For a young bloke – Smiley is just 28 years old – it may seem an odd choice of profession. Sitting in the early dusk, the cattle penned for the night and enjoying that first beer after a long dry day, Smiley tells me he likes the life, it suits him.

“I was living in Cooma and there wasn’t much there, or that I wanted to do when I finished school,” he said. “Then I got offered this job for a few months, so I thought why not? Now, I’m still here - since December 2006.”

For the last few weeks Smiley has been travelling with John Fisher, a local from Young. John brings many years of experience to the team and looks more comfortable in the saddle than he does on the ground. Together they move the mob around five kilometres a day on a Slow Walk Permit that allows them to graze along the country roads.

Tonight they camp near Mackies Creek, at Hawk Hill Reserve where the Rural Lands Protection Board maintains a holding yard complete with large dam and plentiful feed. A somewhat battered caravan, two utes and two horse floats making up their temporary settlement. Smiley tells me he is looking forward to the end of next month when they will probably be able to light campfires again.

“It’s really good when we can have a fire,” he said.

In two week’s time the men will cut 400 pregnant heifers from the mob and return them to Braidwood. They will add another 400 more to the group. The mob is part of a 5,000-head holding in Braidwood and the long drove seems to have suited them – they are all in fine condition.

Along with the cattle, Smiley and John are travelling with three horses and a motley crew of eleven working dogs of indeterminate breeds.