G'day Heidi, traditionally drovers herded stock in search of fertile grazing plains, water, or to take the fattened cattle or sheep to sale yards.
The journey to a stock yard could be many hundreds of miles, even over a thousand. I'm not sure if that equates to your cowboys.

Even today, in periods of drought when the grazing on farms is depleted, in some areas stock will be herded along roadsides to feed on whatever remains there. That's known as "the long paddock" and I think the stockmen are still referred to as drovers in this situation.

You might find something interesting here Folklore