The Long Way Home - Chapter 1 - New Years Day in Rockhampton

Covid changed the plans of many. For us, this has meant many changes to our plans. We started looking to travel around Australia and be back home in Smiths Lake late November. The maniacism and the petty tyranny of state premiers saw us bounce around the country wanting to ensure we were available for the court case for the murder of Robyn’s older sister, planned for Brisbane in February.

In essence we were not game to go home lest we were stuck there and unable to attend the court case to which she was subpoenaed. We looped back from Kalbarri, heading north while the Silver Leader and Rose headed home via the Nullarbor. 

So here we are in Rockhampton at the start of 2022, having missed Christmas with our children, making Robyn feel very homesick, if she wasn’t already. It didn’t help the children rang in the middle of the night. Evidently the call, initiated by our daughter in law, came in just after midnight Eastern Daylight Saving Time (11.30am Easten Standard Time as it is in Queensland). It didn’t wake me for more than a moment. I rolled over and went back to sleep as the conversation ensued.

The morning and New Years Day brings back memories of our youth when the family of my youth would have been in bed early and be off to Dalton, near Gunning New South Wales for the annual Dalton New Year Day Gymkhana. Effectively a horse show in this small town every year.

My mind is taken back to 1975, a few days after Cyclone Tracey had devastated Darwin. 1975 I was at the height of my prowess with horse activities. 

We never received allowances in our youth. Our parents would quite happily pay entrance fees at horse shows and gymkhanas and allow us to keep the winnings but would not afford us any stipend. Other than the work that was done during the annual sheep shearing in the September school holidays, where my grandfather saw I was paid $11 for 2 weeks work until my father finally ensured I was paid similarly to the other workers for rous-a-bouting or wool pressing, where I was working alongside the shearing team.

Like I said 1975 was a year where, without the pressure of adulthood, still at school, I was able to fully realise any potential that may have been previously held back. Dalton was the first of these events.

Here with a total prize pool of a little over $2,000 across the entire Gymkhana the higher paying events were right in my area of expertise. Show jumping, hunts and what might be termed “rough riding” events, bending, flag racing and barrel racing, were entered and won adding envelope after envelope of winnings to the coffers.

The “hunts”, a competition where jumps are situated around the arena and  competitors are judged not only on the cleaness of the execution but also the form of the approach, the jump and the transition are all judged. In previous years I had competed in this event on a horse which was perfectly suited to the event, even remembering the commentator suggesting the gait and the action was perfect for the event only to lose to others.

1975, though, with my favourite horse, a pony of just less than galloway height, the win was achieved even thorough, in my opinion the previous horse did a much better job. Given the size of “Gazer” at just under galloway height I was able to take home the “Pony” and the “Open” hunt on the same horse.

Gazer was a brilliant horse, capable of many facets of the show and gymkhana “rough riding” as well as very effective at show jumping. He could also hold his own in the “pretty” parts of the equestrian events. Pony Club saw us well versed in everything equestrian. Our ability to succeed at levels well above the apparent junior ages of us was well respected amongst the competition. There are many times our father would get a call to see which event we would be attending to ensure others would go to a similar event in another town,

Think I jest?

When you are 16, fearless and have a horse that can hold a barrel racing record, jump in excess of 2 metres (from a standing start), which is trained on hills chasing rabbits and other vermin, mustering sheep and cattle behind a mob of dogs, around cracks and crevices that would make the Man from Snowy River, stop and hold his breath”, trained from a foal, along with his rider in the Pony Club system, with instructors like my father who consulted with Tom Burlinson on The Man from Snowy River – read here taught him to ride – from basically the time he could walk, you have a recipe for success. Add to that the need to succeed or have no spending money and you have a perfect storm.

January 1, 1975 at Dalton, was one of those days where the curves of opportunity and preparedness met in perfect harmony. Every event we entered we appeared to win that day. 

Bill and Boyd performed a song created by Bill Cate on the Fable Label, Santa Never Made it into Dawin. This song rang in our ears the entire day of the Dalton Gymkhana. There was a telethon for the victims of the cyclone being run all day and at the end of the day, as we tend to do, we get together with other “horse” families just prior to heading home.

This day we looked long and hard into our hearts and knew there was only one thing to do with our winnings. Whilst my sister and I collected much of the money won by the group of families on the day, when pooled we got together close to $500 in winnings. The adults threw in the final $5 needed to make the round amount.

Our father was designated to make the donation. As soon as we got home and dealt with the horses and packed away the gear we gathered around the television to hear the acknowledgement of the donation.

A day of excellence in achievement was very quickly deflated when the reporter commenced to read the chit. As soon as he saw the amount of the donation  and how it was achieved he quickly guffawed and “corrected” the amount from $500 to $50 as that is what he felt was was “could be done”.

My father was well known for his temper. Both he and our mother were not averse to using the whip, riding crop or whatever they could lay their hands on if, in their opinion, we strayed from “the path”. It was the one and only time I ever saw him take his temper out on someone because of injustice to their children.

They would not retract the “error”, not certainly before we went to bed.

Waking today, that memory was firmly imprinted on my mind. So much so, I posted a picture of me jumping a horse, the one from the previous hunting events in fact, bareback and without any form of protective gear along with a quick memory of the Cyclone Tracey donation. Santa Never Made it into Darwin ran around my head as well.

By 9.00am I was more than ready for a call to Brain in a Box John Tonkin. For 2 hours we worked on the website with no real success. Our WordPress based website is all but ready to launch, but we are having issues with technicalities around the myriad of photographs we need to have appended to, not only the relevant blog but where applicable other “Galleries” we have created.

It is right to the very nature of the “why” behind the entire project, that these correlations work. All our attempts so far, certainly get the photographs  on the site but the engines used to walk through them is not quite right. John is an expert, but without the understanding of the programmer’s intentions, we are stymied.

We send an email to him with our frustrations, expecting an answer only when he returns to work in a few days. The two hours have drained both of us.

Robyn and I decide we need some time out and we head out with no real destination in mind. I input “Lookout” into the GPS and follow it to Fraser Park on Mount Archer. Its a place we have been before but it was still a lovely interlude. 

This time we make time to head down the Grass Tree Trail, where I take some shots and send to the other travellers we visited here with previously. The comments like “didn’t we visit there before” are chortled with comments about time that we did not allow for a walk down this path. Later we see three cairns, reminiscent of a Forbsy attack on the stones of the area which get very much a laugh from the others.

A tree with the initials T loves L just by the look out, takes me back to the Ray Peterson song “Tell Laura I Love Her”. Laura and Tommy were lovers… He ends up dying in a firey stock car race trying to win money to “give her everything – flowers, presents but most of all a wedding ring”. The Bill and Boyd song is now replaced by this one all the way back along the track.

On our way back from the look out we do a little grocery shopping at Woolworths, returning to the van to put it way, make my version of tabouli and start the roast chicken pieces in the oven.

Dinner and bed come quickly.