To illustrate International Womens Day Sydney photographer David Gray travelled through clinging mud to tell a story of true grit.

Anyone single-handedly running a 6,000 acre farm in the New South Wales outback in the grip of the worst drought for 100 years needs to be pretty remarkable, but when May McKeown told me on the phone that she was 68, she dispelled any lingering doubts I may have had that her struggle was the ideal subject for a photographic essay to illustrate the celebration of International Womens Day.

Mays property is located more than 700 kilometres north-west of Sydney, near the small town of Come-by-Chance, a mere nine hours away in a country where distances are measured in how many days it takes to drive there.

Unbelievably, as I got close it began to look as if it might rain, so I rang her for advice. I was almost at the end of the bitumen road and when the black outback soil gets wet it sticks like glue to tyres. The further you go the more it sticks until you get to the point when the wheels wont go round anymore and the vehicle grinds to a halt. Encouraged by Mays promise to ring me if it rained, I pressed on.

The rain started almost as soon as I left the bitumen road. The sound the mud made as it clogged the wheels got louder and louder the further I drove. Just when I thought it could get no worse I found her property. Another kilometre and I would have become bogged in one of the most remote spots on the planet. However, having stopped at the gate I had to struggle to get the car to move again and slid down the track to the house barely able to control its direction.

May ran out, amazed that to see me as minutes after our first conversation she had left a message on my phone advising me not to attempt the journey, (a message I received only next day when I got home).

For the next few hours I walked with her as she inspected the property. We walked because even her four-wheel-drive would have become stuck in the mud. Just before dusk the sun appeared from behind the storm clouds, bathing everything in the beautiful light you can see in some of the pictures.

Next day I followed her around while she hand-fed her remaining cattle in the way she has had to do for the past four years. Hopefully I have captured something which will stand as a memorial to her determined struggle to hang onto a way of life and a property which has been in her family for more than 150 years in the face of the elements and physical and financial hardship.