Up the Dusty Track — Kilclooney Station with Owen Schmidt

Some stories don’t age. They just keep rolling.

In this episode of Six Foot Behind the Bullbar, we head back more than twenty years to Northwest Queensland, riding alongside legendary livestock operator Owen Schmidt as he takes a Kenworth T650 and triple Haulmark road train into Kilclooney Station to load cattle.

This is not a story about polished trucks or perfect roads. It is about the reality of livestock transport in one of Australia’s most unforgiving regions. Dust that hangs in the air. Tracks that barely qualify as roads. Equipment built not to impress, but to survive.

You’ll hear how Owen and his wife Liz built Schmidt Transport from a single truck into one of Queensland’s respected livestock operations, why durability mattered more than appearance, and how trailers designed decades ago are still working today across the north.

This episode captures a moment in time when road trains were simply tools of the trade, and the men and women who operated them did so without fuss, recognition, or margin for error.

Because out here, reliability was not a feature. It was survival.