Went to the one and only cow race in Australia today at Mt Compass 20 mins drive inland on the way to Victor Harbour. It is very much a rural event with a lot of the locals attending. There are a lot of events during the day to keep crowds entertained and the highlight is the cow auction and then two cow races followed by the Cup. It is in its 37th year and seems very popular. the day starts at 12noon and ends up late at night with bands from 6.30pm. All funds raised go to charity. The highest bid for a cow was $5000. The cows are loaned by local farmers for the day and the auction is purely fund raising. Riders are chosen for each cow but it is obvious the cows nor the riders have any experience at this. We didn’t realise the cows would be ridden thought they would wear colours and the first one to the end wins. We only stayed for the first race (of sorts) as it was getting late so didn’t see the big race. One of the prior events was a working dog demo and two were kelpies who looked very similar to Coco – it could almost have been her except they were males. They rounded up sheep and then cattle which we hadn’t see before. Other events included a milk skulling competition, rubberboot marathons (wet boots and surfaces) and an assortment of proud ute drivers showing off their utes which some were quite speccy. Have to say it didn’t come close to the dog in a ute competition we have in WA. It was quite a fun day and there were lots of stalls selling all kinds of local produce/crafts. It would good if Cowarmup (cow town for none WA-ians) had something like this. Mt Compass is a very rural agricultural area and I think I heard the commentator say that 9 months of the year they have rain! Could have misheard that – seems odd when the rest of the state is in drought. We have been dodging the tour down under bike race and driving to Mt Compass today we actually had to drive along some of the route, you should have seen the masses of spectators alongside the roadways – we reckon half of Adelaide must have been there – it was amazing to see so many people for quite a distance.
Today (Sunday) drove the west side of the Fleurieu Peninsula to Victor Harbour stopping along the way at Goolwa and Hindmarsh Island – where the Murray River meets the ocean. Goolwa is a lovely little town – very touristy and today was market day with a lot of local produce/craft on sale. Very busy spot probably because of the long weekend (for some). To get to the Murray Mouth you have to drive over a very impressive bridge to Hindmarsh Island. The Murray River traverses 610kms through SA to get to the ocean. Due to the drought dredging of sand has to be done to stop the river mouth closing at a cost of $6M per annum. Amazing the difference between the temperature 40 odd kms can make – it was really chilly here and windy so we didn’t kayak like we were thinking of doing. We came across a town called Currency Creek which had a really interesting cemetry (normally wouldn’t stop at these) with some really old headstones the oldest we spotted was 1857. Onto Victor Harbour with a population of 12,000 in town and 20,000 in district. Again a very popular tourist destination with many holidaymakers from Adelaide. Apparently a lot of Adelaidians flee here to escape the heat as it can be 10 degrees cooler and it was chilly in shade today. The foreshore reminded us a little of Busselton but with much more activity and things to do and see. Driving home we took an inland route and found a spot called Glacier Rock, quite a significant geological area. A lot of the scenery in the lower Fleurieu reminded us of the SW of WA, take out the ranges and it we could easily be mistaken for being home.
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