Charters Towers Qld. July 17th 2024

 Charters Towers Qld. July 17th 2024

Left Belyando late-ish, maybe 930. What was the rush? We are only going 200 K to Charters Towers and we had been told about the massive roadworks, so no need to get to them early! Road started out as bad as yesterday, but once past the roadworks it was pretty good and we cruised up to CT without drama.

We are staying here four nights, so this entry will expand a bit as we do things. On the list is a visit to the Texas Longhorn Ranch, Parkrun at the airport (yes, inside the airport), and this year we are going to the rodeo again. Looked at the event list and had little idea what any of it was, but last time it was great fun and very entertaining to watch the cowboys and girls go through their paces.

Out of town early today to get to the Texas Longhorns. This is a farm about 10km out of town, which started breeding Texas Longhorns, and many other longhorn-ed cattle thirty years ago. Why? What use are Texas longhorns? Turns out not much in Australia, except for novelty value and as collector items, and world-wide bragging rights if you get one that sprouts its horns faster and longer than anywhere else.

JR aka Johnny Rebb, 2013 world record holder for longest horns (3.15m), a genuine Texas longhorn.
Texas Longhorn Ranch, Charters Towers Qld

They started the tours about 16 years back and have been refining it ever since. They start with a 20 minute video that they wrote, scripted, shot and edited themselves. It was pretty slick actually and quite interesting as they followed the history of the longhorns from Spain a zillion years ago, into Texas, how they fed the new nation of the USA, how they almost went extinct, and now, this farms part in the revival and survival of the breed.

The intro movie was followed by a visit to the chuck-waggon and smoko. Best coffee and Anzacs I've had for a while. After feeding our faces we boarded 4 Polaris buggies, each one driven by one of the guests! 

First stop was the custom made cattle crush (how do you keep a 500kg animal with 3 metre wide horns still while you or the vet does things to them without getting gored?). Then into the longhorn love nest  where they described in detail how the bulls are “milked” and how the cows are inseminated. Its such a labour intensive procedure with many checks and tests along the way to make sure that the cow is well and truly pregnant before they go back outside. As a matter of interest they don't do any natural breeding, its all about improving the stock-line. Or getting longer horns....

Out into the paddocks we went and moved around seeing all kinds of cattle, not just Texan ones. My head hurt with the barrage of this breed, that breed, crossed with this one and that one. They are pretty special to look at and surprising docile, mind you they get visited by tourists five time a week and inspected, detected, injected every other waking moment, its no wonder they barely raised an eyebrow as we wandered around. Not that you could ever fully trust one either. They even had two bison, which are just pets, no real use to these people, but to others they are highly sought after for horse training.

The owners are really proud and protective of their animals and it looks like they lavish all the love and attention a beast could ever want on them. One of their rewards was an entry in the 2013 Guinness Book Of Records for the longest steer horns of their Pride-and-Joy, JR, (aka Johny Rebb). JR’s horns were 3.15 metres, tip to tip in a straight line.

JR has passed on and the record changed hands a few times since. Their current record claim is the longest and second longest cow horns in Australia.

A great half day out, very informative and interesting.

A few snaps of beasts, part from the last one, I have no idea what breed they are!

Texas Longhorn Ranch, Charters Towers Qld

Texas Longhorn Ranch, Charters Towers Qld

Texas Longhorn Ranch, Charters Towers Qld

Texas Longhorn Ranch, Charters Towers Qld

Towns like Charters Towers have a couple of big social events in the year, one is the Show and another is The Rodeo. The Show is on next week, but tonight it's the Australian professional Rodeo Associations Charters Towers annual rodeo. Yeehaw. Our only other visit to a rodeo was here at CT a few years back, and it was a great night out. We had booked months ago for this year and just as well, it's a Sold Out event. These things run for days, but the big action is the Saturday night finals. The place was starting fill up by the time we arrived at five, so we grabbed the first seats in then grandstand that we could find and settled in. There was about 20 minutes of action and then a break until six. We grabbed an excellent steak sandwich, nuggets, chips and bottles of water. Right on six the spruiker started up again. He'd make a brilliant auctioneer, full speed, full volume and never stopped once to draw breath. We were treated to three non-stop hours of action and the cowboys and cowgirls as they are now called, went through their paces. Naturally we have no idea what the rules are or how its scored but they had, Barrel racing, steer wresting, steer lassoing, team lassoing, and of course, bucking bronco with and without saddles and the final as always is the Bull riding. I think you have to show your 'certifiable' ticket before they allow you on these ones!

Anyhow, great fun to watch, the animals seem to almost enjoy throwing the rider as we did watching, and I'm sure no animal was ever hurt of put in any pain. Just good clean fun, well not so clean if you ended in the dirt. I have to say though that the skill exhibited by the contestants was just brilliant, from kids no more than 7 or 8, to the old-hand professionals. It's a slice of life we just don't see in the city, and which I'm sure many city folk just don't understand its importance to rural Australian and in turn to All Australians.

The best part to me was, that there we were sitting in the back row of the stands, in front of us were mums and dads and grandmas and pas and boys and girls and kids, and everyone seemed to be having just a great family night out. And even though it was night, and there was a quite a crowd around the bar up behind us, those kids from little ones to teens came and went all night, not one mum or dad seemed the slightest bit concerned. Ain't that the way life should be?

Taking a tumble: Bronco 1, Rider 0. Rodeo Charters Towers Qld

Everyone a Champion in their speciality. Rodeo Charters Towers Qld

As the sunset not-so-slowly in the west, the action got underway. Rodeo Charters Towers Qld