Jericho and Barcaldine

 05/07/2012
 Billy-no-mates for most of today as the few people who stayed overnight packed up and left early leaving us on this huge showground with nobody to talk to! We decided on a domestic day once the sun got going to warm us up. A haircut for me and a 3 monthly treat for the van, it gets washed every 3 or 4 months whether it needs it or not. I even went round with WD40 squirting all moving parts Moving on tomorrow.

 06/07/2012
  Our two night stay at Jericho showground was very economical and could have been biblically uplifting had we visited lake Galilee or camped by the river Jordan or even looked at the town feature, the statues of  trumpeters which depicts Israelites blowing down the walls of Jericho. See, I know all this stuff, it’s all written in the tourist guide! Anyway we didn’t see any of it as the place is so small  (pop100) … we had driven through it in a blink.
  So on to the slightly larger town of Barcaldine (pop1335) where we stopped to do some shopping , and discovered that there is a lot to see, plus there is a Campdraft being held on the town showground all weekend. We have actually camped at the showground for a small fee and free entrance to the camp draft. I had heard of a camp draft before but wasn’t sure exactly what it was. They are basically country shows involving cattle, cowboy and cowgirls, all of which (not the cattle) wear check shirts,  boots with  spurs and big hats. It’s similar to a rodeo with people on horses manoeuvring cattle between obstacles. Bit like One Man and his Dog except it’s horses and cows and no whistles or shouts of “come by”! We are fascinated and have decided to stay over the weekend and watch. I can feel lots of photos coming on!

07/07/2012
 Campdraft hasn’t turned out to be quite as exciting as we expected, mainly because the format doesn’t change over the three days. Basically it’s a bloke on horseback steering  a bull calf through slalom poles in a set time. They don’t change the position of the poles so it’s the same discipline with a different animal each time. I think the riders can enter the event as many times as they like but they must use a different horse. After a while, watching, it all gets a bit samey but very skilful never the less.
 The showground is also used for other sports, the oval is used for Aussie Rules and rugby. This evening we watched Barcaldine v Longreach play rugby union which we were quite surprised to see, as, although we knew there was a match on, we were expecting rugby league. The game turned out to be not very good considering it was a local derby (Longreach is 108 ks away),the skills were a much lower standard than Shipston RUFC. Still it was a pleasant evening and a bit warmer than of late.

08/07/2012
 Two days of camp draft is plenty so after a much more comprehensible Skype with the Faulkners to start the day we then wandered off into Barcaldine to follow the heritage trail. First is the centre piece of town, a huge wooden structure sheltering a now dead tree but called The Tree of Knowledge. Inside the rectangular shed like structure (pictures to follow) are suspended great lengths of square timbers that move around in the breeze making it the biggest wind chime in the world (my interpretation) as they clunk together,
 There are several interesting buildings in the town which are quite old and would have been much older had the local residents been less clumsy with matches. Practically every building has a plaque outside explaining, when it was first built, when it burnt down and then, when it was rebuilt. Some of the building burnt down more than once which smacks to me of a lot of Jewish lightning!
 There is a Workers Heritage Centre where the Australian Labor Party was formed but we were buggered if we were paying $16 each to learn about a party that has gone on over the years hell bent on destroying the country. Maybe a spot of lightning wouldn’t go amiss here.
 Barcaldine is also known as the Garden City of the west because of it’s beautiful gardens. After this weekends Campdraft there will be plenty of manure…..sorry… fertilizer to put on them!