Back in the harness

During the Cobb & Co Festival, held in August, Surat’s population seems positively metropolitan at quadruple its size. Across southern Queensland’s Maranoa region, there’s a detailed program of long-table dinners, markets, exhibitions, concerts and community events that culminates in the weekend’s re-enactment ride along the Cobb & Co Way, from Surat to the “2-horse town” of Yuleba, 76km away.

“When I was a kid, maybe 14, I thought ‘gee, I’d love to be born 100 years ago’. But now I’m not worried about that, because we’re doing it. It’s happening,” Rodney Sansom says. He’s one of the ‘teamsters’ (a driver of animal teams), who departed on Monday for a slower, 3-day ride from Yuleba to Surat in anticipation of the main festivities.

“I’m driving camels. I’ve just driven past a bullock team and the horse team will be here in a minute. That was my dream.”

Rodney is driving a replica Cobb & Co coach. His speech is punctuated by the voice commands typically used for draught animals: “Gee off!” (turn right), “Come ’ere!” (turn left), “Come ’ere Thirsty, straight on, ’ere ’ere!” (getting 5 camels to chuck a U-ey).

Sitting up in the box with Rodney is artist Kathy Ellem, who often accompanies the teamsters. Painting these scenes is Kathy’s way of honouring the draught animal tradition. “You spend time with these fellas, see how much effort goes into it, and you know this is just a little smidgen of the actual work people put into working with animals," she says.

As a former Surat local, Kathy helped coordinate the teamsters for the 2024 Cobb & Co Festival. There’s Rodney of Oakfield Ranch with his dromedary camels, Aleks Berzins of Marlie Australian Draught Horse Stud, and bullocky Philip Thomson OAM. Like most teamsters, they began learning the craft as teenagers: how to train, drive, harness or ‘yoke up’ teams, often with custom-made gear, in the uniquely Australian way.

But in a world no longer dependent on draught animals, much of that knowledge, Rodney explains, was nearly lost. “We’re catching it,” he says. “It’s good for these events to want us to come, so we can keep it alive.

“We can learn off the bullockies, we can learn off the horse guys. And they may learn off us too.”

The teamsters’ camp is a rotating cast of drovers, stockmen and wheelwrights – new and old friends from across the country invited to join the ride. Over fresh damper and shearers’ shandy (beer and port), they trade bush wisdom and spin yarns so unbelievable they must be true – about matadors, bulls in China shops, driving mules across the Arctic, horses for Hollywood, and camels for Christmas nativities.

Meanwhile, the Berzins’ young daughters play with whips made of sticks and baling twine, scheming about building wagons and training their own teams (of chooks or working dogs).

By the time the teamsters cross the bridge into Surat on Thursday afternoon, there’s a skyline of campervans and a crowd of grey nomads to greet them. Town is buzzing with period costumes and gatherings of Cobb & Co descendants.

Founded in 1854 to service Victoria’s goldfields, the Cobb & Co coach network spread to NSW, Queensland, SA and WA. At its peak, Cobb & Co harnessed up to 6,000 horses daily and travelled more than 31,000km weekly in Queensland alone. After 70 years of connecting communities and carrying the Royal Mail, Cobb & Co made its last run in August 1924.

Horse trainer Don Ross completed a Cobb & Co re-enactment ride from Port Douglas to Melbourne in 1963. “They tell me I got horse shit in my blood,” he says. At age 90, Don has spent the past 2 months preparing to bring 15 standard-breed horses for the 14-seater replica Cobb & Co coach.

“The thing with it is, as you drove along you could see Mrs Brown’s washing was still dirty,” Don says. “Now you go past there at 60 kays an hour, looking for stones and other people driving.”

Don oversees the harnessing up in Saturday's early morning light. The coach collects 911 letters written by festival goers, carrying Australia Post’s commemorative Cobb & Co stamp and addresses as far flung as the North Pole.

In Surat, passengers climb into the coach with novelty-sized boarding passes and water pistols (in case of bail-ups by child-sized bushrangers).

Joining the procession of nearly 50 sulkies and wagons and 90 horseriders, Don’s team pulls the coach through the draw. Vets and horse floats weave through the cavalcade. The weekend’s journey is broken into 7 legs, with an overnight stop and camp-oven dinner.

At Sunday’s festival finale in Yuleba, the teamsters take joy rides along the railway line, past the markets and vintage car show. A steam train brings visitors to and from Roma, 60km to the west, and a crowd gathers by the roadside to watch the incoming coach.

The Cobb & Co run ends – as it did 100 years ago – with the letters ceremoniously carried into Yuleba’s post office to continue their (now, motorised) journey.