Rankine races

Thursday June 20^th:1929

Having arisen, showered, shaved and breakfasted had a talk to some of the men folk about the place, not many being about as most had gone to Rankine, and then looked over the bus and got her ready for the next stage of the journey. There are 3 little girls in the family and very nice kiddies they are too. After lunch was over and we had all had a yarn together with Mrs Lloyd, the Dr and I left about 3 o’clock. The bus now begins to give trouble and in the first couple of miles had to stop and adjust the timing which for some reason was slipping. After a while though she went alright. After passing through a couple of gates we came on to Alexandria Station, the second biggest cattle station in the world with an area of………

The feed here if anything is better and we came out on to a real open plain. As fas as we could see there was nothing but open flat country , rising away to the horizon. The only thing that broke the sameness was an occasional tree and in places a sub-artesian bore. After about 30 miles of this we at last sighted some trees and knew a river was near and eventually pulled up at Rankine on the Rankine River. Rankine consists of a police barracks with 2 police stationed there and a store. The store mostly sells petrol to people passing through and happens out here to be 35 shillings a case. Rankine at present reveals a gay and lively scene and I learnt on arrival that all that are left on the various stations practically in the N.T. are a few blacks looking after the place. The Rankine meeting is evidentally the event of the year Tout here taking the form mostly of horse racing, where there is keen competition between the various stations. They all have about 15 horses which they bring in and compete against each other. The horses are only grass fed and very scraggy but they get as much fun I suppose, perhaps more than others do from their trained beasts. The various stations have their own camps and I fell in with the Alexandria crowd and camped down in their vicinity at one of the bores. Had supper, though up at the bore where all the catering was done at 4 shillings a head. Rough and ready too with tin plates and pannikins and everybody for themselves. There was pictures and a dance at night in a hall on the sports ground but patronising neither. I unrolled my swag and under a full moon by the side of the car I turned in. Notb to sleep very soundly as folk were walking about all night, some merry and others returning from the dance and by the time the last arrived home, others began to arrive, bring in the horses and get breakfast on.

I breakfasted with the crowd and this of course being the 21^st day of June, a Friday. I heard of a motor mechanic in the place and so found him and we spent the morning on the bus. Discovered why the timing was missing and righted it, readjusted the timing and one or two other things and got the bus in good going order again. After lunch I went about among the folk and made myself known as best I could and got to know the various folk there. The people though are too interested in the performance of their horses to have time for anything else, except a refresher every now and then. One thing is very noticable out here and that is that it is no disgrace to be drunk and there is plenty of it done. Not that everybody does get drunk, not at all, but those that do are thought none the less of. Every place, every home out here though has its decanter of whisky on the table and the first greeting one gets is practically ‘have a nip’, and nips are frequent throughout the day. This though is the usual and accepted manner of living of the folk out here. There are of course here as well as anywhere else, the real boozers that are a nuisance to themselves as well as everyone else, they were well in evidence at Rankine. The Country Womens Assocn out here is a live body and doing a good work in the interests of the social life of the people. They had an evening on the Friday, mostly a dance with items and competitions. I put in an appearance for a whilee but soon retired again not to sleep too much, as it was a repitiomn of the previous evening.