If you’ve spent any time on the RFTTE.com Facebook page, you’ve probably come across Darryl Harris's photos - proper shots of rodeo and station life that are raw, no filters... no set up for the shot.
There are some blokes in the bush who don’t make a fuss about what they’ve done… but when you scratch the surface, there’s a lifetime of proper experience there.
Darryl is one of those.
He was born in Mareeba and raised out on cattle properties across the Gulf Country. Places like Abingdon Downs, then through Normanton and Maggieville Station back in the 60s. Different era. Different way of growing up.
By the time he turned 14, he was already working on Maggieville. Straight into it. Learning the ropes the only way you could back then… by doing the job.
Cattle, horses, long days, no shortcuts.
Over the years he didn’t just stick to one thing either. Like plenty of good operators, he moved where the work was and picked up skills along the way. Stations, mines, seismic work, even rodeo riding and camp drafting. He spent time as a head stockman and managed a few smaller properties too. Quietly broke in around 300 horses along the way… just one of those things you did.
These photos capture a side of Australia many people never get to see properly... the stock camps, rodeos, river crossings, dusty yards, old station homesteads and the characters who lived it. The gallery also features plenty of familiar faces from the rodeo world including Scott Fraser, Kevin Purcell, Clayton Russell, Barry Bowen, Kerry Turner, Jamie Evans and Rob McPhee... names many in the bush and rodeo circuit would recognise straight away.
He knew a few chopper pilots as well, which opened up the chance to get up in the air and capture country from a different angle. Some of the stations he’d worked on years earlier… but this time through a lens instead of from the ground.
These days Darryl is 71 and back living in Mareeba. He hasn’t picked up the camera much in the past few years after being a bit crook, but he’s keen to get back into it.
And you get the feeling he will.
It’s a good reminder that not every story needs to be polished or planned out. Sometimes it’s just about saying yes to the next job, the next opportunity, the next chapter… and before you know it, you’ve built a life full of experiences most people would never see.
Plenty of you reading this will have walked a similar path.
And those are the stories worth sharing.
