[AusRace] Uri-nation, wandering horses and Windellema

[Tony Moffat]

Windellema has a few things going for it - my grandfather Thomas Edgar
Woodger was born there.

Leora was Scottish but had never been to Scotland - she may have been
conceived on the ship on the way out here, or to New York, then on to here,
way too much information for this bloke, but as an ice breaker it was pretty
good.
.
Leora - Lee, worked in a bank, the E,S and A, and I worked on a golf course
but was paid at the bank so we met that way. 

She said I see you ride a motorbike. I had made obvious by laying it
sideways outside, cursed spring loaded side stands that they are, especially
when broken.

Well, she said, how about coming with us tomorrow to Windellema. The Doctors
wife keeps racehorses, retireds, and a mob of them have run off up the
creek.

So there I was, next day, me and my trusty 250 Cooper and some others on big
British twins, a 6  cylinder Benelli, a few other brands as well, 10 at
least on bikes.
Lee, and the other girls she told me about were no where to be seen.

 A man with a big hat and ridiculously high elastic sided boots told us what
was wanted. Me, and another would scout the creek line while the others
stuck to the road. Those big bikes are not suitable for low speed tonking
anyway, it's a heat thing, and European bikes stop, dead, when or if they
get hot.

A short distance down the creek, 2 miles, we did find some horses and pushed
these up and away from the creek to the roadside fence on the higher ground.
>From there they were escorted out of sight and we went back down to the
creek.

It was hot and still, and I heard music. We came around a bend in the creek
and there were people, nudes, everywhere.

 A girl called me handsome and I asked her if she had seen any horses around
here, like. She said no, and I said no to her and I went back up onto high
ground and out through a gate. The other rider remained and was last seen
taking off his shirt and boots.

This place was a peace festival, prevalent in my day, and often held here.
It cost a couple of hundred to enter, you and your van, caravan, camper, and
that money bought you a meal a day, entertainment in the form of music,
theatre, dance, liquid refreshment up until mid-day and a sense of
belonging.

 It was the Universal Religion Inc group hootenanny, they called it a tribe,
and you were expected to find the light, hopefully your life's partner, and
certainly your wallet was lightened.

We, the non-believers, called it the Uri-nation, cute, as did others who
went there and came away un-enlightened, single, sober and money poorer. One
year there was an offensive tummy bug doing the rounds afterwards, and most
years there was a pubic hair infestation that required regular dousing and
dusting with powdered insecticide which stung the end of droopy, apparently,
and that geography further round the bend, and caused you to be ostracized
at home, and at work, if they ever found out. They did because it was a
notifiable disease. 

The music was terrible. Based on the belief that I have a guitar, I can play
the guitar, or drums, or organ, or uke, any of that seemed to be the go. No,
it was more a get the gear off and the sun onto the body kind of place,
really, and don't be recognized.

 I saw my brother and have reminded him of that sighting for close to 60
years now. Good ammo.

Windellema was pleasant though, they had good milkshakes there and it was a
ride any summer afternoon, after work usually with a return on the Lester
plains road which zoomed up and down through the hills and saddles
overlooking the plain. The roadside trees were mostly dead, barkless, and
for a few miles you rode in and through a forest wasteland, a failed  farm
enterprise that was to be a King Ranch  but cattle prices fell and they
don't do sheep and this was the epicenter of fine wool sheep breeding.

It was decided the horses had not wandered further than the hootenanny and
so must have gone up the slopes to the tableland to the south east. My bike
was made for that country and I spent two petrol tank loads looking and
finding them. Two of the horses, there were 7, were injured, hobbling, but
they were left. They were expectant mothers, and both were group winners and
their foals were expected to pay for everything.

I did not see Lee or her friends until I went back into the bank on pay day.
She didn't go, that's why she wasn't seen and at least I could tell her
about Urin-nation, and  the horses. We had quite a few dates too until she
went to Queensland and worked in a zoo.


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