Bangtail muster rolls through Alice Springs on 2025 Labour Day public holiday
Punters who weren’t already enjoying a public holiday in the Red Centre had extra reason to when the Bangtail muster rolled through Alice Springs. See the pictures.
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Centralians have gathered together in the Red Centre capital to support local community groups in a march which has been running for 65 years now.
Held on the Labour Day holiday in Alice Springs the bangtail muster once again rolled through the Alice Springs CBD on Monday.
The parade began on Todd St near the council chambers in Alice, and moved down the road through the mall before ending at Anzac Oval.
This year’s theme was “the magic of friendship” and was organised by the Rotary Club and Alice Springs councillor and Alice Plaza manager Eli Melky.
He said about 35 different community groups took part.
“It was brilliant because originally there were some doubts about traffic management and just some of the red tape earlier on in the piece and the organising side of things. But we overcame that and it’s a beautiful family community event,” he said.
This year’s march featured dancers from Studio B, battleships from Henley on Todd, a massive bull from the Alice Springs show, plenty of cars (one even featuring independent Araluen MLA Robyn Lambley), union representatives, and more.
There were plenty of lollies for the kids, with the Alice Springs Town Council Mayor Matt Paterson and other groups throwing them out.
Rotarians are other community clubs were also hard at work raising funds for a variety of causes such a palliative care and more.
Todd St in Alice Springs was packed with punters and family, all waving to those marching and enjoying the warm autumn weather in Alice Springs.
The name of the march comes from how ranchers would stocktake their cattle after mustering them: they would cut the hairy end of a cow’s tail after muster in order to know how many cattle they had – with name “bangtail” coined to name the practice.
The first bangtail muster took place in 1959 in Alice Springs.
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