Charleville Camel, Donkey and Yabbie Race Festival

Festival Location: Charleville, QLD, Australia

Festival Type(s): Bizarre Sports Events , Bizarre Festivals , Parties

Festival Photos of Charleville Camel, Donkey and Yabbie Race Festival: gallery 1

Charleville Camel, Donkey and Yabbie Race Festival

by © John Dodson 2008

Whilst travelling through Central Queensland we heard of the upcoming Charleville Camel, Donkey and Yabbie Race Festival and felt we just had to be there. We made a dash to Charleville risking life and limb, travelling at night through the kangaroo infested outback. For those of you who have not had experienced the Australian Outback behind the wheel at night, I will briefly digress and explain. For some reason kangaroos and emus, especially at night, develop a death wish. Whenever they see headlights approaching they feel the need to cross the road - in front of you. Even if it involves a frantic race alongside the vehicle they will do it and then run or jump in front of the vehicle. This often results in a dead or seriously injured emu or kangaroo as is evidenced by the many carcasses that litter the side and indeed the centre of the road.

Back to the story. We arrived in Charleville at 11 a.m. having stayed at Quilpie - some 200 odd km - away for the night. We went straight to the local racetrack to witness the first of the camel races. There was only a small crowd at that stage but as the festivities were to continue over 2 days it was obvious people were saving themselves. We quickly learnt only to bet on the favourite in the Camel Races. All camels are not equal when it comes to racing. Some like to run, some like to stroll and some prefer to lie down even after the race has started. Naturally I chose to bet on the latter and by the time they finished it was almost time for the next race. After three races I stopped betting and just watched for the spectacle. And what a spectacle it was. How the jockeys stayed on the backs of these strange looking creatures I don't know......but they did.

In between the camel races there were many other strange and particularly Australian activities. Wood-chopping, beer drinking, a continuous barbecue, country and western singing, donkey races - where the public were invited to be the jockeys - and of course, the most exciting event of all......the yabbie races. If you haven't witnessed a yabbie race you have not lived. There is not necessarily a lot of exciting action or even danger but it is an enthralling event and not to be missed. For those of you who do not know what a yabbie is I will attempt to describe one. It is a relatively small creature with one huge claw which hurts when it grabs you, a hard shell encrusted body with a fish like tail which it curls under its body and helps it to propel itself through the water. It is well designed for an aquatic life. It is not so well designed for land travel, which makes it ideal for a bizarre event at an outback festival.

Before the race begins the yabbies are paraded in front of the crowd and given exotic names. They have numbers painted on their shells for identification purposes, as they do tend to look alike. They are then auctioned off to the public with the owner being eligible for the prize-money, which is proportional to the amount paid for the yabbies.

Following the auction the course was then laid out. It was a circular piece of canvas about 3 metres in diameter with a small circle marked out in the middle. Water was sloshed on to the canvas as the weather was hot and the heat could have cooked the yabbies. With the crowd yelling encouragement (why I don't know, as yabbies are deaf) the yabbies were released in the centre circle and the race was on with the winner to be the first yabbie to totally cross the outside line.

Now I have to say at this juncture that yabbies do not have an in built instinct for racing. Nor is their sense of direction well developed. As soon as they were placed in the centre they did not all sprint for the edge. Four of them settled in the warm pool of water at the centre and went to sleep, two of them either attacked each other or started to perform a strange mating ritual and the remainder aimlessly started wandering in indiscriminate directions. By now the crowd, especially the yabbie owners were on their feet and shouting encouragement. Yabbie no. 4 was striding toward the finish line well ahead of the others and at the exact time half of his body was across the line, he collapsed in exhaustion. The others also decided to rest or change direction. With a large amount of money riding on the result the crowd started to turn ugly. The yabbies were threatened with all sorts of diabolical tortures if they didn't respond. Yabbie no. 4, obviously sensing the anger of the crowd awoke from his stupor but instead of surging forward across the line beat a steady retreat backwards, amid groans from the distraught owner. The race was still alive.

And so it went on with one yabbie after another appearing to gain the ascendancy and then slowing down or turning around. This is the excitement of yabbie racing.

The race eventually did end. I am not sure which one won nor did I really care as I was not one of the owners. There was a slight distraction during the race when one of the onlookers collapsed, possibly from the excitement or maybe it was from sunstroke as it was quite hot. This did not affect the crowd though as they jostled for the best position to view the race. With the race over and prizes presented the next batch of yabbies was presented to the public. I could not stand any more excitement and moved on to the other attractions.

It was a very full program of camel, donkey and yabbie races and by 5 p.m. I was exhausted and headed off to the camp for a rest. There was still more excitement to come. That night was the bull riding and this was followed by a country and western concert. I should also add that the weekend started with a bush ball the night before which was probably why there were not too many people at the races by 11 a.m. The racing program was repeated on the Sunday but we were already on our way northward.

It was a very memorable weekend and if you are near Charleville in the first week of August make sure you get there - it's well worth the effort.

by John Dodson

Festival Photos of Charleville Camel, Donkey and Yabbie Race Festival: gallery 1