The Rodeo

On Sunday night, Sue, Alison and I drove north from Wunghnu to Tocumwal for the rodeo. Tocumwal is a small country town on the Murray River just over the border with New South Wales, and very popular with weekend holiday-makers. We approached the town at night, and could see their campfires flickering in the dark, tracing the contours of the Murray.

Sue kindly paid our admission of $25 per person, which I thought staggering for a small country festival. All of the action was contained within a single, large aluminium corral that had been erected for the purpose. Spectators either stood, clutching foam rubber stubby holders with cans of Bundaberg Rum & Cola screwed into them, or perched on bails of hay that flanked the corral. A few lucky folks had grabbed seats slightly further away in a small grandstand that had three rows of tiered benches. Preschoolers ran up and down pathways, waving battery-operated plastic lightsabres. Smoking teens congregated around empty fuel barrels in which fires had been lit for warmth. The rodeo action was fast and constant with scarcely a lull between events, but we had to peer between the aluminium bars to see what was happening. Modern country and western music blared over loudspeakers while the announcer shouted the names of competitors.

Sue and Alison scrutinised the program, which indicated that we'd arrived just in time for the "rope & tie," sponsored by Greenways Holiday Units of Tocumwal.  I headed to the opposite end of the show grounds to see what looked interesting among the food and game vendors.


I liked the "Circus Clowns Winning Numbers" setup; the prizes held no interest for me, but the clowns themselves looked old fashioned and slightly creepy, as their open-mouthed, disembodied heads oscillated in unison. As far as traditional carnival paraphernalia goes, these were the genuine article and it was nice to see them, looking vibrant and well-cared for. I wondered if these kinds of arcade attractions were still made. I certainly hope so.

Food-wise, the Dagwood Dog stand seemed to be doing the briskest business. A Dagwood Dog is the Australian version of a corn dog, but with a thicker sheath of fried batter. According to Wikipedia, these can also be called a Pluto Pup or a Dippy Dog, depending on the region. [By the way, all of these names struck me as better than the disgusting moniker "Krusty Pup" favoured in the Pacific Northwest.] Another vendor-- a group of moms raising funds for the local primary school-- sold hamburgers with cole slaw on them. I bought one, deciding it was the healthiest option available.

Before heading back to the show, I lingered a bit, watching a solitary horse that had been tied up next to its trailer beneath enormous red gum trees, with bark that looked ghostly and luminous in the mixture of halogen light and wood smoke that hung in the air. It was the only non-performing animal I saw. Having exhausted the quiet end of the rodeo grounds, I rejoined Sue and Alison just in time to catch the open barrel race.

The Joeys

During dinner at the Shamrock Hotel in Numurkah a few days ago, Sue McGorlick mentioned an acquaintance of hers, Rachel, who rehabilitates orphaned baby kangaroos, or joeys. I'd been thinking about kangaroos and Australian road kill as a story topic for some time, so I asked Sue where this woman lived.

"Right here, in Numurkah," she said.

Rooster leans into a good scratch.

A couple of days later, on a sweltering December afternoon, Alison and I drove the short distance from Wunghnu to Rachel's house, a modern single-storey brick bungalow with an inner courtyard enclosed by a wooden fence. Outside, propped in a chair on the front stoop, was an effigy of Santa Claus in his heavy red-and-white cold-weather outfit; his cherubic face was covered with a rubber mask of the wolf man, gnashing his teeth.

"That's for the bad kids," Rachel remarked as she opened the gate to let us in.

Grazing in the middle of a patch of grass, amid flower beds, a large dog house and a portable swimming pool, were two Eastern Grey kangaroos in miniature: triangular heads, the ears of a wild hare and bodies engineered for propulsion. In profile, their leg-tail configuration reminded me of the legs of Mies Van der Rohe's Barcelona chair. Lizzie, the female, had been rescued from her mother after she'd been hit by a car in front of the college campus at Dookie, a town about 20 minutes south. Rooster, the male, was discovered hopping nearby, also without a parent. The two were the same age, but not siblings. Rooster's mother had likely met the same fate. According to Rachel, joeys can survive in the mother's pouch up to four days after she's been killed, so it's always necessary to take a close look when a downed kangaroo is discovered.

Lizzie prepares for a nap.

I had expected the joeys to be feral and aloof, but they enjoyed being petted and scratched, straightening their backs and leaning in blissfully. Their fur was surprisingly soft; on the ridge of Rooster's back it grew in both directions, permanently tousled. Lizzie's coat was fleecier and more Steiff-like, and on her belly she already had a tiny pouch of her own. I wrapped my fingers gently around Rooster's tail. It was heavy and bony. It felt like a garden house filled with wet cement, and as strong as a buggy spring. Rooster hopped away a few feet across the yard and then back to me for more attention.

Bag o' roo.

When it's time for bed, the joeys sleep in homemade cloth bags that Rachel hangs on a couple of door knobs in her living room. When she brought them out, Lizzie and Rooster climbed inside and Alison and I each got to hold a bagful of baby roo until it was time to leave.

Rachel explained that in another four months Lizzie and Rooster would be too big for her property and they'd be transferred north to a place near the border with New South Wales, close to where they'd be released.

"As sweet as they are now," she explained, "they go feral very quickly once they go back to the wild."

The Christmas Email

© Peter Sackett

Hi Vick,

We're at Locheilan. It's Christmas morning, and there was a spectacular tropical thunder storm last night. We could see it approaching before bed, coming over the hills near Violet Town. There were huge clusters of peach-coloured lightning. By 11pm it had reached us, and the thunder was great. One of the cows in the dairy didn't think so, and mooed in the dark. The lightning totally illuminated the house for a millisecond every half-minute or so.

We had planned to ride our bikes to Numurkah for a church service this morning, but the rain (I hope) and heat have spoiled that. I'd rather hang around here. Alison and I worked in the cheesery (I'm still not sure that's a real word) for a few hours last night, and that was fun. I got to smooth huge cylinders of bleu and then dip them in blood-red wax for the market, and then Alison and I brined big wheels of what would eventually become Camembert.

I brought GI Joe with me this trip-- two of my astronaut figures and a space capsule. When things dry out, I'll take them over to a small quarry nearby and photograph them. It looks like an alien landscape over there; the soil is a red-orange colour.

What are you up to?

Pete

The Postcard Files: Shepparton

I like to get postcards in the mail, but not many folks send them these days. Text messages and mobile phone snapshots are instant but spiritless, and a postcard, no matter how dorky, carries a faint whiff of the place from which they were posted. For the last few months, I've begun buying them to send to members of my family in the United States, and to good friends in Germany and Belgium. At the start, I bought only postcards that "looked nice" but that got boring fast. So now I gravitate to the ugly ducklings, which is more fun and makes the task easier. Here are a few I found this weekend while I was in Shepparton and Wunghnu, in the farm country of northern Victoria.

I found these first two at the news agency in downtown Shepparton. "Shep", as it's called by most people, has a few interesting elements but, for the most part, it's kind of a dump. Outlet stores and fast food joints are the connective tissue holding the town together. The sales clerk seemed a bit puzzled as to why I'd want to send a postcard from this place, but my American accent probably explained enough. These are the most expensive postcards I've ever bought, at AU$2 each. Ouch.

Lesser Shepparton didn't warrant their own postcard.

This one is just weird. Had I not read the caption, I might have guessed this was, in fact, Lesser Shepparton. But it appears to be a museum diorama. I have no idea who Bangerang is. I assume it's the fellow (?) on the right touching a wooden pole to a rock, and that this is what constituted housekeeping in days of yore. I'll have to look for it the next time I'm in Shep.

This is Wunghnu's only postcard. It depicts an instructive graffito scrawled on the north side of the water tower, across the street from the town store where I bought it.