Proud Territorian Bob Christensen keeps regional Australia close to his heart.
His early life consisted of living in an extremely remote area – too small to be considered a town – where Bob’s family were part of a First Nations tribe.
“The first 12 years of my life, I was raised more by the Aboriginals than anyone else,” he said.
“I used to rule; I did whatever I liked – you didn’t dare hurt little Bobbie.”
As a natural-born country boy, Bob was put to work at a young age working on local cattle stations.
“My old man used to manage cattle stations in the territory,” Bob said.
“He was the first man to use portable yards and big hessian wings to muster cattle into the territory … and do it properly.”
Bob was eager to follow in his father’s footsteps and he obtained his helicopter licence at 17 years of age, before he has his driver’s licence.
“I got the chopper license in the morning and the car licence in the afternoon – airplane license before that.”
“I’ve always liked the aviation since I was a young kid. My family had a little bit of a background,” Bob added.
Although he started his helicopter training at 17, he needed to get a commercial licence before he could get a job flying.
“I did a lot of hours – I had 76 hours, whatever you needed to get your licence, then I flew for 15 months straight.”
“In the first two years I went from 76 to like 2,500 hours,” Bob said.
Eventually he put his helicopter licence to good use as a 19-year-old Bob got a job with Heli-Muster, working for his future father-in-law John Weymouth.
Through his eight years as a helicopter mustering pilot, Bob flew various helicopters including the Bell 47, Robinson R22 and Bell 206 Jet ranger with over 10,000 hours of flying under his belt.
He experienced many mishaps during his career, including an attempted crocodile attack.
“I was out mustering in the middle of nowhere, there’s just this little billabong and there’s an old cow in it. I couldn’t get it out, so I came down real low over the water and tried to shove it out,” Bob said.
“Lucky, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this movement, and I look out and here’s this big saltwater croc coming out of the water going from the chopper.”
“Luckily it missed; he probably jumped four or five feet,” he added.
Bob has owned Beaudesert News with his partner Susan Weymouth since 1996 and he enjoys being part of the community.
