A country knees up to remember

Race camels (or yabbies), ride a horse-drawn carriage, and join a singalong around the campfire at the Tara Festival of Culture and Camel Races

Race camels (or yabbies), ride a horse-drawn carriage, and join a singalong around the campfire at the Tara Festival of Culture and Camel Races

TEQ IT’S LIVE! | NATIVE CONTENT | JUNE | WEST

A country knees up to remember

Race camels (or yabbies), ride a horse-drawn carriage, and join a singalong around the campfire at the Tara Festival of Culture and Camel Races

Angela Saurine

Picture: Stephen Mowbray

We partnered with IT’S LIVE! in Queensland to discover the state’s best events.

For most of the year, the tiny town of Tara, in Southern Queensland Country, quietly goes about its business, with 2000 residents working to support the surrounding farming community. Every second year in August, however, Tara steps boldly into the spotlight with a celebration of country culture in the form of the Tara Festival of Culture and Camel Races (August 2-4).

The family-friendly three-day event sees the town’s population swell to more than 16,000 as visitors make a pilgrimage to the Tara Showgrounds, 3.5 hours’ drive west of Brisbane.  

The action kicks off with a street parade on Friday, with six camel races on Saturday and six on Sunday, as well as an extravaganza of multicultural stage shows including indigenous performances, haka dancers, Polynesian dancers, Indian, Caribbean, Latin music and more.

Other attractions include yabby races, bush poetry, market stalls, multicultural food stalls, Showtime FMX motorbike displays, helicopter flights, country music and street performers such as stilt walkers. There’s also plenty for kids to do, including amusement rides, camel rides, horse-drawn carriage rides, campfires every evening and fireworks on the Friday night.

Festivalgoers can camp on the site, which is walking distance to Tara’s main street. For the first time in 2019, a Ticket & Tent Stay Package is being offered, giving visitors the option to stay in a fully set up tent with stretcher beds, bedding and a few other camping comforts.

Camping at Tara Showgrounds.

The festival’s entertainment director Jessica Wilson says it’s a busy and exciting time for the town. “There are almost more camels than locals as our little town explodes with camels, entertainers and visitors,” she says. “It's only from the air that you can really appreciate just how many caravans and campers descend on our town for the festival.”

Ms Wilson says she love the event because it’s so unique.

“We’re Australia’s only festival of culture and camel racing,” she says. “There’s always something happening. You can be trackside watching a camel race then you turn around and there’s live entertainment on the stage. This year is a milestone year because it’s the 10th festival over the past 20 years.”

If you are making the journey to Tara, why not continue on to experience more of what this part of the state has to offer. The region is full of colourful bush characters, stunning landscapes and fascinating history.

Hit one of the well-maintained highways for the journey west or go off-road in a 4WD to go camping, fishing in lakes and rivers, explore gorges and deserts or attend events such as camel races and rodeos, which are held throughout the year.

A day of driving to Tara’s northwest will bring you to Longreach, where visitors can discover stories of explorers, pioneers and stockmen. See a full-scale replica of Qantas’s first aircraft at the Qantas Founders Museum and visit The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre to learn about country Australia from the arrival of the Aborigines more than 40,000 years ago through to British settlement and the establishment of agriculture, mining and other industries.

Take a ride on a restored stagecoach drawn by five stock horses and dine on pub fare at The Welcome Home Cafe, Tearoom and Stonegrill, housed in a restored heritage building.

Dinosaur fossils are one of Outback Queensland’s big drawcards, and you can follow Australia’s Dinosaur Trail to Winton, Richmond and Hughenden and surrounding areas.

 Robyn Mackenzie at the Eromanga Natural History Museum.

Lark Quarry Conservation Park, 115km southwest of Winton, boasts the world’s only recorded evidence of a dinosaur stampede, which occurred around 95 million years ago when up to 150 carnivorous dinosaurs were stalked by a larger predator.

Winton’s The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History also has the world’s largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils, while in Hughenden you can see a life-sized skeletal Muttaburrasaurus at the Flinders Discovery Centre and Museum.

Further south, at Eromanga, visitors to the Eromanga Natural History Museum can be part of a fossil excavation and touch a 95 million year old dinosaur bone.

Mount Isa, around 800km west of Townsville, is home to the biggest rodeo in the southern hemisphere, The Mount Isa Mines Rodeo (August 8-11), which is held over four days in August. Here you can also tour mines and an underground hospital, fish for barramundi before watching the sun set over Lake Moondarra and see fossils at The Riversleigh Fossil Centre at Outback at Isa.

MORE EVENTS IN 2019

Planning ahead? Make one of these events the focus of a holiday in Outback Queensland this year:

The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival, Outback Queensland, June 28-July 6Inspired by the iconic Sundance Film Festival, the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival brings a touch of Hollywood to the town of Winton, 170km northwest of Longreach. Developed and driven by passionate locals, the festival celebrates movies filmed in the Outback and includes location tours and masterclasses.

Birdsville Big Red Bash, Outback Queensland, July 16-18With an impressive line-up featuring the likes of Midnight Oil, The Living End, Kasey Chambers and Busby Marou, this year’s Big Red Bash will light up the Simpson Desert. Since its launch in 2013, the festival has provided a uniquely Outback experience for visitors to the famous frontier town. As well as the music, there are multiple activities from movie screenings, to dune surfing and helicopter rides, not to mention the Bashville Drags and Fashions in the Desert, a Priscilla, Queen of the Desert-inspired fundraiser for the Royal Flying Doctors Service.

Learn more about Queensland's best events here.

Originally published as A country knees up to remember