feel good

Doug Harrison, 97, refuses to slow down after eight decades as a grazier

Mon 8 Jun 2026 at 6:34am

an old man with black sunglasses and a red face close to the camera looking — At the age of 97, Doug still gets up for work on the station each day. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Doug Harrison doesn't do retirement.

With his trusty gopher mobility scooter and his pet chihuahua by his side, the grazier prefers to scoot around his outback station while completing the day's chores.

"I'm not as old as I look, I'm only 97," he says.

a man sitting in a chair with a black jacket patting a small yellow dog sitting next to him — Doug's pet chihuahua Ilhi doesn't stray far from his side. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Doug is a grazier from Langwell Station, 55 kilometres south of Broken Hill, where he still lives and works alongside his two sons and daughters-in-law.

There's no stopping the lifelong grazier who continues to tend to the land that has been a part of his life since he was three.

"If you get to the stage where you haven't got anything to do when you get up in the morning, what's the point of getting up?" he says.

a man with grey hard and sunglasses sitting on a gopher mobile with red dirt and trees in the background — Doug has lived at Langwell Station since 1932, when his parents bought the property. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Now, with a cuppa in hand, Doug reflects on his time on the land and what has kept him going all this time.

Life on the land

After leaving boarding school in Adelaide in 1946, Doug was immediately drawn back to a life on the land with sheep and cattle.

At 17, he returned to Langwell Station to work alongside his father.

four images, one of a sign hanging, one of trees and sand, a red dirt driveway and a rusty old mailbox with a drive way — Langwell Station is a sheep and cattle station in western NSW. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure )

"If I had the brains, I probably would have liked to [have] gone and done an engineering course," Doug said.

"[But] I decided to become a pastoralist, same as Dad did."

Doug married his late wife Joy in 1952, who was working as a school teacher in Broken Hill at the time.

They went on to raise their three children, Chris, Mitch and Lesley, at Langwell.

three images, one with a hand placed on a book, one with an old photograph of a couple cutting a cake and a cup of tea — Doug lives in the homestead at Langwell Station which holds a lot of history from years gone by. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Throughout his time as a grazier, Doug has seen many seasons come and go.

One of his most vivid memories was the severe drought of 1982.

Doug recalls going out with a stock agent to inspect a mob of sheep at a water trough one day when they saw a dust storm rolling in.

The next day, when he went to check on the sheep, he found a very different scene.

"All you'd see on the ground was bumps," he said.

"There were 800 buried sheep from that dust storm."

None of the sheep survived.

a shadow of a man driving a red gopher with a large brick shed in the background — Doug's philosphy is to "just get up in the morning and carry on". (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

a man with black sunglasses holding the steering wheel of a vehicle with a white small dog sitting next to him — Doug still drives a ute and a tractor on the station. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Learning to fly

Gaining a pilot's licence was not something Doug initially thought was within reach.

He recalls never having been closer than 200 metres from an aircraft, let alone inside one.

His inability to make a kite fly as a kid also led him to think he was not capable.

Then, at the age of 23, after a few beers at Broken Hill's old Oriental Hotel, Doug was talked into going for a flight with the local aero club instructor who was in town.

an old man with grey hair and a black jacket smiles next to a small white aircraft in a shed — Doug earned his pilot's licence at the age of 23. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

It was not a welcoming introduction to flying.

"I looked at the aeroplane, and the bloody thing was made of wood and bloody sheets, and he wanted me to get into this damn thing and fly,"

Doug said.

"I was too proud not to do it."

From there, Doug did not look back, and he eventually gained his commercial licence. He used it for mail runs, mustering, and an array of other jobs that took him around far-west NSW and beyond.

a man with a hat and another man with a blue jumper pointing to a shed with signs on it — Doug was once a member of Broken Hill's aero club, and Chris Harrison, Doug's eldest son, is also a pilot and works at the Broken Hill airport as an aircraft mechanic. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

He said flying a plane today is very different to when he started.

"For directions, the only instrument was a compass," Doug said.

"Flying nowadays is no different to driving a motor car."

The heydays

Mitch Harrison, Doug's middle son, has fond memories of growing up on the property.

Mitch and his wife Ros live at the neighbouring property, Eagle Hawk, which the Harrison family also owns.

As children, he says, they were always surrounded by interesting activities, including the gliding club, which Doug founded.

two men standing, one with a walking stick and a black jacket, one with a blue shirt grey hair and glasses looking away — Mitch has worked at Langwell alongside his Dad ever since he left school. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Langwell Station was used as a base for the gliding club.

As kids, Mitch said they used to go up in the gliders with the pilots. They also had skydivers who would come out to the property during that time.

"All the local daredevils used to come out," he said.

“There were no instructions back then, bar a guy on the ground with a megaphone."

Mitch and his siblings were always involved, including getting up to some mischief.

a blonde short haired lady with sunglasses smiling with an old man with a hat on smiling at the camera — Doug and his daughter Lesley, who is now based in Wollongong. (Supplied: Lesley Matysek nee Harrison)

"I remember one day, I don't know who came up with the bright idea: 'We'll strap the kids in the parachute and let it go with the rope on it'," Mitch recalled.

"And the problem was, it wasn't tied to the car and [my brother] Chris was in [the parachute] … and of course, off went the parachute and then everyone was running after the rope.

"But they did catch it in time."

Working with the sheep and cattle was also a family affair.

"We'd get dumped off in the Land Rover and go and ride push bikes behind the sheep [when mustering]," Mitch said.

three men standing, two with blue shirts and one with a grey jumper, a lady with glasses sitting next to an old man — Mitch Harrison, Ben and George Harrison (Chris Harrison's sons), Ros Menzies and Doug Harrison. (ABC Broken Hill: Lily McCure)

Today, Mitch is the owner and manager of the property.

Chris Harrison, Doug's eldest son, also helps when he's not working as an aircraft mechanic. And Doug's grandkids and daughter-in-laws, Ros and Deb, are also never far away.

"Things are slowing down; we don't do as much as we used to," Mitch said.