Video and Photos: Quamby Rodeo
One of the highlights from the trip was the Quamby Rodeo.I have copied parts of the post from day 50 and 51 here an included some more photos from the day.
The bull tenses, 800kg of muscles bulging and twitching, desperate to escape the tiny enclosure. The cowboy slowly lowers himself. Wrapping his hand around the rope, twisting and twisting, the only thing stopping him from being violently thrown to the earth.
The gate opens. Dust flies as the heaving mass lurches one way then the next trying to dislodge the foreign body on his back.
Legs tighten and one hand is thrust in the air in the vain attempt to remain upright. 8 seconds does not seem long but it only takes a split second until a left kick sees the cowboy catapulted in to the air and come crashing down in the dirt as a flurry of hoofs crash centermetres from his Akubra hat.
Wow! And the amazing thing is that we watched this happen all day. By the end of the evening there were only 2 calls for ambulance assistance but I am sure there were many more bruises quietly suffered. With the ribbons and belt buckles given out with little fuss, the crowd slowly returned to the shed in preparation for the nights festivities.
As the band started up and the beers and rum and cokes started to flow freely, we sat and enjoyed the atmosphere as the night rolled on.
While both miners and country folk both come from the bush they could be worlds apart. The uniform for the cowboys are blue jeans (absolutely compulsory), long sleeve checkered shirt, and a self styled Akubra hat (also compulsory), with the battle scars from horse falls or having the cattle dog chew it. The country girls are a perfect match in their paisley shirts, jewel bedazzled belts and blue jeans and neat tied back hair - or as Hux referred to as being " very tidy".
As the band played late in to the night and the drinking, dancing, drinking, stumbling, and more drinking continued, we followed lasts nights advice and made a quiet exit.
Throughout the night the sounds of Lee Kerneghan echoed through paddock, punctuated by the sounds of stumbling revelers returning to their swag. As the first light began to stir the horses and the bulls nervously shifted in the dust, the sounds of Johnny Cash came over the loud speaker waking those from their sleepy haze. To one side of me two silhouettes pass in the dust filled light, arms around each other in either loving embrace, or to maintain balance, or more likely both. As I roll over there is a large timber bed sitting amongst the brown dirt and grass and a half empty can of beer precariously balancing on the bed end. Protruding from one end the wisps of blond hair hiding the likely throbbing head below the bed covers.
Finally rising ourselves we walked past a graveyard of thousands of crushed XXXX cans and squashed plastic cups with their traces of bourbon and rum dripping on the edges. Luckily the smell was overshadowed by the hangover saving bacon, eggs and sausages sizzling on the large BBQ's the Quamby Sports Association had kindly prepared.
To me the Quamby Rodeo defines this country. And if it was not for the three young lasses on the service station I may have missed probably the most memorable part of the whole trip. I couldn't sum up the night any better than a train driver we met on the night who said:
"You wouldn't want to be anywhere else in Australia tonight"
And I could not agree more
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