Introduction
If you listen to the wind as it whistles through the wattle and mulga of the Australian outback, you might catch a whisper of a place both legendary and elusive: the Speewah. It’s not found on any map, nor marked by fences or signposts, but ask any bushman worth his salt, and he’ll spin you a yarn about the Speewah as if he’d just rode in from there at sunrise. It’s said to stretch from horizon to horizon, a station so vast you’d wear out a horse just fetching the post. The red earth there’s so rich that fence posts grow into trees overnight, and the sheep are so big you have to shear them with an axe. At the heart of the Speewah’s mythology are its people—rugged, resourceful, and endlessly inventive, none more so than the legendary Crooked Mick, whose feats have been told and retold around countless campfires. In this world of endless exaggeration, the sun seems to shine a bit hotter, the flies buzz a bit louder, and the stories grow taller with every telling. The Speewah isn’t just a place; it’s a state of mind, a repository for the wildest dreams and the biggest laughs of the bush. From the depths of billabongs teeming with fish as long as fence rails, to thunderstorms so fierce they’ve been known to shear the sheep before the men get a chance, the Speewah embodies the spirit of the outback in all its wild, hilarious glory. In this tale, we venture into a day (or was it a year?) in the life of the Speewah, following Crooked Mick and his mates as they tackle the most outrageous challenges the bush can throw their way. Pull up a stump, pour yourself a billy tea, and prepare for a journey where the only thing bigger than the landscape is the legend itself.
The Unruly Flock and the Axe-Shearing Contest
The sun was barely up, and already the air shimmered with that peculiar heat that only the outback could conjure. Crooked Mick strode out from the corrugated iron homestead, his boots raising red dust that curled around his ankles like friendly snakes. He was a man who seemed hewn from the land itself—tall as a river gum, with shoulders broad enough to carry three swags and a back so bent from wrestling with the Speewah’s oddities that it was rumored a surveyor once used him to map the local creeks.
On this particular morning, the sheep were restless. Not just any sheep, mind, but Speewah sheep—the sort that could trample a tank if startled, with fleeces so thick they’d break a shearing blade. The mob grazed on grass that grew faster than a bush telegraph rumour, and every spring, the shearing shed filled with shearers, each convinced they could best Crooked Mick’s record. But the sheep weren’t keen on being shorn, and this year, they’d grown even bigger—one old ram had antlers like a bullock’s and a temper to match.
Mick’s mates—Dusty Bill, Bluey Jones, and Noisy Nelle—ambled over with shearing axes slung across their backs. They’d tried clippers, razors, and even dynamite (just once), but only axes could hack through the wool of a Speewah ewe. Today, it was a contest: who could shear the biggest sheep, and survive to tell about it. Noisy Nelle, who’d once lassoed a cyclone for practice, wagered a week’s worth of damper she could out-shear the lot. Bluey, whose beard had been used as a makeshift rope ladder last winter, just grinned and spat a eucalyptus leaf.
The mob thundered into the shed, the ground shaking as hooves the size of watermelons pounded the earth. Crooked Mick grabbed the biggest ram by the horns—a move that would be foolish elsewhere, but in the Speewah was considered a polite greeting—and swung him onto the shearing board. The ram glared, snorted, and tried to headbutt the corrugated iron wall, which crumpled like wet cardboard.
Axes flashed. Wool flew in clumps as big as pillows. Sweat poured down in rivers, soaking shirts and filling boots. The sheep bucked and bellowed, but the shearers were relentless, moving with the rhythm of old bush ballads. Crooked Mick’s axe whistled through the wool, each stroke a testament to bush ingenuity and stubbornness. He finished his ram in three mighty swings, while Dusty Bill was still arguing with his sheep about which side to start on. Noisy Nelle, true to her word, sheared hers one-handed while swatting flies with the other, all the while singing a tune that sent the crows flying.
The shed filled with laughter and the sweet, grassy smell of fresh wool. By midday, the mob was shorn, the wool stacked higher than the water tanks, and the only casualty was Bluey’s pride—his sheep had kicked him so hard he landed on the roof and didn’t come down until teatime. The contest ended in a tie: everyone agreed that, in the Speewah, there were no losers—just survivors with bigger stories for next time.
The Crow That Blocked Out the Sun
After the sweat and clamor of the shearing, Crooked Mick and his mates retreated to the shade of a mulga tree, boots off and billy tea brewing over a fire as small lizards darted through the grass. But peace was a rare commodity on the Speewah. Just as the first sip of tea touched their lips, the sky darkened—not with storm clouds, but with the shadow of something enormous.
A crow—no ordinary crow, but a Speewah crow—came wheeling overhead. Its wingspan stretched from one horizon to the next, its feathers so black they seemed to drink in the sunlight. With every beat of its wings, the wind howled and hats flew off heads. The mob of newly shorn sheep scattered for cover, and even the wedge-tailed eagles gave it a wide berth.
Legend had it that this crow had once carried off a full-grown bullock just for practice, and its caw was so loud it rattled the windows back at the homestead. The crew watched, jaws slack, as the crow circled lower, its eye like a midnight moon fixed on Crooked Mick’s hat—a battered old Akubra with a reputation of its own. No one dared move as the great bird swooped down, talons outstretched. It snatched up Mick’s hat with surgical precision and flapped skyward, leaving a trail of wind strong enough to upend the fire and scatter embers across the camp.
Mick wasn’t having it. With a quick word to his mates—"Get the rope!"—he raced after the crow, boots pounding like thunder. Noisy Nelle, never one to miss a challenge, lassoed a passing kangaroo and leapt astride it, chasing after Mick as Bluey and Dusty Bill scrambled for the world’s longest stockwhip (woven, it was said, from platypus leather and emu sinew).
The chase led them over hills and through gullies, across creeks that ran backwards and through grass so tall it tickled the clouds. The crow dipped and dived, weaving between ghost gums, but Mick was relentless. With a mighty throw, he looped the stockwhip around the bird’s leg, and between his strength and Nelle’s kangaroo-wrangling skills, they hauled the crow down like a wild kite.
With gentle words and a bribe of leftover damper, Mick coaxed his hat back. The crow, mollified, dropped a single feather—large enough to shade the homestead roof—and with a final caw that shook the leaves from every tree, took off into the blue. As calm returned, the mates grinned at each other. In the Speewah, it wasn’t every day you wrestled with a crow big enough to block out the sun—but it wasn’t exactly rare, either.
The Thunderstorm That Sheared the Sheep
One year—or maybe it was a day; time ran funny in the Speewah—a storm brewed on the horizon. Not an ordinary squall, but a thunderstorm with clouds as dark as old boot polish and lightning that forked like the branches of a river red gum. The sky boiled and churned, thunder rolling in waves that made the ground jump underfoot. Even Crooked Mick, who’d once chased a twister for sport, paused to squint at the gathering gloom.
Bluey Jones sniffed the wind and nodded sagely. “Smells like a wool-blower,” he said. Sure enough, the sheep huddled close, noses twitching as static danced along their newly grown fleeces—yes, in the Speewah, wool grew back by lunchtime if you weren’t watching.
As the first drops fell, they weren’t rain at all but pebbles of hail as big as cricket balls. The crew scrambled for shelter under a great ironbark while the sheep, too stubborn to move, stood their ground. Lightning cracked overhead, so close it set the treetops smoldering, and a gust of wind spun a water tank end over end for half a mile.
Then it happened: a bolt of lightning struck a boulder near the shearing shed, sending sparks leaping into the mob of sheep. In an instant, every fleece stood on end, then—whoosh!—the wool flew off in one great cloud, carried by the wind and raining down in distant paddocks. The sheep blinked in surprise, then trotted off to graze as if nothing had happened, their pink hides gleaming in the rain.
The mates emerged from shelter to find drifts of wool piled up like snowbanks, fence posts wrapped in fluffy cocoons, and the shearing shed empty but for echoes. Crooked Mick scratched his chin and reckoned that counted as the fastest shearing on record. Dusty Bill stuffed his swag with enough wool to make a tent, while Noisy Nelle composed a ballad on the spot: “Oh, the storm that shorn the sheep and saved us all the bother.”
By sundown, the clouds had blown away and a double rainbow stretched across the sky—one end rooted in the dam, where fish leaped high enough to snatch low-flying cockatoos. The mates toasted the storm’s handiwork with mugs of sweet tea, grateful for another tale to add to the Speewah’s ever-growing legend.
Conclusion
As night falls over the Speewah, campfire embers glow and the southern stars wheel overhead. Laughter echoes from the circle where Crooked Mick and his mates swap yarns about giant sheep, sun-eating crows, and storms that shear better than any blade. Maybe you’ll never find the Speewah on a map—but you’ll always find it wherever stories are told and laughter rings out across the red dust. In this land where exaggeration is an art form and nature looms larger than life, the spirit of the outback endures: resourceful, tough, endlessly inventive, and never without a twinkle in its eye. Tomorrow might bring sheep as big as mountains or kangaroos that leap to the moon, but tonight, the legends of the Speewah live on—reminding us that sometimes the wildest places are the ones we create together, story by story, around a glowing fire.
