Ms Mabin photographed five months of the nine-month drove, in which  18,000 head of cattle were driven from Winton in Queensland 2000 kilometres south to Uardry station near Hay, and then self-published The Drover.

The book contains around 250 of the images she captured while on the drove, which go right to the heart of droving, the people, the land and most importantly the cattle. 

But the young New Zealander is only new to the photography game, and stumbled into the job after she found herself looking for something challenging after quitting her job as an animal health sales representative with Pfizer.

“I enjoyed what I did but I just didn’t have the challenge anymore,” Ms Mabin said. “When I decided to resign, I knew I wanted to re-educate myself.”

Ms Mabin grew up on the land and had spent most of her working life in the agriculture industry, so she wanted to keep it that way.

“One of my friends said to me that one of the things missing in the livestock industry is the photography and marketing side of things, so I guess I’m trying to fill that hole.” 

She studied photography via correspondence with the Photography Institute and journalism with Morris Journalism Academy, and said photography just came naturally to her.

“One of my big goals is to inspire feeling in the viewer, when you gasp for air in the dust, to feel the heat of the bush, to have a sense of being there,” Ms Mabin said. 

“I didn’t dress it up and I didn’t dress it down - it is what it is and I didn’t want it to look like it was staged.”

For now, Ms Mabin said she would focus on selling her book as she tours the route from Winton to Hay once again, visiting central west towns including Orange, and said she didn’t have any immediate plans to do something similar.

“You’ll never see a drove like that again. Not in my lifetime.”

alexandra.king@fairfaxmedia.com.au