Dirranbandi draft Some of the best towns in Australia are a long way from the coast and well west of the great dividing range . They are generally on the smallish side but punch well above their weight when it comes to community activities. Dirranbandi for example had five cotton trucks with trailers parked one behind the other and their total length was longer than the town itself. What a great little village it is, by the time I purchased fuel at the servo, a toasted egg and bacon sambo and a cappuccino from two doors up then, crumbed cutlets from the butcher I new most of the locals and what everybody was up too. Three floods have passed through Dirranbandi in the last four...
Steve Sass Back on the road and having to tour over most of NSW dodging flood water and taking four days to get to my starting point which would normally have been an easy one days drive away wasn't the best start for another year on the show circuit. My wish is that there were sufficient events in the outback so I could stay well away from the inside country . I changed the routine from previous years to include a few drafts and to sneak up into QLD for the odd show. The new venues included Ashford on the Severn River, Walcha, Baradine, a quiet little village west of the Pilliga scrub, Dirranbandi, Boggabri draft and for Easter, Lightning...
Sass After a hard year on the track followed by five weeks at Wentworth running the shop it was finally time for a break. I generally finish the year in WA and head for the goldfields however, this year, Tibooburra in north western NSW was the chosen spot to relax well away from the show circuit and also a place where gold has been found. The 636K trip which includes 250 K of dirt is a far less stressing drive than the equivalent on the east coast as prior to Broken Hill there is one very small road house called Coombah, then after, the Packsaddle roadhouse followed by Milparinka which is bypassed, then the point of destination, Tibooburra. This area is known...
Steve Life on the road certainly has its benefits. The one I enjoy most is having a never ending change of scenery from my front and back door. For the majority of the year my address changes on forty two occasions as I attend shows, field days and race meetings in NSW, QLD, the NT, WA and SA. Right now, having opened a shop at Wentworth for the month my address is at the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers. My trusty companion Sass ensures early morning views of the rivers don't escape me as we prowl along the banks as the sun rises and before the breeze disturbs the waters mirror surface. Morning light on the Darling River. The evenings, another special time of day finds us...
Steve On a recent trip through western NSW I passed by many famous stations whose history is best known through verse written by 'The Banjo',(A.B Paterson) about early shearing days. This gentleman certainly had a gift with words and portrayed our early pioneering days in a romantic and fanciful way, so much so infact the reality of hadships faced by the shearers, drovers and stockman, seemed barely to exist. Henry Lawson, another well known poet from the same era shaped his verse around the daily grind and described in detail the hardships and the heat, dust, droughts and loneliness these characters faced . The two gentleman lived lives in stark contrast to each other. The Banjo enjoyed many of the pleasures high society life had to offer where as Henry carried his sway...
