Breakout Bull!

• December 14 2024, by Jacob Wolki
• 9 min reading time

I’ve always been one to commit & execute without any planning at all - I’m sure that won’t come as a surprise to anyone. 

For 15 years of my life if I needed to go somewhere I’d hop in my car to go. I never thought to check out, water, coolant, tyre pressure - just go. I had a few little breakdown adventures but nothing drastic. This all changed when I started hauling trailers and livestock.

I’ve learned my lesson - the hard way. Now, when I have a hauling plan I have a socket set, jack, spare tyres. I check tyre pressures, wheel nuts and hubcaps with my children in tow.

This was my experience 2 days ago. I had sold one of our young Nguni bulls, Marbles, to Magnolia Hills Farm down in Trafalgar South. Around a 6 hour trip each way.

Our car and stock trailer had both recently been serviced. I packed my tools and spares the night before and felt pretty organised and prepared - I thought I was ready for Murphy’s Law. 

4am start. Loaded the bull, got some fuel in town and hit the road.

This was Marbles’ first trip in a vehicle. He was born on our farm to Gugu, one of our prized Henham Nguni cows. She is 10 years old and just had her 9th calf - not too bad! (I believe the average age of a cow to get culled in Aus is 6 years)

About 90 minutes down the Hume Highway the trailer started shaking a bit. Not wobbling, shaking. Marbles was moving around a bit - pretty sure. Getting comfy and finding his feet.

Then the trailer felt light for a second, then a big bang. I looked in my rearview mirror and Marbles had his head and a leg hanging over the top of the stock crate, he was trying to jump out! He stayed there for a second, and I floored the accelerator which knocked him now. Phew - he learned his lesson!

2 minutes later he tried it again. And again. I was cautious about stopping as I thought it might give him a more stable opportunity to climb out. I’ve heard of bulls jumping out of stock trailers but only indirectly. 

I phoned in a mayday to a friend and asked for help. This mate is 15 hours away, but always online. He jumped onto google maps and started sending me the numbers of fuel stations that were ahead of me. I’d need fuel in the next hour, so my plan was to phone ahead and organise a fuel station to have ratchet straps unpackaged and ready for me, and I’d wind them over the top of the crate as soon as a stopped as a deterrent.

The first fuel station said they had none, and that they were pretty sure it was a prank call anyway. Not much help!

The second and third fuel stations had immigrant workers answer and we had a really hard time trying to organise ourselves - we couldn’t really understand each other.
“I’ve got a bull trying to jump out of my trailer and I need you to get some ratchet straps assembled and ready, happy to pay over the phone”. It’s a weird one and I’m sure it not one that you get briefed for during your induction. 

Plan B - I asked my mate to find me a farm hours on Google Maps. I’d get off the highway and drive down a driveway and ask a Cocky for help. At least if Marbles got out we wouldn’t be on the Hume. In Broadford I took the exit and rolled into the driveway of the first property I saw. It looked perfect. A couple trucks parked up and a nicely organised “junk yard” of spare parts and scrap materials.

I parked and quickly checked Marbles, he seemed quite happy.  Tail wagging. I imagined him saying “what’s up boss? Having a good drive? This is fun!” to me. Ratbag. 

I skipped over towards the house and wondered how the proprietor would take me. It really is an absurd situation. I quickly introduced myself, said I needed help and asked to purchase some scrap materials and borrow some tools to get me on the way.

Folks, this Gentlemen, Darren, immediately bent over backwards to help me. We combed through his materials and he offered me to take whatever I liked. Even stuff that was too good to just give out to a stranger - like a gate! I borrowed some tools and he helped me rig up a mesh screen on top of Marbles’ section. A few laughs and a bit of chatter about this strange cow breed called Nguni and this weird multi species farm butchery business called Wolki Farm.

 

Darren sent me on the road with back up materials, tools, and twitching wire. He couldn’t do enough for me and was very generous with materials, time and attitude. 

I told him I’d be back with his stuff in 8 hours and he wished me well. We swapped numbers. 

The rest of the road trip was uneventful and as the adrenaline subsided, I relaxed and did some work calls. After the mesh top got put on the trailer Marbles didn’t try to jump again a single time. Can you guess what modifications I’ll be putting on my stock trailer?

Marbles was safely delivered to the beautiful Magnolia Hills Farm which boasts a beautiful herd of Baldie Heifers, some Dorper sheep, a couple Alpaca and an AirBnB enterprise. 

I text Darren a picture of Marbles in the paddock with his new girlfriends. I got a thumbs up back.

I didn’t stay long, I was behind time and had a long haul home. I was commuting through the guts of Melbourne and didn’t want to get stuck in peak hour traffic. I actually don’t really like driving - I go a bit stupid. I do work calls, podcasts, audiobooks - you name it. But it generally feels wholly unproductive and drives me a bit mental. I never end a road trip and feel like I’ve accomplished something. 

On the way home I passed back through and dropped off the materials and tools to my saviour. I told him that our patch job worked a treat and he was happy to hear it, but also seemed keen to get back in his shed where he was working on some projects. He offered me a beer - what a king - I denied. Too many KMs to go and I was on track to get home 8pm, quite the day on the road. 

When I left Darren said “See you next time Mate”. I know this was just a colloquial pleasantry, but I couldn’t help smiling to myself and thinking, “Yeah, next time a bull tries to jump out of my trailer while I’m flying down the Hume Highway, I’ll pop in”.

You had better believe that Darren will be receiving a beautiful box of Wolki Farm meat next week!

The reason for the story, apart from curating some typical Wolki Farm entertainment for you all (my stress = your relaxation), is flesh out the idea that it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, how many books you read, how much advice you ask for - there’s no replacement for experience, adaptability and just “getting it done”.

(As a side note, the stock trailer we have, which we bought new, really has been a bit of a lemon. You can tell that whoever designed it got a brief on needs but has actually never used a livestock trailer or hauled animals. Does anyone know of a GREAT Aussie stock trailer?)

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