The tiny, remote Western Australian town of Coolgardie was bustling to the brim over the weekend of August 16, as patrons from all over the nation flocked in for the Coolgardie Rodeo and Outback Festival.
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Some 4,500 people attended the event over the three days, which is nearly six times the town’s usual population of 800, to see all that was on offer.
It was the fourth edition of the event, which is organised by Outback Rodeos, and it has only become more popular year on year, particularly with trucking fans.
This year, 32 trucks entered for the chance to claim prizes valued at $500 across a number of categories, including Best Old School Mack, Old School Kenworth, Rustic, Work Horse, Kenworth, Mack and Unique Banger.
On the ute side, entrants were competing for the Best Work Ute Setup, Best Camping Rig, Best Muscle Ute, Best Old School Ute and Best B & S Beast.
Event organiser Bodean Buckingham says it was a cracking weekend full of fun for all ages.
“We had about half an hour of bad weather, but for the most part people had a good time,” he tells Deals on Wheels.
“We had 1,400 people camping out the back. It was awesome. People came from all over Australia. Last year we had people from every state other than the ACT.
“We know we had a few competitors fly in for it. We had interstate travellers, New South Wales people.
“We’re trying to grow the truck side of things. We’d love to have more support from the truckies and fill the whole Lady Loch truck bay. That’s why we do it there. We want to see it full of rigs.
“We grew the prize money this year to make sure blokes that win something have enough money to fill a tank. There was close to $20,000 for truck prizes alone, ute prizes $15,000.”
The festival kicked off on the Friday morning, with several fun competitions from 10am including the mug shuffle, flag race, sack race, barrel race and more.
In the afternoon, the country kids got to take centre stage in the junior rodeo, with age groups from as young as under 8s all the way up to 18 competing across a number of events.
This included steer, barrel, breakaway, bending and dummy roping competitions, which were all great fun for aspiring rodeo riders.
There were pony rides for the youngsters, with awards presented for the junior rodeo-goers that evening.
With live music going long into the night, it was then a quick turnaround for the ute and truck musters, which kicked off at 8:30 on Saturday morning.
This then led into the highlight of the festival and what everybody was there for – the main rodeo.
Aspiring and experienced rodeo cowboys battled it out for $1500 in prize money in the open bareback, open saddle bronc, open steer wrestling and the ladies’ barrel race.
The Gareth Laurent Memorial Novice Bull Ride, named after late local legend Gareth Laurent, drew $1000 in prize money.
The Open Bull Ride was the star of the show, attracting $2000 for the winner.
It was a weekend that took significant organisation and set up, both before and after the event.
“I’ve been on site for almost two weeks,” Buckingham says.
“There’s 32 tons of fencing that we put up, 4.3km of it, all by volunteers. We’re a not-for-profit organisation that puts back into the community, we’re not a private-run business. We work together with community groups.
“I’ll be here for another week packing up still. This is more than a half a million-dollar event to organise.
“We provide power for all our food vendors, watercarts, graders and loaders, tractors, quadbikes. It’s pretty impressive.”
“We gave out over $15,000 in prize money and prizes.”
And while the rodeo is what draws the crowds, the festival wouldn’t be complete without Sunday’s classic competition – the Camp Oven and Slow Cook Championship.
Aspiring chefs competed to make the best meat and three veg, casserole or stew, sweet/cake/pudding, slow cooked brisket, ribs or traditional damper.
“The overall winner got to take away the coveted gold-plated camp oven,” Buckingham says. “It’s the only one in WA!”
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