Kicking Ass and riding Camels - 20th & 21st July

My little "tea pot" Trish had finally had enough of the filthy conditions at the Pelican Caravan Park and like any good little tea pot she "got all steamed up" and it was off to the Shire Council and a bit of desk thumping to speak to the Health Inspector. The Health Inspector was away for a couple of days so she got his email address out of them and then one girl, who we think, had some connection with the owners of the caravan park gave Trish the email address of the owner and asked Trish to send them an email instead of the Health Inspector. Armed with both email addresses Trish wrote an accurate and very pointed email and then sent it to both the owners and the Health Inspector so that both knew that the other had received it. My little steaming tea pot sat back to see what would happen.

By the time we got back to the caravan park after heading into town for a while, a lady was busy scrubbing the filthy sink in the camp kitchen until it shone. New shower curtains appeared in all showers and Cleaning in Progress signs appeared at the doorways of the abolition blocks. This was no coincidence since all these things had been in Trish's email earlier in the day. The smile of satisfaction on the face of my little tea pot was worth seeing. The facilities will still be old but at least they will be clean for the rest of our stay. Kick ass Trish ! ! !

Camel Race Day

Surprise, surprise the Cleaning in Progress signs were out in force again early next morning. After breakfast we walked to the Show Grounds for the Camel Races. We arrived in time for heat two and were expecting it to be a big event on the local calendar. The rows of "Grey Nomads" 4x4's indicated to us that the majority of people there were visitors passing through.

After the first race we started to pick who we thought would win, but being tight asses we didn't place bets. There was only one bookie on the course. As we found camels are very unpredictable beasts. The occasional one sitting down and needing a lot of encouragement to get moving to the start line. Once they started racing it was quite exciting. Some ran wide and off the track or others would suddenly cut across the line of others. What I started to realize was it wasn't the camels to watch when choosing a winner but instead watch the jockeys. One in particular, who we originally thought was a very small young girl, who later turned out to be a 30 year old slip of a woman, had a very good rapport with her camels. It turned out that she had her own camels that she broke and trained herself. Although there were quite a few different camels in the heats it was the same few jockeys riding in each heat.

The break between the heats and the finals was taken up with bush poetry with $5 paid to anyone who did a poem. It didn't take long for the local kids to realize that they could make a few bucks easily so we got some terrible renditions of "Ippsy wippsy spider" and other nursery rhymes. The kids cleaned them out of their $5 rewards.

Finally it was time for the final race the "Winton Camel Cup". The slip of a woman Glenda Sutton came home strong to win on her camel "Chief". My theory now is watch the jockeys and not the camels. Although there was not the masses of locals that I thought would be there it was a great day out and worth staying the extra couple of days. And of course to see my Trishy kick ass!

Dave the Jockey watcher.