Bert's relationship with his mother is both sweet and sour, but mostly sour. He has been toughened by years of hard work which has made him almost totally self-reliant. He feels his mother has little to offer him, so he decides to travel to the north of western Australia to look for work on the cattle stations there. Bert joins a cattle drive on a six-month trip. It's hard, sometimes monotonous work, until a fierce thunderstorm panics the huge herd of cattle in the middle of the night. In the turmoil of the chase, Bert gets separated from the herd and his companions, and is lost in the wild bush. For seven days he follows the course of a river, with little to eat, until an Aboriginal tribe rescue him and return him to his companions. With the princely sum of 50 sovereigns in his pocket from the cattle drive, Bert goes back to work: as a farm manager, building dams and fences, as a railway labourer and track layer, and as a survey linesman. During this time he develops a keen interest in boxing.