FEATURE
A pleasure ride with a practical purpose This year’s Queensland ATHRA ride raised over $7,000 towards drought relief, writes JANE CAMENS.
W
e knew there were fires. The skies in northern New South Wales were brown with smoke haze, and news reports were dire, but it was the time of year when the South-East Queensland branch of the Australian Trail Horse Riding Association (ATHRA) holds its annual eightday not-to-be-missed September camp. Most of us who’d booked held our collective breath, waiting to hear whether it was safe to ride. Some Tenterfield riders who usually join the camp cancelled early because they were too busy rescuing horses from fire-affected neighbouring properties to come this year. But the Beaudesert ATHRA Club, which organised this year’s camp with the support of the Queensland Government, said the ride was on. We loaded up our floats and hit the road.
The Killarney Showground was base camp.
but, by September this year, following the
Across the road, all that remained of the
worst drought the area has ever seen, almost
former golf club was a sad, peeling sign. The
all the dams and remaining lakes were dry.
Condamine River was now no more than a
Most of the creek crossings were dry. One
muddy creek. The air smelled of smoke from the fires just across the border. I’d never seen land so dry that wasn’t designated ‘desert’. It’s ironic that Killarney was given its name in 1840 by two Irish brothers, the Leslies, who were reminded of the green and lush Killar-
that had never been empty before. It’s strange to think that in February, only seven months earlier, when Erin Quirke, President of the Beaudesert Shire ATHRA
ney in County Kerry in Ireland. In those days
club, made a reconnaissance trip to the area,
in its Australian namesake, there were many
the country was green.
lakes and wooded hills. But most of the lakes were drained for agriculture, and the timber
“It was a completely different place,” she
felled. Nevertheless, although drought has
says. “The country was lush and the river
ravaged this country, it’s always recovered,
crossings knee deep.”
Every mile driving northwest from the relatively green coastal strip of northern New South Wales, across the Border Ranges into Queensland, the country grew progressively drier. Around each bend the land stretched out in increasingly parched vistas. Finally, my mare Beauty and I arrived in Killarney, a small township 35 kilometres southeast of Warwick on the Condamine River, where we joined some 60 other riders. 46
local told me that there were dams empty
HORSEVIBES MAGAZINE - NOVEMBER 2019
The air smelled of smoke from the fires just across the border. I’d never seen land so dry that wasn’t designated ‘desert’.
