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Amazingly, at that very instant, a jeep pulls up from nowhere and a family of four pile out, keen to stretch their legs. Turns out the folks are from Queensland and headed west. As they fossick about, gazing at all the Outback paraphernalia that festoons the pub ceiling and walls, Phil is back in his role as host and Dr Alistair and Christine are ushering their second patient, Nina Betts, to the ‘consulting rooms’.

Nina is expecting her third child in a couple of weeks and she doesn’t have the luxury of an obstetrician within a 500-kilometre radius. “We’re in the middle of nowhere here,” she says pointedly, obviously feeling the isolation at this critical time. Nina explains that she helps her husband, Luke, run a cattle station owned by Luke’s parents. The station covers 4,750 square kilometres and its 4,000 head of cattle have lately been decimated to around 1,500, maybe less. “We’re hanging in there,” says Nina with a mild trace of stoicism and disappears into the pub’s dining room cradling her belly.

Legs up in stirrups at the pub? Pelvic examination on a bench normally used to serve hot pies and chips? In the world of the Flying Doctors, honestly, anything is possible. They have seen everything. They’ve delivered breach babies in the back of aeroplanes; conducted CPR on

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the back of utes; tended to the seriously to head home. The doctor has only seen three patients today – earlier, we visited another cattle station en route to Mungerannie – but he feels he’s made a difference. The mother-to-be certainly needed to be examined and listened to; out here, when it’s the same handful of faces you see day in and day out, you can only grumble about the difficulties of running a cattle station and family so many times.

“Station life’s changed,” muses Dr Alistair as pilot Alan Ransley lets the Pilatus PC-12 throttle go and we start our ascent. A graduate from the University of Edinburgh who came to Australia more than two decades ago, Dr Alistair worked briefly in a Sydney general practice before joining the Flying Doctors in 1989. Born in Scotland’s Shetland Islands, the doctor understands the kind of people who choose to live in isolated communities. But, he says, he’s noticed how things have taken a turn for the worse in the Australian Outback.

“Once upon a time, the cattle stations were full of life. It was almost a glamorous life; stations ran in families and station managers had plenty of help. You had time for tennis and tea on the lawns. Now stations are bought as investments and a married couple are put in charge to manage the station and they have to do everything. No wonder the women say they haven’t got time to bring up the children. It’s not like it used to be at all... it’s very hard work and involves long hours,” Dr Alistair muses.

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