Experience and ideas

I’ve been a bit quiet of late. Busy with many different things. One of them was attending my sixth year at the Deniliquin Ute Muster!

A group of 11 of us in 8 different utes made a convoy towards Deni on Thursday. We spent the night lined up along the edge of the road with hundreds of other utes and then up at 4:30 Friday morning to start up the engines, pack up the camping gear and bunch forward. Gates opened at 6, bull bars to tail gates we followed each other in. An hour later, we made it to the entry, grabbed our diamond stickers and picked our camping spot in the ute paddock, or as the police and people who camp in the family camping area call it, the feral pit, but we fit right in!

Two days we spent drinking, laughing, cracking it with each other and passing out after a long day only to be woken again by illegal fire works exploding right above our heads.

Music played the whole time. If it wasn’t coming from the live performers in the venue it was blaring out someone’s speakers they’d invented to sit on a tray and run off ute battery power. Key bangers and engines revving made it impossible for silence all weekend. Smoke from campfires and exhaust fumes joined the dust and filled the air. All this created the Ute Muster atmosphere we love.

Drunken people dressed up in onesie to gain attention and hugs, others shedding their clothes then quickly dragging them back on as the police motorbikes ride through the many rows of parked utes.

If that doesn’t sound fun, there is the actual venue. Bars with way too many people packed into them like marinated sardines. The later it became, the more marinated!

Circlework comps with engine revving and dust flying. Whoever watching, if they weren’t covered in dust before they attended. They soon were.

Lawn mower races, yes, lawn mowers. No they don’t cut lawn!

Many other comps, demonstrations and shows continued on through the day. Wood chopping by axe and chainsaw grabbed out attention. A small chair was made with a chainsaw cutting into a round log at different angles. It amused most of our group. Those of us who owned a chainsaw was now itching to find a decent size log to try it on.

All experience has given me ideas for a new story. (Even though I need to finish the ones I’ve already started) A short one which follows a group attending the Deni Ute Muster.

Three nights, once a year on the Deniliquin plains. How much can happen?

Keep and eye out for it!