On the 23rd of June when Jock and Trini Coupland drove into their cotton paddocks on Wardy, around 40 kilometres from Condobolin on the South River Road, they were shocked to see around 380 of the cotton bales, recently harvested and ready for pickup, slashed and spilling open.
Sometime the night before a vandal had walked around three fields slashing the tightly packed bales and spilling the cotton out into the open and exposed to the weather.
Trini said “It was so overwhelming! All the hard work over summer to grow the crop and then to pick in tough, wet conditions as well as having a huge amount of contract picking ahead of us and then we had to deal with this as well. We found it very difficult to come to terms with but had to pull ourselves together and get on with it.”
The cotton was worth over $1.3 million dollars and needed repacking before it could be transported to the Cotton Gin at Trangie for processing.
Trini and Jock had to source two old cotton module builders, two boll buggies, three loaders, two excavators with log grabs and various other equipment, in order to pick up and press the cotton into transportable form. The slashed round bales then had to be loosened and repacked and pressed into the modules and all the plastic removed.
When neighbours and friends heard of the vandalising and the massive job ahead, many offered help, equipment, food and support and up to 20 people turned up to help pick up and repack the cotton into modules.
Unfortunately after only two days and 15 per cent securely packed, they had about 50 millimetres of rain and some of the tarps covering the cotton blew off leaving it exposed to the weather. It took ten days to dry out enough to restart the salvage effort and about three weeks to clean up. Altogether, they managed to save roughly 80 per cent of the cotton and are hoping to have it all carted to the gin before the end of August. They won’t know how badly weather damaged it is until it has been processed and the classing results are in.
“People turned up every day, it was wonderful” Trini Coupland said. “It was just fantastic, all the offers of help, physical and emotional support as well as food to keep everyone going. The community is just amazing and we are so grateful.”
“The police are still investigating who might have been responsible but there have been no arrests so far. We are just incredibly grateful for all the help and would like to thank everyone who offered support,” Trini said.