Like the certainty of a sunset each day illuminating the Gillham's sheep, cattle and cropping property outside Boggabri, the family's eldest son, Matt, has always known his destiny.
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Gillham is the fifth generation of his family to work the property.
The Boggabri Roos No 9 does not know when the property was founded. But he is integral to a long history marked by "pretty good" times like now, as he put it, and grim periods like the preceding drought years.
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"Things are a lot better now - not having to feed stock everyday," he said.
Gillham's destiny is on hold as he completes a fitter and turner apprenticeship in Gunnedah.
Prior to starting the apprenticeship, he sheared sheep - heading down to Grenfell after finishing year 12 at Gunnedah State High.
While there, he played for the Grenfell Goannas under-19 side.
"It's good," he said of being back in Boggy. "I get to be home each night - as opposed to before, when you're shearing sheep and you couldn't commit to footy and things like that."
He added: "I think they [his family] always knew I'd go away shearing; they didn't think I'd do an apprenticeship."
At age 24, Gillham has emerged as one of Group 4's premier talents. In 2019, he was named the Group's representative player of the year after making his Greater Northern Tigers debut and starring in the No 9.
The same season, he was named the Roos' players' player of the year.
Having emerged from the wasteland that was the 2020 Group 4 season - cancelled due to COVID - Gillham looked a treat at Greater Northern Tigers training at Jack Woolaston Oval last week.
The Country Championships returning to the open format (it had been under-23) was "pretty exciting", he said.
"All the older fellas sort of thought it was all over for them [they would not play for the Tigers again]. And now they're coming back out again and seeing what they can still do."
"See what happens," he said of his prospects of retaining the Tigers' No 9 jersey. "It's different with all these older fellas now, too; it's not just blokes our age.
"So there might be someone else here who's quite capable of doing the job too."
Gillham said the Roos were "looking pretty good": the club was getting good numbers at training.
"So hopefully we can find ourselves around the top four," he said. "That would be nice."
