupant of this swag, NQ Dry Tropics Grazing Field Officer Josh Nicholls, has already put some wood on the fire to boil a billy for the first brew of the day.
He took this photograph at Lake Buchanan near Pentland.
Good morning!
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IT'S the cold, bright mornings on jobs that take our Project Officers furtherst away from the Townsville CBD office that offer a special reward.
The only feature at Josh Nicholl's camp at Lake Buchanan is the horizon... and his campfire.
Bliss.
Peaceful...
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Spectacular
SOMETIMES, the reward is not so far from home.
This snap, taken by Project Officer Jaymie Rains, is near the crest of the Mt Elliot Range between the tail end of Ross River Dam at Toonpan (visible in the distance) and Alligator Creek, both Townsville suburbs.
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Project Officers at NQ Dry Tropics operate in an enormous area - 146,000 square kilometres, or 8 per cent of Queensland - from Greenvale north of Charters Towers to Alpha, west of Rockhampton.
They work in the Burdekin Dry Tropics with landholders and other stakeholders to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.
And this is the source of that great river... at Valley Of Lagoons west of Ingham.
Broad range...
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NQ Dry Tropics' Regional Agriculture Landcare Facilitator Pete Arthofer took this time-lapse sequence of renowned erosion control bank "guru" Darryl Hill constructing a whoa boy on a Bunuro Station road.
Bunoro Station, south of Torrens Creek is one of the most westerly properties in the Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM region.
Deft touch
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HOME, sweet home, for the duration of this task for Biodiversity Officer Jaymie Rains (who took the photo) and her colleagues.
Survey and filming work meant "staying over" at Cape Upstart for a couple of days.
It's better than most "office work".
Our office
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THE "lunch room" during the Cape Upstart trip during which the team gathered material for a film about endangered beach scrub communities. Lunch break
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SUNRISE at Wycheproof Station, east of Alpha, at the southern end of the Burdekin Dry Tropics region.
NQ Dry Tropics' Regional Agriculture Landcare Facilitator Pete Arthofer used his phone on time lapse to capture the day beginning as he made breakfast on the campfire.
Southern sunrise...
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BIG Bend on The Hann Highway (The Lynd) north of Charters Towers.
Mainstream
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Josh Nicholls snapped this sunset from the top of Towers Hill, Charters Towers.
Nature painting
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NQ Dry Tropics Agricultural Extension Trainee Sarah Ziebarth (right) is a member of the unofficial "flight crew" during a drone inspection of grazier Phil Cook's Dillon Creek Station (third from left in a neck brace), near Charters Towers.
Flight crew
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Burdekin Falls Dam
LAKE Dalrymple, behind the Burdekin Falls Dam... it's an impressive sight.
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Burdekin Falls
THE Burdekin Falls, although spectacular after the bumper 2019 Wet season, is dwarfed by the dam wall in the background.
Josh Nicholls took the photo on a work trip.
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View from Red Hill
GRAZIERS Shane and Kylie Stretton run Red Hill Station, Mingela.
Kylie is pictured on Red Hill during a visit from an NQ Dry Tropics team member.
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Dam sun-up
TAKEN across the western part of the dam approximately where the Cape River joins.
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Bush boardroom
NQ Dry Tropics CEO Scott Crawford makes a point at the "boardroom table" during a meeting of the Landholders Driving Change Project Panel at Bowen River.
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Foggy dawning
EARLY morning visit to Pasha Station, west of Mackay.
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Field inspection
NQ Dry Tropics Soil Conservation Officer Neil Cupples (left) and consultant soil conservationist John Day inspect a washout in the basalt wall on Gainsford Station north of Charters Towers.
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Last look...
SO, the secret's out, but we don't mind sharing.
Take one last look at a sky painted by the sunset over Lake Dalrymple behind the Burdekin Dam.
Josh Nicholls didn't need to take a photograph to remember this extraordinary scene... but we're glad he did.
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FINISH
Perks for workers
in an NRM office
AS is true in most occupations, there are pros and cons in the NRM worker's daily work.
Here's a glimpse of one of the big "pros".
Read more
Automation has changed their lives
CLARE sugar cane farmers Don and Heath Salter would never have guessed how empowering the installation of an automated irrigation system would be.
Read more
Read more
Turning a lifestyle into a living
GRAZIERS Chris and Theresa LeFeuvre have managed to turn a relatively barren block of land into a lush, thriving cattle business by tackling erosion problems on their property one at a time.
Fun quiz to test
your knowledge
Biodiversity... the world would be a boring place without it. Or would the world "be" if there was no biodiversity? The answers are not always obvious, but give it a crack!
Play now
More to learn
at our website
THERE'S a wealth of information available at the NQ Dry Tropics website, even a free on-line library with almost 400 publications available.
Read more
Read more
Read one of our
on-line publications
OUR Annual Report, Strategic Plan, and the NRM and Water Quality Improvement plans are all available in an easy-to-read format online.
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