Tara Festival and Camel Races 2nd - 5th August 2024

 Friday 2nd August 2024

We've decided to head out to Tara for the festival and camel races.  Our neighbours are from Tara and had suggested we would enjoy it - it's held every second year.

We've never been to camel races in all our years of travelling, we never quite got the timing right, kept missing the camel races out west by about a week or so. We've never been to Tara or even been through Tara on the way somewhere else - so a first on both accounts for us!

We got on the road by 9am heading to Kaimkillenbun to have lunch at The Bun Hotel, but first we needed to stop in Kilcoy A. because it would be time for a comfort stop for me and B. we had been told by our neighbours to take cash out with us because most years at the festival the network gets overloaded and the Eftpos machines go down.  Since we hadn't had time during the week to get to the bank, an ATM in Kilcoy was the next best thing.  Now, here's the first delay in our trip today, there is a perfectly good ATM on the corner of the main street right, well Husband couldn't find it 🤔however he did find the ATM in the Exchange Hotel which being it was 10.30am was conveniently open and therefore he thought it rude not to have  a beer since we'd used their ATM - really......   When I walked past the sign on the pub steps, you know how you look at something and you just know .....  yep, I knew I didn't have to go any further and he'd be inside the pub of course!!  😂

After a quick beer and chin wag with another punter at the bar, we headed back to the car HOWEVER here comes the next small delay for the day..... we walked past an elderly staffy sitting with his owners and thought that he just needed a pat (after asking the owners first of course) or if I'm honest we needed to pat the staffy 🐶  Okay, so distraction finished we continued on our way to The Bun Hotel.  It was quite a slow trip for fair while due to a silly little old car that was holding up the entire highway due to barely being able to do 80klm in the 100 zone and barely doing 50klm up the hills.  Finally we got an overtaking lane and as many vehicles as possible went past him 😖 very frustrating and inconsiderate.

Anyhoo, finally arrived at The Bun Hotel about 1pm and it was pretty busy with quite a few caravans parked and locals, luckily for us the travellers were all moving on so we found a park.  The bar was stilled packed when we walked in and had to squeeze past everyone to the spare seats.  There were quite a few people still having lunch, so we ordered a drink and perused the menu.  It was amazing how many caravans came past heading toward Dalby, we hoped they weren't all heading to Tara!

We enjoyed a couple of drinks and Craig had the Lamb Cutlet special which was apparently absolutely delicious, while yes I had a Chicken Parmy.  You can tell if a Parmy is going to be good when it's been made with love as I say, and this one was delicious.   Craig wants to go back so he can try the T-Bone for dinner that was one the specials, so we might have to stay overnight next time we head that direction and hope the specials are the same 😆  Time to hit the road again, stop for fuel in Dalby no more distractions, we need to high tail it out to Tara, so we don't miss the camping move in cut off time of 5pm today.

Ha, so much for no more distractions - we saw the sign the Lake Broadwater camping area which is one that has been on our to do list, so Craig figured we might as well stop in for a look see since we were going past 🙄 It's about 10klm in from the Moonie Highway and is really quite a nice looking camping area.  It has toilets, level areas to park you caravan etc., there is a powered section at one end, shady trees but unfortunately no dogs allowed.  We did hear an awful lot of Corella's squawking, so it might pay to look up and listen before setting up camp there.

Finally, Tara Showgrounds 3.40pm and holy crap it is a mad house, organised but a mad house!  I don't think we've ever seen so many caravans and people in one location and are wondering "what have we done" coming here!  The line of caravans to get into the camping area wasn't too bad actually and it was moving through the first marshalling area quite fast.  While we waited, Craig had an amusing chat with the marshalling Lady for the lines in, who was staying well hydrated with a can of Rum and Coke 😂  Love it!

We got our wrist bands, Tara Festival Program booklet, camping permit to display on the dashboard and were told to follow the green signs to our camping zone "Racecourse East", where we would be met at the next marshalling station by the campsite parking officials.  Now, our neighbour Hannah who was volunteering at the Festival informed us afterwards that our parking attendant was Uncle Don (yep she's a small town LOL).  Uncle Don was very sweet and said he had a nice site in mind for us since we had no friends and were travelling alone 😆 and the site was pretty close, otherwise his only other options were right down the back which will be miles away.  So off we went with Uncle Don leading the way on a quad bike, he got Craig to come have  a look and make sure we were happy, then helped Craig reverse back out of the lane so he could go down the next lane which was an easier entrance into the campsite.  What neither of us failed to notice though with a nice campsite, was that there is a dirty big tree above us which is not going to be conducive for making solar power now is it!  Never mind, we were all set up by around 4.15pm and sat down for an afternoon drink and relax - it had been an exhausting day.

It's pretty well organised and laid out in the camping area, each site is marked clearly on the four corners and they are really big sites.  Because our neighbour was there with friends and had parked right over next to them, there was a bit of "yard" between her and us and we parked our car across the edge that area.  Plenty of room though.  Holy cow there are some people camped here!  And it's sooooo dusty!

                                                    The is just left and right of our campsite on one side.

You can see the dust in the sky

The festival opens this afternoon at 5pm with food trucks and entertainment on 2 stages.  During the afternoon we were entertainment by our fellow campers cracking a whip.

We headed over to the festival about 5.30pm and upon entering realised that we have to purchase drinks tickets inside the festival for alcohol, spirits and wine and the line up was enormous.  Water and soft drinks can be bought from various stalls around the grounds.  We grabbed some dinner from one of the food trucks (Large Karaage Chicken and rice $40 for 2 bowls), found somewhere to sit down and eat and then headed back to camp.  It's suppose to be 0 degrees tonight, so the new diesel heater should pay for itself straight away! 

It was nice sitting sitting around watching the sunset, people coming and going and then looking at the stars, while sitting around our little campfire.  It had dropped to about 4 degrees by 9pm, so on went the heater in the caravan.

And then the fog started to roll in, that was really cool....

We had a very comfortable night inside the caravan with the heater going and at some stage later in the evening, I heard some fellow campers making their way home after the bands had finished having a lovely sing-a-long together - they should not give up their day jobs 😆

Saturday 3rd August, 2024

She was a bit nippy this morning, coffee inside the van with the heater.  Festival gates open at 8am and first camel race is at 9am, along with entertainment on the stages and markets.  Headed over after breakfast around 9.45am and first thing we did, was line up for our drink tickets - we got 30 tickets to be safe LOL (Beer, Wine or cider is one ticket, Premix Spirits are two tickets and a tick costs $6.00 each).  Of course Craig felt a beer was the next order of the day 😆

We walked around all the market stalls first, bought a T-Shirt, a lovely little leather handbag that goes across your body, Craig bought 3 different flavoured Jerky (upon eating some of the Peri Peri one back at camp later on, announced with very watery eyes that it had quite a punch 🤣)  There was some camp oven cooking going on 

Also watched the chainsaw carving bloke, pretty impressive sculptures.

Grabbed an early lunch from the food truck Brazilian BBQ (which was at Stanthorpe for the A & G Festival), we grabbed the 2 person platter again which was soooo yummy.  We headed back to camp after lunch, we have noted that if you're not on the racecourse fence you can't really see much of the camel race or the yabbie races.  Arvo nap for the old man, before heading back over for the last camel and yabbie races at 4pm.  The aim is to get a spot on the side of the track, but we were a bit early so stopped to watch the Outback Stockman's Show which consisted of a trick horse, registered proper stock horse, Brahman bull that is very dosile. We got to give the Braham bull a little tickle and scratch after the show, which he seemed to like 🐄

We ended up finding a spot to watch the camel race on the opposite side of the track to the festival on a bit of a knoll.  Final camel race is getting under way and Barry seems to be the favourite - that's Barry the camel not the jockey LOL!  Took a little bit to get all the camels organised down at the start line, some sitting down, one facing the wrong way, it was hilarious listening to the announcer.  And we're off and talk about funny,  would be the funniest race we've ever watched.  Pretty sure Barry the camel won but there was a back runner (probably the one facing the wrong way LOL), who crossed the line a bit after the rest of the pack.

Off to watch a yabbie race now, after stopping in at the bar.  Wow, didn't expect the bidding on the yabbies to get up to around $750 a yabbie 😮  We didn't bid on one.......  Yabbie racing is not what you would call fast paced is it 😆 and I've no idea which yabbie won.

We watched the band Murphy's Pigs for a little while, the seating in front of the stage was packed as was the standing area, so we figured they must have been popular.  They looked like an orchestral band, turns out they sang sea shanty's, kinda like that Fisherman's friend group from Wales I think, the ones they made a movie about.

Some of the young patrons around us started to get a little bit silly, so we headed back to camp and opted for a warm shower and sitting around our campfire while the spag bol warmed up in the camp oven over the fire.  

We could hear the bands playing from the campsite but without the drunk yahoos annoying us - yeah yeah,  I know what you're thinking - we're not good with crowds, so you have wonder what we were thinking when we decided to come to a festival right LOL.

Sunday 4th August, 2024

Last day of the festival, after breakfast we headed over to catch a camel race, use our last 10 drink tickets and also to get lunch from the Smoking food truck.  Ticked all those boxes, watched a bit more chainsaw carving and Craig tried some lamb or beef from the camp oven cooking folk.  Stopped off at the petty zoo area to have a look at the baby lambs, goats and chickens (I do miss having my chickens at home),  did the rounds of the markets again and headed back to camp.  It appears there was just too much excited for the morning and the old bloke needed another nanna nap 😆

Yep,  I got him a camel hat 

I went for a wander around while Craig was sleeping and there are quite a lot of empty campsites now.  You can camp at the showground until Monday if you want, which is what we are doing.  Our neighbours came back during the afternoon and we were chatting as their friends came to sit around their campfire and have drinks and nibbles.

We put our campfire on so we could re-heat our spag bol for dinner, all the time chatting away with our neighbours Ken, Kay and Carmel and their friends.  Ended up quite the night with the neighbours, lots of drinks and laughs to finish up a great time away at Tara.

Overall, the Tara Festival organisers have done a wonderful job, camping areas were great, campsites were huge, yes the campsite are marked out, there were plenty of portable toilets and showers throughout the campgrounds and festival area (toilets) and they seemed to be constantly getting cleaned and filled up with water.

Booking in for camping was easy, fast and efficient.  An enjoyable time at Tara.

It is, I suppose your quintessential small town festival that would bring together the town locals and the surrounding property families and workers for an enjoyable weekend, but in saying that it would seem that the Tara Festival has grown now to the point of being that popular, the camping old out weeks in advance (2,500 campsites I think) and they had to halt ticket sales at 7,000 because they had reached capacity.  Apparently the first time in the history of the festival this has happened.  Well done Tara!!

The festival is held every 2 years.  The camping area is dog friendly, however you cannot take your dog into the Festival area or near the camels.  You are allowed to leave you dog at your campsite unattended while you attend the festival.  Normal rules apply if taking your dog in regards to picking up poo, being on a lead at all times etc.

Monday 5th August 2024

Quick breakfast this morning, packed up, said goodbye to Ken, Kay and Carmel and headed home.  Never seen so many caravans on the road in a line heading in one direction 😆

Stopped off at the Exchange Hotel for lunch to break up the drive for Craig and give him a breather.  Arrived home about 2.30pm and unpacked, thankfully before the rain starts tomorrow.

Look at the dust on the bonnet!

We'll be off camping again in about 5-6 weeks.