The ships of the desert were right at home in the Simpson Desert this weekend as the tiny Diamantina settlement of Bedourie throbbed, pumped and humped for its annual camel races.
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There was already a huge crowd in the region for the Big Bash at Birdsville last week.
Many of the thousands of caravanners and 4WD enthusiasts stayed on to party at Bedourie, giving a ten fold increase on the town’s normal population with the caravan parks straining to house the numbers.
Trevor Stewart of the Bedourie Camel Races organising committee said the place was buzzing and the crowd exceeded all expectations at the racecourse, a couple of kilometres west of town.
“I’ve been involved in five of the last 18 years of camels in Bedourie and this one is the biggest one and best yet,” Mr Stewart said.
“It’s all about entertaining the crowd.”
There was certainly plenty on the menu.
Top of the bill was the seven camel races with big prizemoney on offer.
But as well there was fun wherever you looked with both men’s and women’s woodchop (singles and pairs), footraces, damper making competitions, damper tin tossing competitions, pig races and much more to keep the big crowd entertained all day.
In the big camel race of the day the Bedourie Cup, the honours went to South Australia.
Jockey Chantelle Jannese expertly guided Hook Em Up to win for Don and Robin Anesbury of Orroroo, in the Flinders Range region of South Australia.
Mr Anesbury said the secret of good racing camels was keeping them happy.
“I keep them in the paddock, they train, they are never in the yard and once the race is over they go back to the paddock,” Mr Anesbury said.
“And we feed them on bush tucker.”
The diet certainly works and jockey Chantelle Jannese said Hook Em Up gave her a “bloody good race”.
In the second big race, the Bedourie Plate, the camel Pete held on in a close one to win “by a lip”.
The camel racing circuit moves on to Boulia this weekend, which begins appropriate on Thursday, the day after “hump day”.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
