Harts Range Race Course. Steve The Harts Range racecourse is situated on Mount Riddock Station, about two hundred kilometers east along the Plenty Highway from the Stuart Highway. The shortest way to Alice Spring from western Queensland is along this highway but can be slow as your looking at 750 K's of dirt that is rough enough at times. During my trips to the NT shows I have been asked many time if I was going to attend the Harts Range races so this year after the Darwin show headed back down to see what it was all about. It started back in 1946 when the three Web brothers, Bob Darken and several ringers who had been branding calves all...
Coonawarra The south east of South Australia has been a real experience, so different to the outback where time is measured in days and the vast stations sometimes have frontage to the main track for a hundred kilometers. Down this way the towns are barely fifty K's apart and hundreds of properties share the area. Agriculture is happening right there in front of you, a break from vineyards sees mobs of either sheep or cattle at huge stocking rates grazing improved pastures and this year all stock are in prime condition. There is so much traffic down this way, nobody waves of course as they do up north and I find that I'm looking forward to seeing a roadtrain again, and a grid or two with emus and roos in...
Steve The Murray Darling Basin certainly has prompted some interesting discussions of late and ironically not at a time when the country is ravaged by drought but when the entire system is flush with water, feed and bird life. Hopefully the good seasons will prevail for many years whilst the much needed upgrade of irrigation infrastructure is put in place ensuring the river towns and communities thrive and the Eco system receives the flows required to sustain them. Remember this, Western NSW Not so long ago the picture of our country side as I traveled around Australia looked rather bleak, so much so in fact it was hard to imagine that that our rivers would ever be in flood and the wind swept plains could ever sustain plant growth ever again. The...
Steve There are times during the show circuit year when a weekend is show free. I love that, as it gives me time to prowl about country I haven't seen before so I unhook the gooseneck and leave it planted somewhere safe, throw the swag in the Ute and head off into the bush. On this occasion I had a weekend free between The Harts Range Races and The Camooweal Drovers festival and Fieldy, an old mate of mine joined me for a trip into the Gulf. From Camooweal we headed west into the Territory on the Barkley Highway for 100 K's, the last section of real road we'd see for some time. We found the turn off to the Ranken road and steadied...
The Brunette Races have been a major social event for station people in the top end for the last one hundred years with attendance figures around the seven hundred to one thousand mark. This year being the one hundredth anniversary some three thousand people turned up most of whom had some connection with Brunette Downs in the past. The regular attenders from Lake Nash, Alroy Downs, Alexandria Downs, Avon and Eva Downs, Mallapunya Station, Anthony Lagoon, Wallhallow Station along with many more returned to Brunette for this special occasion. Each of these stations have permanent camps set up for use not only on race week but for camp drafts and other functions held there during the year. Some camps are modest affairs...
