Woman Visiting Farmer Boyfriend Was Expecting Ploughman's Lunch, Not A Plough Disc BBQ

INGRID DOULTON| Lady Writer | Contact

A city-based professional on gardening leave is visiting our cosmopolitan desert community this week and for the most part, she is impressed.

Julie Dungaree, who usually works in legal services in Brisbane, arrived in town on Monday. She was met at the airport by current life partner Jack Clarke, of the Hillview Clarke's via Windorah. Jack is the youngest of Michael, who is the second son of John and Margaret Clarke, with John being the son of Bill Clarke. Bill was, of course, Bill Clarke MP for the now abolished Queensland state electorate of Wobblegong. He was also a grazier.

While most of this is lost on Julie, she understands that Jack, being the eldest, is somewhat cemented in his position as the current custodian of Hillview so coming out to see him in action at home is all part of the process of seeing if this is the life for her.

In the hours before noon today, Jack reportedly told Julie they'd be enjoying lunch out at a turkey nest and they might go for a swim in it after.

What transpired was, in her mind, different to what she'd been sold.

Speak to our reporter a short time ago via wireless telephone, Julie said the spread she was expecting was like in Farmer Wants A Wife where it's almost like a picnic put on by two confirmed bachelors in New Farm Park.

"I thought he'd have cheeses and, you know, stuff that I might eat," she said.

"But it was a bit of a boys lunch, actually, I might've misheard him. I thought he said ploughman's lunch. Not plough disc lunch."

The first surprise was Jack's mother arriving unannounced at his "cottage", near the main homestead. It was not "cottage-like" in Julie's mind. It was a gardenless box 250m away from anything with a fridge, bathroom and two bedrooms, with one of them having nothing in it except saddles and two empty wardrobes.

"Jack's Mum was going to drive us out to where Jack was, I thought he was going to come back and then we'd go off somewhere. But no, his Mum was coming."

After driving for 20 minutes, they finally reached Jack, who was sitting in the cab of the property's Hilux in the shade of a boree tree. He had a fire going.

Jack was enjoying what he called "tractor smokes", which Julie said also confused her a bit considering that Jack was apparently a non-smoker.

"We get there and Jack just plonks this metal disc on the fire and tells us how fucked these paddocks are, how full of weeds they are and that he'll probably have to spray them again before putting some winter crop in, or whatever," she said.

"And then once the oil started smoking on the disc, he put 10 sausages on and that it and we just stand there, watching them cook in silence. Jack's got flies crawling over his eyeballs and he's barely flinching. He's just smoking cigarettes end to end asking me how the morning was,"

"His hands are covered in grease or something, he said something to do with the hydraulics or something broke on the tractor and he had to fix it. THEN, his mother hands him a piece of bread, into his oil stained hand, and then he reaches with his bare hands and takes a sausage off the disc and plonks it on the bread. He goes 'Oh fuck, Mum can you do Julie's? My hands are all fucked,' and then he pops the thing in his mouth. It's got oil on it!"

After their lunch, Jack lets out an earth-shattering cough and spits the produce in the fire.

"Fuck me," he said.

"Hot fucken day, isn't it? I'll be done in a few hours and I'll come back and we can go for a swim, maybe we'll go into town tonight for dinner and I can show you how good I am at mid-range drink driving,"

That sounded good.

"But Mum can you tell Dad that it's fucked? He should come have a look at it before you and him fuck off on holidays."

More to come.