Do Go On - 395 - The Great Australian Camel Race

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

In 1988, with a huge cash prize on the line, 69 competitors lined up for what would be the longest animal endurance race ever held - The Great Australian Camel Race. Travelling over 3000 kilometres across harsh desert, the entrants would face life threatening disease, floods and other perilous conditions as they raced over multiple months! This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 05:19 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/Check out our new merch! : https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/   Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:ABC Radio National: The History Listenhttps://www.oranafilms.com.au/the-great-camel-race/ https://m.facebook.com/people/The-Great-Australian-Camel-Race/100064859257976/ https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/rockhampton/big-read-cq-man-relives-epic-outback-endurance-test-victory/news-story/0b568c431b276856d83ee39d1aff84f9 https://paddymchugh.com/past-projects.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to another episode of Doogone. My name is Dev Wonki and as always.

I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart in Toe. Bon Joono. It's good to have the toe with us for the first time this week. The detachable toe. And how good is it to be alive? Well, I, for one, wish I was never born. Two great catchphrases. Two great catchphrases.

For new listeners, there's a time code below to skip all this stuff and start where the report starts. Hey, Dave. Let's get into that. All right, why not? How does this show work? Time code is right now. Well, one of the three of us goes away. Research is a topic usually suggested by the listeners.

They bring all that research, all that new knowledge back to the other two who sit politely, who listen intently and who live, laugh, love and learn. I'm right. Except on Dave's episodes where Matt and I become the SaaS twins. Yeah. So look out, Dave. We're going to fuck you up. Get ready to be sassed, you little bitch.

Yeah, you little bitch. A beer. Yeah. Dave, Dave, you don't get to do it. You don't get to do it. Look at us, Dave. Dave, both at the same time. Look at us.

I'm turning around. You don't get to do it. This is the voice I'm turning around. This is not for you. Wrong way. Is this for us? Yes. Is it for you?

No. Now, we always get up to the topic with a question. Dave, do you have a question? Here is a question, your little bitch. Sorry. Sorry. I need to defend myself. It was almost problematic.

Because it sounded like he'd say, you little bitch just to be. And you can't do that. But then he changed it to his bitches. Totally fine. Right. To the loophole? You pluralise anything. Well, I was all directed at Dave.

You weren't involved at all, Jess. But I did pause there. And that's why the pronunciation got weird. Because I'm like, can we still say bitches? Which is such a funny thing. I can't. No. But I can.

You're bitch? Even if you put a. funny little accent I don't like me. Not. Be it. Be it. Yeah.

I'm so gun shy. Great. The time code would be to this point. My question for you is last week we talked about horses. Yep. We loved talking about horses. But this week, talking about something else. When traveling to...

Sembris. All drafts. Elephants. You're correct. But you are on the ride track. My question is, when traveling to the Aussie Outback, what is the superior animal to ride? Matt, is there with a camel. Well, sorry for being polite and letting Dave.

finish your question. Yeah, you were so polite then. Shut up. Shut up. The yachts of the desert. Is that what they called? Something like that? People do say that.

All they say, I also read. Ships of the desert or something. They also describe them as a camel is a horse if designed by committee. That's fun. A bit of fun. Wow. It's like the homer was a car designed by a homer. It's weird, but it gets the results.

I don't fully get it. But, okay. Yeah. You know, people can't all agree on. They're like, it needs to have these kind of. of hooves, but it also needs this kind of hump. And everything, you put it together and you go, that doesn't look like an animal. If I was designing the perfect animal, especially one to ride, I would absolutely be like,

put some humps on it. Put a hump. Yeah, let's not make this easy. I pick a motorbike. Does some camels have two humps? Yeah, Bactrian. And then the dromed. Dramadry.

Dramidry of the single humped. Yeah. Much more common. Yeah, I can't picture that as a kid, I reckon cartoons of. have camels had two humps. But I can't picture a real-life camel having two humps. Yeah, I think they're much less common. I think they're, are they from, they're from Asia?

I'm not sure I can picture a camel. You know? Like, I can, if you show me a picture, I'd be like, that's a camel. Yeah. But right now, just trying to conjure one in my imagination. Can't conjure a camel. I can, but it's, it's fuzzy. Yeah, yeah, they're pretty fuzzy.

I'm showing the two humps of the battery in camel. Whoa. That's a real one. Oh, yes. I've never seen so much a neck fluff on a camel. Look at that. Look at that. A neckbeard.

Beautiful beard. It's a real neckbeard type animal. Today we are talking about the other though, which is the drumadry camel. Sorry to say. Can I just, can I zone out now? Yeah, okay. If you don't want to talk about camels because this is a heavily camel based. Yeah, that's a classic camel.

Showing you a drummergy camel. But Dave, oh, you know that two hump camel? I wouldn't call that a two hump camel. I'd call that a one valley camel. And I think in a lot of ways, that one. does look like the superior riding camel. I'd much prefer to sit in a valley than on the top of a camel. Yeah.

A hump. I think that does really sum me up, though. Most people focus on the peaks, but you focus on the trough. Yes. I'm a real glass-half-full guy. Fereckin' that trough. Freckin' hell. You're a real pain in the ass.

Yes. So what are we talking about? We're talking about camels. We're talking specifically about the great Australian camel race. Yes. You heard of this? No. No.

Before researching this, neither at I, but it is a wild ride. Awesome. On a camel. So let me take you back. The year was 1988. Oh, wow. More recent than I thought it was going to be.

It's way more recent. It's the bicentenary year. Exactly. The year Australia celebrated the bicentenary, which marked 200 years since the arrival of the first fleet of 11 British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. And at the time in 1988, this was a big deal. Yeah, I mean, the country had existed.

for 200 years. And there hadn't been anything before that. Exactly. Pretty cool. We're a pretty young country. We're incredibly young. Probably one of the youngest, I would say. And yeah, it just seems, still seems like a funny date as well.

It's like the day the convicts arrived. Yeah. Well, obviously that's when the country began. Yeah. A few crooks set foot on land. You know, people were arrested for stealing bread to feed their family. Or much worse. Irishmen.

Irishmen. silly families To feed their bread. Silly families to feed their bread. Get in there. Soda bread, delicious. Oh, delicious. Breed their families to steal their...

Yeah, there's something in there. Anyway, obviously we're being a bit tongue-in-cheek. Yeah, but a sarcasm detected there. But at the time, the Bicentery was marked by pomp and ceremony across Australia. In fact, the Australian Bicentennial Authority Act 1980 was set up to plan, fund and coordinate. projects that emphasised the nation's cultural heritage, and specifically the 200-year part. There was a bunch of events across the country, including a re-enactment of the First Fleet

arriving, and also World Expo 88 held in Brisbane. Expo 88 itself was huge, attracting more than 15.7 million visitors. They had a Whigsphere there, as well, didn't they? Something like that. Yeah, there's still, there's a building that they're still proud of up there that exists. That's so passionate. There's a little building They're so proud of it.

You're still so proud of it. This is like a little, I don't know, like a little missile sort of shape building. I'd love to talk about it. I would have been there. That and the Eka wins.

The Brisbaneites love to talk about the Eka wins. I love that. I love anything echo related. But I couldn't believe that. 15.7 million visitors. Australia's population in 1988 was only 16.5 billion. Doubled it up. So nearly everyone went or a lot of overseas people.

It was big. Nope. Nearly everyone went. I think that the problem is that it would make a more sense to celebrate based on Federation, which is January 1st, 1901, right? Yeah. But it's not the right day.

It's like everyone's just done New Year's Eve. Yeah. So I think that's what doesn't work. And that we're like, oh, you know, 2001, it's sort of already millennium and stuff. But 1988. 88, that's a, and I think it's also like politicians and organisers like, but if we do it in 88, then we can be involved, you know? If we wait until when we probably should do it,

yeah. In 20-something years, I might be dead. Yeah, and I can't handle that. I want to be part of a legacy. Yeah. That's why I think politicians are great. Yeah, me too. Short-term thinking.

Yes. Well, someone who was there for a long time after this, the Queen, opened to the event, Expo, 88. RIP. Then they had performances from classic Aussie acts like John Farnham, Ice House, mental as anything. And also international acts. like Julio Iglesias.

Oh my God. John Denver and even Cher came down. Get the fuck out. This is an all-time great line-up. It was huge. The fuck out. John Farnham and Cher on the same lineup. Back to back.

Okay, heaven. Do you remember at the time we did the Woodstock episode and you were like, you know what, I'd go? And I was like, absolutely not. And that angered you to no end. Angered. You were angered. You were furious.

You flip the table. Oh, no, I don't want to go. I flip tables in glee sometimes. I think we were recording an isolation, do this a little bit. We just trashed your own house. And we just watched. We were like, from our comfortable clean house.

You turned the headphones off so we couldn't calm you down. We just had to watch. Just sort of saw us waving at the screen. It's okay, Matt. It's okay. I thought you were cheering me on. I thought those waves were saying, keep it up. Keep it up.

Set the table on fire now. That am I. Just meant I'd love to see this line. up. That wasn't worth. No, I'm trying to the table. I would see this line up. I've seen a few of these bands, seen metal as anything. Seen Ice House.

So you seen Farnsey at Jess's Christmas party that time? No, I had to slumber at, uh, no, I had to, um, unfortunately just go to a rod Laver. I've seen him at Rod Lever a couple times. So you were like way back. I was like, he touched my hand. Yeah, he didn't touch my hand, but he didn't touch my heart. Oh my gosh, I don't think you mentioned that part before.

He shook my hand. What was that like? And did you walk off shaking? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a lyric in a John Finamson. You touched my hand and I walked off shaking. And if anyone knew that, they would have really enjoyed that. It was a great lie.

Honestly, such a great reference that I didn't get. It's a deep cut. If I didn't explain it, then a few of the true Farnsey heads out there would have just like quietly gone, yes, we got it. But that was for us. Now I've made it for everyone. Yeah, thank you. But, Jess, you're already in on this lineup. Yep.

What do I tell you? It doesn't end there. Get the fuck out. I mainly bring this up so I can read this sentence from Wiki for Jess. Oh my God. At the closing ceremony of World Expo, 88. That's a closing ceremony. Yeah, it was huge.

It went for like a month or weeks. At the river stage, a concert showcased all the expos entertainers singing and dancing. The concert finished up with Australian pop folk band, The Seekers. Yes. Singing one of their songs, The Carnival is over at the very end of the celebrations, which has become an Australian traditional. apparently I've never heard that before. But as Judith Durham was not available to join the seekers for Expo 88, closing ceremony

celebrations. They got John Stevens. He seems to fill in for everyone. Who'd they get? They got Australian soprano Julie Anthony joining the group as a lead vocalist in her stead. Wow. And Julie also has a connection to a previous topic because she sang the Australian National Anthem at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympics with human nature.

Oh my God. She's performed with the seekers. She's performed with human. nature, big deal. What can't you do? What can't you do? Maybe, yeah. I think of John Stevens has been the great fill-in goer, but maybe it's really...

Julie Anthony. Julie Anthony, is she... It really does sound like an Aldi Julie Andrews. We've got one of them here, too. We've actually got our own Julie, which is pretty great, so... The Julie Andrews mum has at home, whatever that name is. It doesn't matter. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Edit everything I've said out. Please. Please. I'm serious, actually, though. Please edit. Can you be pretty brutal on what I've said so far when you're editing? Please, I'm not joking.

But X-O-88, it was this whole thing and there were lots of other events across the country. And one man had an idea for an event at the centre of Australia. Cut to the desert. It gets hot in Australia's red centre. Explorer Charles Sturt recorded temperatures of 50 degrees. Celsius in the shade. He wrote in his diary, it was so hot, the screws fell out of the wooden boxes.

The men's hair fell out, and the lead melted in the pencils they wrote with. Whoa. So it's hot. Yeah. A bit too hot. Because it was this hot, the deserts and temperatures proved impenetrable

for many of these early European explorers, like Sturt, who were using horses, and in the 1860s, it was suggested that they start using camels. Their horse would melt. Oh. Into glue. Yeah, you don't want that. They get very,

sticky when they're hot. Yeah. Right. We stick them back together. Yeah. When it cools down. Yeah. Get a committee involved.

You get yourself a fucking camel. You got a camel. It was said, hey, should we use camels instead? And I've previously done a mini report on Australia's first camel, Harry. Do you remember this? It was very naughty and even ended up shooting the person writing it. Oh, yeah. Was that live in Adelaide?

Live in Adelaide. Bit of sizzles. Astounding Animals, episode 177. Very vague memory. But I remember just talked about Groundhog Day. Oh, yeah. Punksetony pill. Pungsteny pill.

Something like that. Phil. And I talked about a gangster who rode around an emu that probably didn't really exist. Oh. Yep, no memory. It's good to reminisce, isn't it? Isn't it? Our one time in Adelaide.

Well, let's reminisce some more because Australia's first major inland expedition to use camels as a main form of transport was Burke and Wills in 1860, which is Matt's first ever report on the show. So, we've spoken a bit about camels before. They were imported from Arabia, India, India, and. and Afghanistan, camels were vital to the early development of colonized Australia, allowing telegraph and rail lines to be built and used to transport gold during the gold rush. The famous GAN train journey from Adelaide to Darwin is named after the Afghan cameliers, who had earlier made the long journey on camels. By the mid-1890s, more than 4,500 camels had been introduced for use in the gold fields

of Central Australia and W.A., but all good things must come to an end. Every single camel died? Well, kind of the opposite. Eventually, with the introduction of the motor car, a lot of the cameleers found their services were no longer required. And with industry wrapping up, some of the camels were just released into the desert where they have absolutely thrived.

And now the Northern Territory government has estimated that at one stage recently was over one million feral camels in Australia. And that population may double in size every nine years. What? Although there's been several culls over recent years, there's still hundreds of thousands of them out there. I think it's rough calling them feral. Yeah.

You know? It's not their fault. I reckon, like, they're just camels. You know what I mean? What do you want to call them? Camels. Oh, okay. Why, they're feral?

Yeah. You know, I just don't think it's right. Stray, stray camels? Does that make you feel better? Stray camels. Yeah. Like, you'd say, like, a feral cat now more days, now you'd hear stray, maybe.

Yeah. Does that feel better? It's just, I'm like, why are we blaming this camel? Uh-huh. You know? What did he do? Sure. He's just trying to survive.

Yep. The only way he knows how. Mm-hmm. But fucking. Yeah. Yeah. And finding out. Making way more camels.

Yeah, yeah. Well, they love to hump. I know one thing about camels. I want to clarify something to you, just in the room. Yeah. My face then, I think, could have been interpreted as disappointed in you. No, no, that's not right. No, no, no.

And I want to clarify it, but I thought that was. fantastic. And I loved it. And I realized as I was reacting that I looked upset, but I promised you I was not. I thought that was right. I thought you were spot on. I love it. I thought your face was bang on. It was a bit of jealousy. I was like, God damn it. I wish I was that quick. I'm not on my A game today. I'll be, you know, I'll be up front about that. But fuck, that was good. Great stuff. All right, Ddub, keep going. This is fun. One man saw the camels as an integral part of the history of Australia. See, this is what I'm talking about. Why don't we, let's not call him feral camels. Let's call him integral camels.

Yeah, this man, he's a big fan of the camel. And that man was Australian millionaire, Arthur Earl. Born and bred in the bush, he'd made his fortune as a property developer on the Gold Coast, and he had money to burn. Whoa. A biography on Arthur Earl by Sandy Thorne called On the Shake of a Hand, colon, the story of Arthur Earl. O-I-M-Bushman, businessman, gentleman. Okay, could have done a little bit of... The whole thing is written in a very defensive way about Arthur. Let me read from Sandy Thorn's words here. He was okay, all right?

He was actually quite a nice guy when you got to know it. Like you do, it feels like right off the bat. I've made some assumptions about a guy who's made his millions selling property on the Gold Coast. Yeah. This guy's going to be feral. What's Sandy got to say? He's going to be a P-O-S. Giving people a place to live.

In paradise? Surfers Paradise? You think that there's something wrong with that? You think surfers don't need a place to live? No, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about it like that. Where would all the Tully stay, but wasn't for him? Yeah.

Thank you. Whatever this guy's name was again. Arthur. Thank you, Arthur. Although I have written in my words, Arthur, Earl. Arthur Earl. Okay, what's Sandy got to say? So, Sandy writes, everybody likes horses.

Arthur was a true horseman, not just a rider and loved horses, but he felt it was time. I think they call them centaurs, horsemen. Am I wrong there? You may get hard to edit you out when you just jump in there. I'm just... With every dog shit thought you've ever had. Sorry, I forgot we're supposed to just ask Dave.

No, no, that was great. I needed that. I thought that one was one of my better ones, but you're probably right. A true horseman. A true horseman. Not just a rider, but I love that. Everybody loves likes horses. So defensive. Arthur was a true horseman, not just a rider, and loved horses, but he felt it was time that the contribution of the camel to Australia's pioneering history should be acknowledged, loud and clear.

So a couple of years before 1980, ideas to celebrate the bicentenary were asked to be put forward, and Arthur attended some town hall meetings. And again, from the bio, Sandy writes, his entrepreneurial brain clicked into gear and he could see it. See what the event should be. A great camel race. from the centre where the overland telegraph line could never have been built without the help of the camels across the outback of the territory in Queensland to the Gold Coast. Arthur was typically in quote, Think Big Mode. Oh yeah, he's blue sky.

He's blue sky out loud. All the time. When he stood up at the second meeting, chaired by Shire Chairman Bill Laver, and announced that he'd like to run a camel race from the centre across to the Gold Coast, his idea was too big for ordinary people to grasp and was greeted,

with laughter. What? I mean, sure, you're not into it, but I don't know if you're laughing at it as an idea. A camel race. What if you lost your mind?

We race horses here. We have a race at Sopsination with horses. We're not going to race camels. Come on. That is, isn't that, that feels like a bizarre response. Well, no one wanted anything to do with this idea. No one went.

So he decided you'd do it himself anyway. He wanted the race to celebrate the Australian outback and the bush, and he announced to get the event started, he would personally donate $100,000 of prize money if no sponsor could be found. Okay. I'm your plan B, okay? Ideally, we'll get a sponsor, but... But as a backup plan, I will kick in what's in my wallet.

100 grand. 100 grand. Is this man like, he's got an orange... Spray tan, I'm guessing. And he's wearing, like, in my head, he's wearing, like, a white safari suit. And he has very, very white teeth. Yes. He even nailed it.

But he's orange and his hair's like a weird sort of really light blonde and sort of, like, he's got quite a lot of hair. Yeah. That's what I'm imagining. Yeah. Real thicket. So people weren't laughing at his idea. They were just laughing at his look when he stood up at the town hall. Why would they laugh at his look?

It's a great look. He's a hottie. Yeah, I laugh at things that I'm jealous of. Okay. Yeah. Because why I laugh at both of you, you're not funny, but you look great. True. Also, it's just about our looks.

God, you're a piece of shit. A lot of a piece of shit. Why do you think people listen to this show? We also have pretty average personalities. I think you'll find. So he said, I'll put up 100 grand if no sponsor can be found. Thankfully, Sheraton Hotels the Good People at Sheridan. This episode brought to you by the good people.

at Sheraton Hotel. I choose to say at the Sheraton. When I'm traveling, I like to take a little piece of home with me. They stepped in to sponsor the event, but it would still cost. And to sponsor our travels. So they were like, all right, we'll sponsor the event, but it would still end up costing the founder a personal fortune to get this race up and running. Wow.

Arthur also wanted the race to raise money for the Royal Flying Doctors Service, which for those who are overseas, I don't know, or a non-profit air medical service and provide emergency and primary healthcare services for those living in rural, remote and regional areas of Australia. So it was a nice thing to raise money for. Yeah, pretty amazing organisation. Yeah, they're incredible.

So he had this big idea, and to get it off the ground, Arthur travelled across the outback, trying to get government sponsorship on board in Darwin and in Alice Springs, and also to check out a potential race route. Arthur was travelling with a guy called John Nielsen in a Mercedes, which they were advised was not appropriate to travel across the desert and that they'd likely need rescuing. They ignored this advice and took off from the pub they were staying in Bullia in Outback, Queensland,

and this is again from the biography, John was to drive the first leg. With the early morning light in his eyes, and Arthur half blind beside him, he lined up the road, went to roar off, and wound up somehow driving straight over the edge of the ramp where the publican unloaded his beer. They hadn't noticed it was actually a ramp. Not a great start.

Not a great start to this journey across the desert. Is this a bit that I was saying, you're probably going to need rescue from that ram? I love this description. They hadn't noticed it was actually a ramp. They were both looking past it to the road. When the front wheels dropped suddenly over the edge of it, John twigged, he made a blue.

He made a blue. He felt like a 90 degree angle in the car. Hmm. I've just twigged. You made a boo-boo here. I've made a blue. They said the desert would be hard to drive through, and I didn't realize that I'd have to be driving on two wheels,

though. Do we pop on a monitor? So they were in the town that haven't even left you. I feel like there's an omen in that. Oh, it's so bad. They later found they'd done considerable damage to the underside of the car, thousands of dollars worth, in fact, by driving off this ramp. It's great.

Oh, dear. And they are leaving a pub. They're leaving a pub. You said that was for a combination, but they have a liquid breakfast on the way here? Arthur's been described as half blind. I think they're implying because of the light in his eyes, but I don't know. I don't know. Half cut.

They pushed on, soon getting a tyre puncture, which they changed. But that meant they were fully out of spares almost straight away. Incredibly, when they pulled into a remote cattle station and what seemed like the middle of nowhere to assess the damage, there was only one person there. He was a local indigenous stockman who was able to help them. repair their tire, which they were very grateful for. But Arthur joked, thanks for that, that we're unlikely to find any spare Mercedes tyres

anywhere in the outback. So I'll try and take it easy from now. And the stockman said, hang on, I've got a Mercedes tire in the shed out the back. And he went out of the back and he came back. And it was a huge coincidence that he had the exact right tie to recover. Now, that's a good omen. So they stacked in town and then waited to get to a remote sheep station before checking the damage.

It was only when the tire blew out. They were like, oh, we should change that. And then they're looking going, hang on, this car is severely damaged. This car that we rolled. Ridiculous. Somehow they made it all the way to Uluru in this Mercedes, which is a long, long way away. Now, camel races were already a thing in the outback, but never this proposed distance. And everyone told Arthur it was an impossible task.

Where have they driven from? Bullia in Queensland. To Uluru. To Uluru. That is quite a distance. It's a long thousands of K. Because for non-Australians, Australia, it's pretty big. Pretty bloody big.

And in the middle part, not much happening. Not much. A lot of the unmade roads that they're driving over and things like that. Similar for Americans, similar in size to the USA, right? No, no, no, no, no, no. You think USA's a little bit bigger. We're big. Keep going, Dave.

I think we're actually the biggest country of the world. Oh, I mean, it depends on what you're measuring. Oh, personality. Spirit. Spirit. Freedom. Yes. Yes.

We've got the biggest freedom here. Bananas and prawns. Yeah, yeah. We've got the biggest things. So. Yeah. In those ways. So for Americans, hit back space on that tweet, my friend.

Back it up. Back it up. In size. Go back to your tiny little country. In sort of size, I think they're slightly bigger, but a similar-ish size. Yeah, if they didn't have Alaska, I think we'd have them. Yeah. They got that when Australia was federated.

They're like, oh my gosh. We need to make them a state. We need this. We need this. And, yeah, they've got nothingness in the middle, but not like we've got nothingness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 80% of the Australian population lives around the coast. We've got the biggest nothingness.

Can we say that? Yes, I'd say we've got the biggest nothingness. I'd say we're up there with the biggest nothingness. Yeah. Or Antarctica and might pipus, but it's a close race. Well, thankfully they're melting, so fuck you. We'll get them. We'll get them real soon.

We'll play the wrong game. Long game. It is the wrong game. I just want people to know it was quite a long distance. It's a long long. Yeah, that's right. In the middle of the country and there's not a lot around it. Have you seen it or been there?

I haven't either. No. I'd love to. It's on the list. I've been to the Northern Territory like three times in the last 10 years. It's because people make the mistake of thinking, oh, if you go to Alice, which I've been there a few times. We were in Dallas a few years ago.

It's a long way away. And, yeah, I think people just assume it's close-ish. Yeah, if you're in our springs, you just pop over to all the road for the day. Yeah. It's like, no, nah. Well, this might take you the day to get there. Yeah. It's a long, long drive.

So Arthur, he's spruiking, he's a van. He's saying, get on board. Who wants to do this? And everyone's saying, it's impossible, but his enthusiasm won over most people because he was so into it, including some, quote, unquote, army fellows that he encountered stationed out in the desert. They apparently love the idea of a test of endurance and fitness, and some of the soldiers passed on the idea of using the race as an exercise to their superiors, who agreed to cater the race, chaperone the competitors with 20 to 30 vehicles,

and even enter some of their own camels and riders into the race. So we got the army on board. So much to Arthur Earl's satisfaction, it was on. The race was to start at the base of Uluru, which is in the Northern Territory, like we've been saying, in the centre of Australia, and travel up to Alice Springs and then east across the northern. Territory in Queensland all the way to the Gold Coast on Australia's East Coast.

All up, the journey would be 3,236 kilometres or just over 2,000 miles, much of which was across remote desert. So it's a long way. How many, like put it in the terms we can understand. Olympic swimming pools or MCJs, please. Yeah.

We're our, what are we talking millions? Millions. That's all, yeah, that's a long way. Of Olympic swimming pools? Yeah. Or MCJs? Wow. And or? Whoa. That is a long way. Okay, it wouldn't be millions, would it?

Because I'm thinking about it. Was there 20, 50 minute swimming pools? If you're doing, just going by length, not by volume. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There'd be 20 per K. We're looking at 60,000 Olympic swimming pools end to end. Okay. That's a lot.

That's a lot. That's a lot of laps. Even Thorpey couldn't do that. No. Don't you dare say that about Thorpe. Thorpe could do that. Thorpe could do that. Okay, they could.

The camel of the pool. Thorpe does that every morning. Yeah, it could be Thorpey and maybe Petria Thomas, but no one else. That's Thorpe on a rest day. I reckon Clemmy could do it. Klimy could do it. Aren't he Clemmy? Kieran Perkins, he could do it.

And I don't want to be controversial. I think actually Peter Vagden, Houdon-Bagden could do it as well. Peter Vagden, Hougan could do it for sure. He's the best. What a name. What a name, what a man. Gosh. The Dutch Flyer is something I've just maybe.

Is that a thing he might have been called? Yeah. Yeah, it might have been. He was Dutch. So you look up Peter Vagden, Hoogden, Bagton, and I'll tell you about this race. There would be six legs or six stages in total. Each competitor being timed for how long they took to complete each stage.

So much like a car rally, the clock stops when you finish the stage. Right. Then they add up the six stage times and the person of the overall shortest time wins. So it might not necessarily even be the person who sort of gets over the finish line first. It's not like you and me race Dallas Springs first one gets there. It's like on the way we stop. Yeah. And then.

I could have a really good sort of first three legs, great time. Yes. And then you can just. Decide to tactically take it easy. Absolutely. And there's also like a swimsuit round. Yeah, of course. A talent?

Talent round. Yep. What's your talent? Spelling bee. What's my camel's talent? Sorry, yes. It's not the jockey's talent. The jockey's talent is riding camels.

What's your cabals talent? Can I ask what your camel's swimsuit is as well? It's a one piece. Beautiful. Covering the hump or? It's a wetsuit. It's a camel keeney. It's really hard to get a camel into a wetsuit.

That's the talent The talent I caught this camel into a wetsuit People just Yes Well done And now that it's in it That's a swimsuit round

Dutch flyer is an integrated passenger service Between the United Kingdom And the Netherlands Right And not the No I think that I assume that's what

Who can ban does now Who can ban You jump on his back And he butterflies You cross the channel All right So six stages Overall

It's a pretty good prize to 40 grand for the winner, 20 for second, 10 for third. And each stage winner got a cash prize too, which increased each stage, up to 6,000 for the sixth and final league. Oh, okay. It sounds like a game show. They were big back then as well. It would have been peak sale of the century.

That's right. This race was hosted by Burjo. Burgos there going, our carryover camel tonight, you can either take the cash or you can come back tomorrow. What are we playing for tonight? It's a new camel. Burjo's staying with the good people at that hotel. Share the, fuck.

The great people. Oh, sorry, the great people. Sorry. They're not good. They're great. Good tagline. Yeah, it's a good tagline. Add another thousand dollars to the invoice.

So, in between each stage, there would be rest days, so more or less they could travel together as a group. Each competitor had a support crew traveling ahead with food and essentials, although the size and experience of each crew. of each crew varied greatly. That actually sounds quite nice. Yeah. You know, there's still like a competitive edge. Obviously, you're trying to overall win, but you're all going together.

You're taking time for you. Getting some sleep, getting some zee's in, a bit of self-care, probably a few sheet masks and massages going. That's nice. That's nice. Beautiful. His nickname was the Flying Dutchman.

That's freaked me out. I guess I knew that. Yeah, somewhere in the back of your brain, you knew that. Whoa. Wow. So they've got, and they've got support crews. I like that as well. I will ask you again at the end of you still think it sounds like a good idea.

The support crews or the rest days? The whole race. You're like, this sounds like a lovely, lovely jaunt. I don't, yeah, nice try, but Jess isn't going to flip flop. She's not a flip flop a day. I don't flip flop. You've committed? I was just saying I think it's a nice way to do the race. Do I think the race is a good idea?

Absolutely not. Even if the prize money was a million dollars, I'd be like, I'd rather just work my entire life. It's fine. I'm not doing it. I can't, I don't handle being too hot or too cold. We're sick of this gotcha journalism, Dave. Jess is just trying to be here. Listen to your story.

Sass you a little. Yeah. Enough of the traps. Now call him a bitch. You beer. I'm just trying to do a bit of foreshadowing. Oh, I think something's going to go terribly awry. Well, let's find out.

So Alex Tinson was on the hand. He was recruited to be the races vet, looking after all of the camels. He'd previously worked with his. zoo animals at the Bacchus Marsh Lion Safari and when contacted, assumed he'd be leading a large team to look after all the camels. But in the end, it was just him. He had to check and monitor each camel at every checkpoint, which was a big job. And he'd never worked with camels before.

He'd done lions and they went, well, you can trade a lion. Yeah. You can treat a camel. Same thing. They are very similar. They're both got that sort of mousy, yellowy fur. Yep. Big teeth.

Big teeth. I think they've both got a big hump. Yeah. Great in the desert. Yes. Yeah. The both camels. They're both camels.

It was a camel named lion. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a great appointment. And this is a big event for the big bicentennial. Yeah, there's a big cash on the line here. It seems quite strange that, how many camels is this one man looking after? In the end, there were 69 competitors. Oh my God, that is hot. Nice.

That is so hot. That is so nice. It lined up in Uluru on April 23, 1988, just over 35 years ago. 62 men and seven women competing. But there was also the SAS, the support crews and a lot of media traveling with the groups. It was quite a big contingency going on. And with the media also riding camels? Out of respect.

Yes. Out of respect. That's nice. That is nice. So stage one would take 437 kilometers and end up in Alice Springs. So yeah, the day trip to Uluru from Alice is 900 round trip. Yeah. So it's a long way.

The plan was it would take eight days and then they'd have two days rest in Alice before starting the second stage. People from all different walks of life took on this big challenge. The youngest starter was 14-year-old Ben Walker from Sydney who did his schooling via correspondence during the race. On the hump. Learning on the hump. That'd be great to rest your exercise books on the hump. Yeah. He's like a little movable desk.

That's nice. A little stable table. Yeah. Stable table. On the back of a camel. I miss stable tables. That's stable table ad. Do I have I talked about this all the time?

Not maybe not. I don't think so. It's like this memory that I've not been able to track down on YouTube or anywhere, but it was like an ad for stable tables, which is basically just like a hard bit of plastic with a cushion underneath it. And it was like an old saloon. And someone walks in and a cowboy's there or something. And he's like, put him up or something.

And then the guy's got a whiskey on his stable table. And he's going, whoa, whoa. The whiskey doesn't fall off? Something like that. Something like that. That's how we used them in our family too for whiskey. Yeah, yeah. We had a stable table.

Yeah, loved it. Was it, 90s was prime time for gadgets and gizmos. We had them, like, we used them in the back of the car on road trips. Oh, yeah. To like you could colour in or more typically we would race cool mints in the little ridge that we're around the same. You couldn't fit too, so it wasn't really a race, but you'd just be like, whoa. That's awesome. That sounds really fun.

Really fun. I would have probably rested a bucket on it on my long car trips as a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great spot for my bucket. You want that to be stable. You're going, whoa. I don't want to lose this thing. So, youngest kid is 14 years old, Ben Walker.

The oldest competitor was former camellia Lloyd Kernock, who was 70 years old. Wow. Long journey for Lloyd. Well, yeah. The fact that he's a cameleer, though. Yeah, he's got the experience. I think that means he's my favourite so far. Indigenous elders from the Pitgenera country also took part.

There's loads of competitors, but I'm mostly going to focus on five so you don't get too confused and also they're the ones that have the most information about their journeys. Great. Appreciate that. It is hard to keep more than about five competitors in your mind. We'll still struggle. We'll still struggle. But I think they're all pretty different, so hopefully you'll remember them.

So the first of all is a man, he'll remember because he doesn't even have a camel. Okay. Drew, and his name is Drew Kettle. And is Drew Kettle trying to blag his way through? Like, no, I've got a camel. You just don't see it because. It's sleeping. It's sleeping now.

Leave my camel away. Stop. Stop. What? My camel's very shy. It's over there. Okay. My camel goes to school at a different state. Okay?

But he's real. It's real. Definitely real. And we're in love. I don't know my camel on the school holiday. At Rosebud. You wouldn't know him. You wouldn't know him.

So good. Drew Kettle, he's also quite on a 68-year-old dairy farmer and swagman from Kolak who wanted to take part but didn't have a camel. So he decided he'd walk the 3,200. kilometers with his dog Laddie. He had some serious walking experience, having once walked from Darwin to Adelaide to raise money for the Royal Flying Doctors service. The fuck? Yeah.

The fuck? You walk from Darwin to Adelaide to raise money for the Royal Flying Doctors. I drove that last year and we did it over like three weeks. Wow. But still, that's a huge walk. That's huge. I'm looking at up. Proper desert.

Adelaide. 50 degrees in the shade. Yeah, far out. And he's walking. And then at night sleeping in a swag. And it gets cold at night too. Yeah, it's a 31 hour drive, a 25 day walk. If you don't stop at all.

It's over 3,000 kilometres. Wow. Which is what this is again. So he's like, I could do that. I'm now he's 68 years old. With his dog too. Oh my God. I spent a bit of time at our friends dairy farm outside of Kolak.

I wonder if they know this guy. Drew Kettle. I'm going to see Mick the farmer this weekend. Yep, I'll ask him. You know he's a kettle? Kettle? I love it. I'm like, I reckon Drew Kettle, surely is a, like a local legend. Totally. Surely. I reckon. A name like that and walking these huge journeys. He's my favourite in the whole race. I love him.

Drew Kettle. So good. This is a description of him. This is again from Arthur Earl, the founder's biography. He has a little passage about Drew. It says, this champion man was determined to literally walk the entire distance as he was sponsored per kilometer and didn't want to cheat no matter how tired he became. At one stage, he collapsed at midnight in the middle of nowhere and had to be taken onto the camp. But he marked the spot. Next morning, he insisted on being taken back to that spot so he could cover the entire distance of the race on his two faithful, weary old pins. On that previous rest night, Arthur had helped him go around pubs with his hat and he raised an extra $1,000. What a legend.

He's so great. So there's a doco on this whole race made in 1988 by Orana films that you can rent on Vimeo. I'll link in the show notes. And Drew shows off the famous hat that he passed around to raise money. And he goes, this is an old swaggy trick. And he fills up his hat with water and lets Laddie drink out of the dog drink out of the hat. And then he puts the rest on his head and it drips down his body. And he goes, and now I get a good cold shower.

It was so nice. Wait for the trick. And now I get showed in dog spittle. Yeah, I would put some water in it, put the hat on. Sure, that's okay. If that's how you want to do it, that's fine. Dog first. And then just put some more water in it for the dog.

That's what I do personally. He tips it all over himself. He also says in the doco. Every Swaggy has got to have a top medical kit, and mine is a little bottle of rum. It's particularly good for snake bites, but you have to have it before you get bit. So every morning, I have a bit of a slurp,

and I'm right for the day. Bit of fun there, Drew. Drew's not putting on sunscreen, at the end of the day he is always just he's drinking tinnies at the end of the day little stubbies he's loving loves a drop loves a beer at the end of the day

he's not drinking any water no he's letting it dribble down in his face the only water goes to the dog and then he goes on this crazy what kind of dog too it's like a it's got to be like a cattle dog it's like a blue heel a cattle dog type thing yeah and that that dog will walk 3,000 but quite small and spindle

to be honest. Yeah, I bet it is. I don't think Drew's packed food for it. That dog's having to hunt as well. I'm imagining Drew's pretty spindly as well. Yeah. But imagine walking through the desert hung over every day. Well, he probably doesn't get hung over.

Because he's drinking rum in the morning. Yeah. Hair of the dog every day. Good on you, Drew. And spittle of the dog. Spittle. All his tricks are dog related. Yeah, maybe there's something to learn here.

So that's Drew Kettle. First guy we're going to talk about, As well as catering and helping out the race with 100 soldiers across 30 trucks, the army had three teams and 13 camels. One of their riders was SAS corporal Peter Cape. So SAS, you know, the extremely well-trained guys. Well, if you've seen Pennyworth, the origin of Batman's butler, he was ex-SAS.

That's how Alfred got his start in butler. Wow. You've got to be highly trained to put up with Batman's bullshit. Thanks for putting that in Gotham-based context. Appreciate that. I can all understand. Yeah. You know, butlers, what they used to do.

So Peter Cape, he's an SAS corporal, originally from Perth, he does have a camel. And his camel's name was Zodian Mind Warp. The one of Frank Zappers, kids. Yeah. Moonian, so didn't mind well. Which apparently delighted in biting in kicking him and wouldn't let him ride it. So for much of the race, Peter Cape had to run what was equivalent of two marathons a day just pulling the beast along. What?

Yeah. Because the camera was like, I'm not going to let you ride me. I'd fucking, why would you? I would check first. On the start line, all right? How hard could it be? He's like day four, he's going, I reckon today's the day. Jump right.

No, okay. Well, I'll walk here. Tomorrow it is. Let's go for a drug then. Yeah, fair enough. My mistake. I just, like, I love these stories so much. I love people who do stuff like this.

And I'm just not that person. It's so wild to me too. Like, you couldn't, I'm, you couldn't pay me enough. I wouldn't last five minutes. And I don't like that about myself. This isn't a high and mighty thing. I wish I was more like this because these people have great stories. Yes.

I don't have any stories. stories because I don't leave my house. I maybe would do it for a weekend, like two days of it. Yeah. And be like, that would feel like a lifetime thing. Yeah. Doing it, what, for weeks? Months.

Months is, it's just ridiculous. Two marathons a day for a month. No. I mean, I couldn't do that at all. I'd be dead. I'll do it for a weekend. I just realized what I said. I could do it for the morning.

I'd be dead. I'd die. I'll do it to lunch. Then I'm going to need you to helicopter my corpse out of here. Ha ha ha ha ha. So you're going to cost the rural flying doctors much more than you're raising. Yeah. I'm going to need them on standby.

So that's Peter Cape, walking Zodian Mind Warp. So we've got kettle and cape so far. We also have Gordon O'Connell. Oh, yeah. From Emerald in Queensland, Gordon was writing his camel, Carla. Okay. Carla! Carla!

They're both ends of the camel naming spectrum, aren't they? Mind Warp and Carla. Carla. Carla. Gordon grew up in a Salvation Army home in New Zealand and was in what he described as the bad boys home because he kept running away. At age 13, he was told he could stay there or go to the stables and become a jockey. And he did. So he became a jockey. According to the courier male, he was a jockey in his teenage years until it became too difficult for him to keep the weight

off his taller frame. With a wife and one child, he moved to Australia in his early 20s and had a few more children and spent decades traveling around the country working as a carpet fitter wherever he could find work. And when the race was on, he was living in Emerald in Queensland. When his neighbour, John Richardson, asked Gordon if he'd train two camels for the race and enter one, Gordon jumped at the chance. John's got the camels. He's like, if you train both these camels for me and for you, you're a jockey, that's right. You can ride one, I'll write one. The camel he got was Carla, and he went all in on training both camels. The plan was he would split the support crew with the neighbour John,

and then they'd split any prize money either of them want. Oh yeah, nice. They're like a little team. Yeah, that's nice. But the two neighbours had a massive falling out before the race. No. And they ended up entering and competing separately. By this time, Gordon had spent months unpaid training the camel.

And thinking the race would take further months to complete, he decided that for the sake of his family, he'd have to win the prize money. Basically, otherwise, he's just spent months not. working for nothing. Right. Wow. He... So he wasn't doing it, he wasn't getting paid to do it. He was just doing it on the hope of winning cash. Of either him or his neighbour John winning and then they'd make some money that way. That's how he thought he'd make money. Did he get first dibs on which camel to pick? Because he would know which one would be the... Yeah, well, I think so because he had a big

affinity with Carla. Right. And remember, remember, you only get paid of your play, so he's in it to win it. In the end, Gordon had only one member in his support crew driving around after him in an old blue van was Lenny Mackay. So he had a lot less support than the army guys. He's got dozens of trucks. He's got one guy in a van. Also lining up to start was 35-year-old Jill Cowell, who was a doctor from the Gold Coast. She'd previously been a jockey and thought she could handle the camel based on this experience. She was also a very fit marathon runner. In fact, she previously held the Australian record for the marathon. So very fit lady. Okay. Super fit, can do marathons, has been a jockey and is a doctor. And as a trained medical doctor. Probably.

the favourite at this point and also isn't like seven years old no that's right she's in the prime of her life i don't know oh 30s prime time you kids wouldn't understand yeah these are your best years can't wait to hit my prime at a couple of years when you're when you get to the hundreds and hundreds of years of age like me you'll look back at your 30s and say geez i wish i i wish i knew then what i know now which is something about apia insurance it's another ad you're just made of ads that's all you are that's all you are most people are mostly made of water yeah you're 70% ads I'm 70% ads like you said Matt Jill Cowell was also a doctor so had medical knowledge as well that just might come in handy on this journey okay he's doing a bit more foreshadowing she saw the challenge advertised and jumped at it thinking

it sounded like a thrilling adventure. Again, not something I would ever think, but good on you, Jill. She borrowed a camel called Tiki, who had a real mind of his own, and proved that riding a horse and riding a camel were two very different skills. During training, Tiki rolled over and broke Jill's arm. Okay. But what an adventure. Keep going.

And this is when she needed the medical experience. No, not yet. See, I opted to drive instead of riding my bike to work today because it was a bit wet. out, you know? Well, that's the beauty of the desert. Well, you think, you would think that. Oh. More foreshadowing.

By the time the race started Tiki was at least sometimes listening to her, so. Okay. Progress. Finally, let's meet our final writer, Patty McHugh and his camel digger. He'd been asked by race organiser Arthur Earl to supply some of the camels. He was an experienced camelier, having retraced the 1500-kilometer journey of Burke and Wheels in 1977 when he was just 19 years old. And he travelled with his support crew, which was his wife, Virginia and their newborn baby.

Oh, my God. Yes. Which is what? Yeah, I think I'd take it back about the doctor because the jockey experience doesn't count for much of it. It's horse jockeying, I think, by the sounds of it. Yes. Yeah. So the cameliers still have the advantage, surely.

And they've also seemingly, they've got a camel that they already have a relationship with. Getting paired up at the last minute with a camel. that you find out you don't get along with. It's a nightmare scenario. We will not let you light, write it. Or is there an outside chance that Drew Kettle, who doesn't have to worry about a camel at all, could be? That's true.

Could Bradbury it. Some of the other camels that competed were called Peter Pan. What do you think of these names? Air Yonga cow, twiggy, banjo, Casper, and an apparently notoriously difficult and infamous camel called Fugly. I like that. I like Fugly. I was going to say Banjo is my favorite of those,

but I think Fugly might be right. Sadly, I don't have any more information on Fugly, but I have to say it's automatically my favorite. A lot of them have like classic dog name kind of vibes. But I'd love a dog called Fugly. Fugley. Yelling out in the park would be so fun. Fugley.

Fugley. Fugly. Leave it. Fugley, come. Good, Fugley. So to recap, we've got Drew Kettle is walking with his dog Laddie. We've got Peter Cape, the Armyman, who's running with Zodian Mind Warp. Gordon O'Connell, who's with Carla, who he's trained for ages and has had a big falling out with John the neighbour.

We've got Dr. Jill, who's the marathon runner with Tiki. And we've got Paddy McHugh and his camel digger. He's a camellia, and he's travelling with his wife and baby. Terrible idea. So they took off from Uluru in April 23, 1988. When Dr. Jill Cowell and her camel Tiki arrived at the start line, the blokey SAS soldiers were lining up exercising outside and asked, What are you doing here?

And when she told them, I'm in the race, they incredulously told her, well, it's a pretty tough race. And she said, yep, I'm pretty tough. And on the first day, a lot of the races had to run alongside their camels rather than ride them, like we were saying. She jogged up to the SAS guys and their camels. and she asked, can I jog with you? And they're like, yeah, okay, but we're going to jog for quite a while here, just so you know.

Yeah, she's wearing her, like, her Boston Marathon hat. Well, after only 10 kilometres, the army guys were getting fatigued and were obviously puffed out, but Jill, the marathon runner and champion took it all in her stride. She wasn't even puffing. She was like, yeah, this is nothing, guys. There must have been some real satisfaction there. Yeah, that means sweet. Is that why they call them fatigues?

The clothes? I've never understood that. What are army? Military fatigues. Yeah. Is that the clothes? Yeah, it is. Yeah, what you're...

Yeah, what you're wearing. I just don't know. Is it... Yeah, I don't know. No idea. But it's probably not because these guys got tired on a run. In 1988. I don't think so.

I might be drawing a longish bow there. But it's not impossible. Exactly. I'm just looking for connections. You never know. We refuse to connect with you. Please. Please.

I'm trying to connect with words. because my friends won't. Wow, colleagues. It's funny every time. Yeah. You guys are my only friends. Yeah, it's very funny. Please don't believe me.

I love you so much. I love you too. Speaking of the army, SAS corporal Peter Cape had yet to sit on his camel Zodian mind warp when the race started. That's clever. You don't, because you only get a certain amount of sitting hours on a camel. That's right.

Don't want to waste them. How do they get the camels there in like, in like horse floats or... Yeah, probably back of trucks, I think, maybe. I'm picturing them dangling from helicopters. You know, with that, that's what a harness under their belly? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As they're delicately pop them down.

Yeah. And there you go. There's one. And there's another one. One at a time. Sixty-eight to go. It took months. Yeah, just to get on it.

So, the first one dropped off, died before the, before the, start. Of old age. Yeah, they multiply quickly. It had grandkids and it died of old age. So Peter's camel, Zodian Mind Warp, was severely undertrained. It was extremely hard to handle bucking him off at every opportunity. So anytime he tried to sit down, he was straight off.

He had to run alongside the camel like I said, something he would do for most of the race. But from the get-go, it was clear that Gordon O'Connell and his camel Carla were a cut above the rest. They just had an affinity. and the intense 10 months of training with her paid off straight away and he just took off from the rest of the field. Yes, this makes a lot of sense that the one who trained and knew his camel had a bit of an advantage. Had a bit of an advantage there.

Gordon was so far in front, he actually finished the leg 18 hours earlier than everyone had predicted. 18 hours. It's supposed to take about a week and he took nearly almost a day off that. That's amazing. He would have been even further in front. but when he got to Alice Springs, he got lost as there was no signage yet. When he finally made it to the finish line for the stage,

he accused the army guys of having moved to the sign. Yeah, I wouldn't put it past them. Which they denied, but they had a few terse words, which you can see on the documentary. Gordon was in front, but throughout the event, the SAS were hot on his heels in second, fourth and sixth for most of the race. So there was a bit of a rivalry building between him and them.

He knew he had the best camel to start off with, but worried that their camels would improve over time, as they, you know, actually started to respect the rider. So he really pushed himself early to get in front, like you're saying, Jess. Wow. Get a buffer going so you can cruise the last couple of stages. Yeah. Just for that comfort and security, which is what we all want, isn't it?

That's what we all want in our camel races. Right, guys? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Guys, I'm not talking about camel racing. She's so lonely. I'm so lonely. Put it in terms we understand.

Camel racing terms. We all just want to trust our camel, you know. Yeah. So Gordon's in front, but he did have some less than quiet satisfaction when his neighbor turned rival John. Remember John? Mm. Who also was entered separately now.

Well, his race fell apart after only a few days because he pushed his camel too hard. Fuck you, John. I don't know why I'm not on John's side. I think, yeah, I'm the same. I guess it's because we don't know his perspective at all. Yeah. We know, we know what this other guy. I think it's fine to be on Gordon side.

Gordon. Go ahead. God. I'm good John. I'm near Gordon. John's camel was not as well trained or conditioned as Carla and John had to retire early. And when Gordon, his rival, heard the news, he of course felt sorry for his neighbour John. Not.

And I quote with an interview with the ABC he gave, somebody come up and told me that John Richardson had pulled out. Now, I swear to you, honestly, for an hour, I sang, ha, ha, ha, John, you asshole at the top of my lungs. He sang it. I was so thrilled. So they hate each other. Wow. What a big falling out. I wonder what happened.

No, no details were ever given. Toxic masculinity. I reckon it was something small. I reckon it was something that could have been just resolved with communicating openly. Or if it's like some sort of slight criticism like, I reckon you're feeding the camels too much. Oh, I'm feeding the camels too much, am I? I reckon he killed his mum. Yeah, toxic masculinity.

And he couldn't get past it. Oh, my God. Come on. John. Wait, who killed whose mum? One of them killed the other. Wow. John killed Gordon's mom.

No, okay. Fantastic. These people are still alive. Okay. Allegedly. Let's keep it vague. He killed his mum. But I think, I was thinking that you were going to say that John would have been like,

you gave me the dud camel. You screwed me. Oh, right. No, I'm not sure. No, he loved Carla. No, he loved, Gordon loved Carla, but John, I thought might have been like. John might be like, you screw me. You gave me the dud camel. What have I told you that this won't be the last will here of old mate John Richardson?

Wow. What? Stay tuned. Finally, Drew Kettle on foot with Laddie the dog crossed the stage one finish line, 16th overall. Remember, he's just walking. 16 out of 69. Not bad at all. Wow.

In fact, only 51 of 69 competitors were able to finish the first leg, so they lost a few on the way. Do they ever find them? No, they're out there. Now there's a million. feral people in the middle of the land territory doubling every 10 years

you're the only one of us with camel riding I'm assuming oh Jess have you written a camel Dave you're the only one with camel riding experience last year in the Moroccan desert in the Sahara

I did a brief hour and a half maybe max camel ride so I know what I'm talking about how do you picture it bang I actually it was terrifying at first so even though I was led by a professional camelea in a train of camels. So there was, I think, five of us, and they're all tied to the back

of the next camel. And I had the last camel because it was the youngest and the naughtiest one. And for some reason, the expert camellia guy looked at me. I was there with my wife and her family and said, oh, you should hang on to the, I guess because I was the youngest man there, they're like, you should hang on to the naughtiest one. And I cannot emphasize enough how unprepared I was for that. And what you do is they sit down, you swing one leg over, and then the camel, they all stand up at the same time. And you have to just hang on as they stand up. And it is wild. It's like being bucked as you get up.

These are well-trained camels with the expert camelier leading them. The ones I've seen in the documentary, they are like a bucking bull. They're holding off a deer laugh and people are being thrown off. That's why a lot of people aren't finishing because they're being thrown off and people are breaking legs and arms and stuff because the camels are just freaking out with a pecking out with a pecking. person on top of them. They're not used to being ridden at all. Yeah, one of them, one of them, he's like, he got a wild camel only a few weeks before the race because his theory was, I wanted to have a bit of spirit still.

I don't want, I don't want to have, like, no trained camel. I only want it, I want it to be pretty wild still. Why? I don't, that was his, yeah. And that camel was like, unrideable. I'm going to go out there, I'm going to trap a Brumby. I'm going to separate it from its friends. and I'm going to jump on it and I'm going to ride it and it's going to love it.

I'm going to ride a bear. I'm going to trap a bear. Yeah. Ship it over and I'm going to ride the bear across the desert. If we sound like we're being a bit bloody silly, I reckon, yeah, you've been a bit fucking stupid. Come on. A bit of spirit. It's going to kill you.

Yeah. Honestly, it's a miracle that no one in the lead up to it was bucked off and, like, really injure themselves. And this guy who's already, you know, who's finished 18 hours early, is with a camel that he's trained and spent a lot of time with. He's trained every day for 10 months. Huh. Interesting. I think that camel lacks spirit though.

Yeah, that's the problem. Lacks pizzazz. Yeah, it's just a blur camel. If I could describe that camel in one word, I'd say beige. That's a real beige camel. So they got to Alice. The team's got a bit of arrest after that, and their reward was camping next to the sewerage works.

Nothing but five-star accommodation for these guys. Where was the Sheridan? Is there no Sheridan in the All Springs? Are you sure that wasn't the Sheridan's sewage works? Tushay. Might have been only the poop of the rich. The only rich people's poop comes through these parts. Yeah, they couldn't have been put up somewhere or...

No, they're all camping out in the open. Although they were in town for the annual Camel Cup races, which turns the city into somewhat of a festival feel. Right, so all the accommodations are already booked. Yeah, that's what's happened. Absolutely. And also all the proper camels that already bought. The well-trained camels.

A few of the great camel races entered the Camel Cup sprints, but they actually entered on borrowed camels because they didn't want to risk injuring their beasts that they had to continue on for weeks, if not months ahead. Sure. Diane Zishki, who was racing on Air Yonge Cal, won the Cup. Wow. So pretty good racer. And Paddy McHugh, one of our people were talking about traveling with his family,

he came fifth. So he was a camellia, though. Yes. But the form stacks up. Yeah, experience. That would have been a bit of a, you know, a feather in the cap for the organisers saying, hey, this is a fair dinkum race we're doing out here. We've got sprinters, but we've also got stays.

You can do it all. I love the phrase fair dinkum because it can mean so many things. Did I just say fair dinkum? Yeah, yeah. Don't even notice. That's how often you use it. I think my favorite fair dinkum thing is an Alistair Trombay Burtchel, one of his old jokes. He's like, because he grew up.

in Canada, but he moved over to Australia and people like ask him, mate, are you being fair dinkum? And he's like, I'm being fairly dinkum. Because it can mean like legitimate, but it can also, you can use it in a context of like, oh, really, you know, someone's saying, sorry, fair dinkum, you know? Or it can sort of be like a, it's, yeah, like legit, but it can also be like no bullshit. And fair dinkum, he was racing by, it's so good, fair dinkum. Anyway, it was worth derailing.

Let's bring it back. Do go on, Dave. Well, we've got one stage down, five to the go, and from here, there's a few obstacles in their path between there and the Gold Coast. I'm going to hear more. Some hurdles, literally. Absolutely. Wow.

There's the 110-meter hurdle section across the desert. And we're going to hear more about that after these messages. Guys, good. Jeez, that's good stuff. The next leg was a long and treacherous one. It was nearly 900 kilometres. Over the Simpson Desert and into Bullia in Queensland. It was expected to take about two weeks.

It was during this leg that shit got real for Dr Jill Cowell. She'd sent her support crew 100 kilometres ahead and was on her own in the desert. All of her food, water, supplies and a rifle were on the back of her camel, Tiki, who was a little bit cheeky. Cheeky, cheeky. I just say. 100Ks is confident as well. It's a long way, isn't it? You just go up 100Ks. I'll meet you there.

Yeah, of 900. I guess it's not crazy, but they're pretty far ahead. It's a long way. And what's the point of them going? I mean, they don't have to drive along. side you, do they? No, often they'll go ahead, maybe set up can, get some food ready, get some supplies happening. Yeah. Well, how many Ks are they knocking off a day?

Some of them could do 100K in a day, but that's a big day. It's quite a big day. So that's what she's sort of hoping she'll see them by the end of the day. Well, she thought that she would spend a night in the desert on her own. That's the plan. Right. But she had no working radio with her. She'd spend the night in the desert, ride the next day and then see the crew the next night.

She's like, one night. That would totally be fine. But stopping for a rest, she tied Tiki to a small desert bush. He sat down and she said sometimes he would sit down and then want to rest for about an hour. So she's like, oh, he'll be fine. I'm worried about the size of this bush. It's a small desert bush. She's like, he'll be fine.

He's tired. He won't do anything. But he got up as soon as she let go of him and he bolted. Drag the bush with him. Yeah. I got a bush hanging. Like a trailer out. The bush ends up winning the money.

Well, I'm afraid fair's fair. This bush rode the camel all the way here. It's the richest bush in Australia He got up He bolted away And he headed for the sand dunes on the horizon He ran out one large sand dune And down the other side

Completely out of sight Oh no Jill was there left with no supplies No camel No one knows where she is Or expects her for a day or two So no one's going to come looking for her Oh yeah, all the supplies and everything are on Tiki

On the camel All the water I'm taking that as a bit of a hint from Tiki That doesn't really want to be in this race I just wants to go surfing those dunes. At the very first opportunity, bolted. Or he's saying, I could win this without you. Yeah, yeah.

I'm going for it. You're weighing me down, Jill. So she starts to, you know, she tried to stay calm, but also panicky bits thinking, I'm going to die of dehydration here. No one will find me. She ran after Tiki, waving at him. And every time he would stop and turn around.

He doesn't know what waving is. No, come back, come back. I have to remind myself that every time I smile at my dog. Like, I will make. eye contact and I kind of smile politely at him like you would, when you cross people at the street. And then I'm like, he doesn't know what a smile is. It wasn't just a smile. You just gave also a nod like, how are you? I do that. How's you day? Or like, sometimes he'll sort of look at me and I'll smile reassuringly. Like, everything's fine, bud. But he doesn't know. He

doesn't understand what a smile is. And I'm like, every time I'm like, Jess, you stupid bitch. Stop smiling at the dog. So he would run out the sand dune, keep running at about 800 meters away at this point, and this is tragic. He would get to the top of a sand dune and look around, and Jill thinks he was looking for his family. Get fucked. What? What? Which is where very sad. But eventually, he got to the top of a hill on the horizon, 800 metres away, almost out of sight. She's thinking, oh my God, my life is on the back of that camel. He ran back to the doctor and quietly sat down next to her with all of the supplies intact. Like, okay, I'm back. I just wanted to check that out. I just wanted to check my family

were there, they're not. Yeah, well, she says that from that moment on, the camel that had previously broken her arm began to behave and really respond to her. She thinks he realized his family aren't out here. I'm all he's got. I think she's doing a lot of projecting onto a camel. That is quite a lot of projecting. That's a lot of projecting onto a camel.

Yeah. I think she really knows that camel. She's projecting right on the money. He realized that I'm his family now. No, he's a camel. Anyway, that's beautiful. It's beautiful. Well, the good news is she's not going to die.

Thank God. Here. We'll find out of what I'm going to be by that. Foreshadowing. Meanwhile, the race leader Gordon was sneaking around in the dark on Carla so the army guys wouldn't know his movements or how far in front he was. He went through one of the checkpoints without checking in. Oh, no.

And this prompted a search party to go out and look for him. So they went looking for him. They had no idea he was so far in front that they found him waiting for them. at the next checkpoint. Whoa. They're like, where have you been? He's like, where the hell have you been? Because I found him.

Him not going to a checkpoint. Does that mean he's got to go back? Yeah, so he went through the checkpoint, but he didn't check in, like he usually signed a logbook or get someone to stamp you or something like that. There were complaints about cheating because he wasn't checked off and it became a real source of contention and a meeting had to be called. But race organizers led by Alex the vet who had to step in to a new role as director because the race director was seriously ill.

Oh my God. He had to be, like, I think, evacuated out of the desert. So Alex is like, I'm a vent. And now everyone's complaining to him about the, he's like, I don't know. I've got to look after all of these fucking camels. I don't give a shit. He'd be loving them when they're dropping out, though. Yeah, 59 camels, fantastic.

They did a little investigation and they saw footprints and they like went. And I imagine it you couldn't have got to the next checkpoint without guys. How he here? It's all like he's caught the bus. Yeah. So they were satisfied that Gordon had been through the checkpoint and they allowed. him to continue, but the army guys were pissed. Come on, Army guys.

Fair and square. See like they're just being petty. I mean... Let's talk it out, boys. Come on. Come on. Hey. Hey.

I know you're getting beaten by a civilian right now. Yeah, Civi. And that would hurt. That would hurt. But... Because you're better than civvies. You're better. Well, yeah.

You train. We've got a lot of Army listeners. And they know that they're better than us. Yeah. I mean, they know they're better than us. Oh, that's... My God. There's no question.

There's no good. They've never even questioned that. No. No one has. They're laughing right now. Did you think that was an option on the table? I think most listeners are better than us. Oh, yeah.

As they travelled on through the red, hot sand of the Simpson Desert, the flies got worse and worse. They were in competitors eyes and mouths, getting into their food. Apparently, they're just everywhere. And when Drew Kettle's walking along, he's got like a net over his head. And then the camera pans down and his dog is also inside like this. little net over his mouth so the flies don't get into laddie's mouth. And he's just sort of walking along like it's nothing. I can't even put a jacket on Humphrey without him freaking out.

This dog's got a net on his face. Yeah, you cannot put anything on Goose's head. It sounds like the net hasn't worked. Dogs are getting through it. Bloody hell. And if the heat and flies weren't bad enough, when they hit the Channel country in Western Queensland, things got worse in an unexpected way.

It started to rain. Some estimate it hadn't rained in this part of the world for four, years at that point and it started to rain and when it did it poured. It continued on. It quickly turned the dry dirt roads and tracks into thick and slippery sludge. The camel's pace was slowed to one. Yes, there's footage of camels like slipping and sliding and then falling into like big pits of mud. It's awful for them. Their pace was slowed to one mile an hour as they trudged on through the mud. Slipping, sliding over. At like Bathurst or one of the big races, you'd switch to your wet tide. Yeah.

Yeah. The camels have their wet legs. Yeah, they have wet legs. They do have these little, like, booties? Booth protectors, these little booties that they were making. Chains,

like it were driving in snow. Chain them up. That's sick. Yeah, that's great. Sick. But not for the mud. What are they thinking about? I actually,

I would have put a heelies on my camel. Yeah, yeah. It rolled. Not great in the sludge. Roll right over that sludge. I'd tell me, yeah, it'd be good if they had to back up like, donkey or something.

I feel like a mule might be able to do better in the market. Yeah. I'd put, I'd let my camel sort of sit down in a trailer. I'd still sit on the camel. So we are still technically writing. Technically for you, we've ridden this whole way. And then we just get towed. Well, some competitors, they didn't think of this, but they gave up on the stage and took

trucks to the final 100 kilometres to the next stop of Bullia. But Dr. Jill and 14 others, including Gordon O'Connell and Patty McHugh, continued on in the torrential rain without a support crew, determined to complete every step of the journey no matter what the weather threw at them. Amazing. So did the ones who skipped it, they basically disqualify themselves? Yeah, but they can't qualify for a place anymore.

They can complete the race, but if you don't do the whole thing. Yeah. At this point. Shit. But the second leg was eventually officially abandoned as they headed into bullia because somehow things got even worse. I should point out this. before we get into this horrible bit of the race.

This also was when camaraderie kicked in and they began to really help each other out. And I've heard more than one competitor say that they started to forget the race and just travel together as one happy family, helping each other out. It's been weeks and weeks. And they're like, this is really the point

where I realized they're people. The camels? Yeah, the camels are people. And I am a camel. A man's not a camel. They're losing their minds. But a camel is a people. So yeah, but the second leg was abandoned

because something has. happened, and that is, sleeping close together in the back of a truck, some of the competitors started to get sick, violently sick. Oh, no. And there was no privacy, everyone throwing up and going to the toilet just out in the open in front of each other. Oh, God. There was no water.

Talk about sludge. Oh. I can't believe you're the one who said. No, good. Apologies. There was no water for showers or any hygiene happening. It was a fucking nightmare. Well, hang on.

What about the dog water hat? The dog water hat. Well, yeah, you get a nice little shower, of course. Disgusting. I wonder where the sickness came from. An old swaggy trick. What a terrible thing to do? So stupid.

What do you mean I'm sick? I had three shots of rum for breakfast. Can't believe it. He's the only one who doesn't get sick, I bet. Whatever they had, it began to spread. 80% of all competitors and backup crew members were taken out what was soon found out to be a rare bacterial infection called Shigella, which is a type of dysentery. Oh, yeah.

Dysentry comes up on this show a bit. Yeah. It's nasty. I've never heard of it outside of this podcast. Really? It has affected humans for many centuries. It's a long time. It's awful stuff.

It had probably come from the flies, and then when someone had got it, they'd pass it on, and they were sleeping next to each other in, like the back of a trailer, like I say. Also, they're vomiting out into the open. It's horrific stuff. And then I heard one say, you'd get out, you'd vomit, you'd do your business, and you'd crawl back into the trailer and just lie next to someone. So, of course, everyone goes. Everyone got it. Very contagious. One of the SAS guys reportedly lost 12 kilos in four days from the illness.

No. It was nasty stuff. That's horrendous. I think I might have got something like this after five days at Octoberfest. Wow, yeah. Last night. You got Chegella. I shared a tent and Jimmy who was in the tent with me.

He just said the whole night, he just said, Zip. Zip. Zip. Zip. I was in and out like, it's like 40 times. Wow.

Just stay out of the tent of that point out. Sleep in the portal. Oh, so bad. Paddy McHugh, his wife and baby daughter, Annabelle got Shigella and were hospitalized. No. Baby Annabelle also got chicken pox

and salmonella poisoning on this trip. So what a wild ride for that baby. What did that fucking baby? Eating, what, raw chicken on the road? Raw camel. Raw camel. They're eating the camel. Well, if you didn't finish the race.

Yeah, that's true. Have a little nibble. That's what you get. Dr. Jill later summed it up. She said, Never have so many people gone to such lengths to have such a terrible time. Yeah. Because remember, this is completely optional.

Yeah. You can just call it. You can be at home. It's not one forcing you to do it. This is optional. What? They got conscripted into the camel race. Because, yeah, there have been worse things that humanity has done,

but often people are being subjected to stuff. It's like you have chosen to be here. I remember, I think there was dysentery on the Shackleton endurance. And like they chose to be on it, but they, once they were there, they couldn't just opt out. Exactly. You can't say, I'm a celebrity. Get me out of you. Is that how you get out of the jungle?

Yeah, I say it all the time. No one's ever come to my rescue. That's when I've known I've made it. I've become a celebrity, people respond. Every time he gets himself locked in the bathroom. I'm a celebrity. Get me out of him. Wasn't your old boss just on or is about to be on the celebrity show?

Peter Hellio. Peter Helley was on, I'm a Slibert again, man here. How'd he go? Did he great a think he came sixth, maybe? Liz Ellis, the netballer won. Oh, that makes sense. Like an athlete. Athlete.

Legendary athlete. Very likable. Very nice, yep. You don't have to be likable to survive a jungle, Dave. But you've got to get people to vote for you. Okay. Yeah, okay. So, Jill herself got sick, as did race leader Gordon.

But on day five of the illness, he thought he'd recovered. So he went to have a soft drink. After one mouthful, he collapsed in pain. And from that point on, he couldn't keep any fluid down for 10 whole days, but he refused to stop the race. He's going to die. No, he can't keep fluid down for 10 days. 10 days.

Yes. And thankfully, VM, this probably saved his life, that the race was actually paused and everyone was put into quarantine, with local emergency officials worried that the race would spread Shigella to every town that they visited. So they said, you all have to stay here until you get better. Which guy had the sip of lemonade? Gordon, who's in charge with – who's in front with Carla, the camel. And he thought he was better and he thought, oh, I can finally have something that's not, you know, just a sip of water.

I'll have a bit of soft drink, a bit of sugar. And then it was just bad news. Body rejected it and then he couldn't keep anything down. Eventually it was all too much and Gordon ended up in hospital suffering from renal failure. Jesus. Meaning he was suffering a full kidney shutdown. Yeah, he needed a drip like day two. Yeah.

He was legit at risk of dying. Fuck. But after a couple of days in the hospital, he told the doctor that if he wasn't discharged on time for the resumption of the race, he'd be walking out of there anyway. And when the race... He's like, just give me a family pack of hydrolight and I'll be on my way. Because if he doesn't finish the race, he would have worked for free. So it makes sense that he's going to die. It is so wild.

It is. Terminations some people have. Far out. I don't have it. Sunk-cost fallacy as well. Yeah. I've come this far. I need to keep going.

I don't care if it kills me. Well, you should care about that. I care. I care about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be happily going to hospital. Somebody sort me out, knock me out. I have a little snooze.

Wake me up when I'm better, thank you. Oh, knock me out. Tie me to a camel. If you do it in a coma, does it count? Does it count? Do I have to be conscious for every step of the way? My pain level between zero and ten? Well, it's 11.

So just give us what you got. And put me on the camera. Thank you very much. Strawberry, please. I love jelly. Me too. When I was in hospital last year, you got to order your meal like on a screen, like on a tablet. You could just order whatever you wanted.

And like, you could get extra jelly if you wanted? Yeah. Do you go to celebrity hospital? Yeah, to a celebrity hospital. Obviously, I'm a celebrity. Get me into there. Get me into there. Get me more jelly.

That's what you're yelling. Get my appendix out of here. or whatever, you know. It was sick. I love it. I love it. I love it. Is that how specific you were to the doctor?

Get my appendix out of here or whatever. Or whatever you diagnose me with. Whatever we're doing here. We're just choosing your operation on an iPad. Yeah. Appendix. Don't want that. Elective appendicitis.

Yeah. I was like, do I have an appendix? I think so. Makes you more get rid of it. Yeah. Don't want the nasty appendicitis at any point. If I could lose a little bit. of extra organ.

I'll take it. Yeah, yeah. It's a free loader, this one. Well, when the race started again, Gordon was there to battle on with the rest of them. So we got out of hospital just in time. The race continued, and amazingly, Dr. Jill Cowell, who'd now recovered, decided to make a move on stage four.

She's sort of been hanging back a little bit. Possibly even more incredible is that Gordon, a few days post-renel failure, won the stage again. Fuck off! Patty McHugh came second, and Jill Cowell came third, And from this point on, she was taken much more seriously. So apparently her camel Tiki liked to be traveling in the back of a pack. So no matter what she did, because camels, they know their place.

No matter what she did, she could never get in front of a lot of them. But finally, Tiki took off. And before this, a lot of the other races were sort of joshing her, giving her a bit of stick, being like, oh, what's it like up the back there, eh? And now she's come third. Suddenly, she's a real competitor. Right. She's in with a chance of placing.

It does. It's like, wow, Gordon almost. died and then he just won the stage. But really, he's just sitting on a camel. Did the camel have renal failure? No, that camel is bulletproof. Yeah, well, I'm not impressed. The respect to the camel.

He couldn't keep fluids down for 10 days. I'm amazed he's alive at all. And traveling through a desert. It's like, 12 hours of gastro, you're like, well, I'm dead. You feel like you're going to die, don't you? You're so dehydrated, but you can't keep anything down. 10 days, he couldn't keep anything down. And he was on a camel this whole time.

I can't believe it. That's ridiculous. Getting down, crawling into the bushes, getting back on the camel. How could you get back on the camel? You're doing 40 times that zip. Imagine each time you've got to jump back on a camel each time. I think like just said, just stay out of the tent. I'd just stay on the camel.

Oh, right. You're just going to shit all over a camel. Well, hang on. A gentleman never shits. You're going to piss all over a camel. Oh, I'm not. You're going to vomit all over a camel. I'm not too proud to excrete on it.

Mark your territory. I want a camel. I want a camel. So they were getting out of the desert, but now they had a new danger to contend with, and that is trucks. They were travelling along the highway at night, with massive road trains driving by just a few feet away.

And at night, they couldn't see the camels until it was too late. So they put reflectors on the back of the camel's asses, and they thought it was a miracle that no one was hit. Just get some bike lights, little flashing bike lights, you know? Yeah. One of those ones that, It was powered by the friction of the tire.

That's all I have. You see my paper round. It would press up against the tire of the wheel. So when it spun, it powered the torch. But it created friction. So I made harder to ride the bike. I thought this was a new thing from The Simpsons. No.

Bart rides one out in the morning when he's doing sort of. Maybe the astronomy with Principal Skinner. I had the exact same thing. That joke hit hard for me. Yeah, like, yes. Finally some representation of the paper boys. There are a few moments in the doco I've got to say where I felt quite sorry for the camels, I have to say. None more so when they found out that one of the camels was pregnant and it started giving birth.

They just didn't know it was pregnant. And it gives birth, all good. I've never seen a baby camel before. They are absolutely adorable. It looks like a miniature but very, very furry camel. They initially just thought it was one of those two humped camels. What's this? Normally the second hump is up top.

But I was thinking, surely the race is over for this camel, you know, it's just given birth. And they say, when they said, baby camels have to feed every three hours. And I thought, surely, it's racist over for the camels. So, and then they say, so that gives them other a real reason to run after the support truck to feed her baby. Oh, my God. So they just kept it going. That's fucked. So it could feed its baby every three hours.

Be like, oh, I have to run after my. Oh, my God. I was like, surely it's over for the camel. Nope. They kept going no matter what. They just used the baby camel as sort of. of a carrot in front. Come on.

Come on. Follow the baby. That's a little bunny rabbit, like of the grey hand racing. Yeah, racing after it. Jeez, that's no good. That's not nice. But by the end of the race, that baby camel has become a toddler camel. It's quite cute.

And did it have like, and because there was the baby as well, so maybe the baby from the other racer could ride the baby camels. Does that count? Because the baby camel was there for the whole journey. Exactly. So I think if the baby rides the baby camel. Oh shit, they're quite cute. They're kind of fluffy.

Yeah, they're so small and fluffy. Holy shit, I've never seen one of them either. Everyone look up a baby camel. They're great. Oh, that's cute. That's a cute little baby camel. Holy good. It looks like a lamb.

Yeah. Baby anything is pretty cute. Yeah. Apart from humans. Human babies. Yeah, some of them. Baby panda, actually they're a bit, because they don't have any fur. They're just sort of red and they look.

Oh, yeah, yeah. A bit creepy. Kangaroos are pretty freaky looking. But they're both quickly. become very cute. Unlike humans. Look, it takes ages. Yeah, they get weirder looking and weirder looking.

There's not a good period for the humans. Hittiest creatures. Shouldn't exist. So they were across the Great Dividing Range and the desert had become rainforest as they entered the sixth and final stage, which was the shortest and had the largest prize money for a stage win. So some people really went for it. Even if they think, I can't win overall, I could still win the stage.

Jim Bowen won the last stage, which was $6,000 in prize money. bad. And 16-year-old Jesse Zishki pushed really hard. He left his mum behind and came second. She's the one who'd won the Camel Cup in Alice Springs. So pretty cool camel riding family. Yeah, cool. So I forgot about the stage prize money. So old mate, Gordon is collecting cash. He's cleaning up for that too. Yeah. I think it started out about 1,500 bucks for stage one. And it just increased until the final stage was 6,000. So he's, he's already got some money guaranteed. Yeah. But he still wants to win the thing overall. The cameliers were received with great. fanfare on the Gold Coast with a marching band and a parade.

They were explicitly told that they weren't allowed to ride the camels through the city and to the beach. But the competitors got together and they're like, fuck that. We've come a long way. And they did it anyway, riding onto the beach and into the ocean, completing the 3,236 kilometer journey. Wow. They got together and they said, fuck that.

I'm definitely putting my own Warnocky's words in their mouths there. But that was the sentiment. Those camels deserve a swim. Yeah. Yeah, they took them and there's photos of them on the beach in the water. That's fun. They had been racing at that point for 84 days, 12 weeks.

All up, 41 of the 69 starters and their faithful camels finished the race. Wow. But only 28 were eligible for a place having completed every part of every leg. That's a, that's higher than I was expecting. Honestly, me too. Yeah. Almost half the field has done it all. In the end, there was no catching Gordon O'Connell who won four of the six stages,

despite being hospitalized with kidney failure. along the way. He won the great Australian camel race in a total race time of 480 hours, which was approximately 34 hours ahead of his nearest competitor, Peter Cape from the SAS. Wow. Keeping in mind, Peter Cape was on Zodian Mind Warp and run most of the way. Oh, yeah, right. He was running beside it, which is incredible.

Absolutely. They're basically in two entirely different races. Yeah, 34 hours ahead. So this means it took Gordon O'Connell some 20 days in total racing time, covering an average of 168 kilometres every 24 hours. This includes meals, sleeping and feeding the animals. Incredible. Wow. Absolutely amazing.

And that's faster than anyone predicted. He really blew everyone away. He won $40,000 for first prize. Second place, Peter Cape got 20 grand, although he donated his place earnings to the Royal Flying Doctors Service, which is quite nice. And third place, Steve French, who I haven't mentioned before, he got $10,000. And he'd had a shocking time, too, allegedly getting into a punch on with one of the soldiers, who he alleged punched him in the face. The soldier was arrested at the time, and you see Steve French in the doco with a bruised and bloody face,

and he has a black eye for the rest of the run. But I couldn't find any more info on what, if anything happened after that. So I don't know if the charges stuck or if it was all dropped. I don't know. But he soldiered on anyway and came third, which is pretty amazing. And so he was this non-SAS? No, he had, but he'd supplied some of the camels to the SAS, and there was friction between him and them,

because they told him, they alleged that he hadn't trained them properly. Right. Basically, which is evidenced by the fact that Peter Cape couldn't even get on his camel. And he's like, what training have you done? I'd let me get on him, just because he doesn't like you, man. I'd take that out on me. And then, no, I think they were also annoyed because he was obviously on a camel that was pretty good because he had third.

Yes. So he's given them these camels and then maybe save the best one for himself. That's what I was thinking maybe that John would have thought of Gordon. Gordon's got the best camel and his one. John's camel doesn't even last three days. But the SAS are they on the clock? Is this an official? I believe so because it was seen as like a training exercise and also the fact that they were

chaperoning them across the desert making sure no one dies. So it makes sense that he wasn't able to, he donated the prize money. Yeah, I guess so. But still, obviously, it's very generous. Dr. Jill Cowell came sixth overall. Well done, Jill. Which is an amazing effort. And Patty McHugh, traveling with his family, came ninth.

So they're the, everyone's working on it. Baby and the baby Camel go. I think that might have even, I can't be 100% sure that might have been Patty McHugh. Right. Whose, who's, I think, Camel gave birth. I'm not 100% sure. Really? Also, with the baby. With baby.

It could be baby and baby. Wow. That makes sense. Jesse Ziski, the 16-year-old round. out the top 10. Not a bad effort for a... It's amazing. For a young man. And he got an A on his assignment.

How brutal that the prize money just drops off to nothing at fourth. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. What about my favourite guy? 68 year old Drew Kettle and his faithful dog Laddie. Well, they didn't place because they were on foot and not on camels. But they did finish and he was awarded winner of the human race. Yes.

I assume Laddie was the winner of the dog race. I'm not sure. But the guy who came six. Second, he ran most of them over. Yeah, he was just leading a camel again. So when you said he wasn't eligible for a placing, would he have, did he finish ahead of? Well, I'm not sure overall.

He did actually beat 38 camels on the final stage. Wow. Which is incredible, just on foot. And he was sort of doing the Cliff Young shuffle, shuffling along. The Cliff Young shuffle. We've got to do it on Cliffie one day. I think I've put it up for a vote before. I think I might have as well.

I'm fascinated. I don't know this story at all apart from like he'd walk in Buntz stones or something. And then shuffled his way to a race win. But we'll find out more on a future episode, hopefully. So he's just walking and running. Drew had also single-handedly raised thousands of dollars for the Royal Flying Doctors. So incredible effort overall by an old swaggy. That's wild stuff. You could, I would, no thank you. No thanks. You know, absolutely not. Not my idea of fun or challenging myself. I don't like to challenge myself. That's what's wrong with the pretty kiss these days.

I just want the top job given to me. Yes. I don't want to work for it. Come on. Come on. Why would you? If you don't have to, why would you? Thank you.

So am I the boss now? Sure. Yeah. You run the SAS. Perfect. You're going to run it into the ground. In the end, the race costs Mr. Think Big Mode, Arthur Earl, $300,000 of his own money.

So it cost him a lot. And the race raised $86,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor's Service. So that $100,000 he was willing to put into the race, he could have just donated that. Yeah. And he ended up spending $300,000 plus Sheridan sponsored it as well. Yeah. Where does his cash going on the vet, I guess? And just organising the whole thing.

Yeah. Promotion. He printed up these sets of, what would you call them, pamphlets, which apparently cost back in the 80s, they cost tens of thousands of dollars to do. There's nice colour pamphlets advertising the race, and I read it costs tens of thousands to make. Whoa.

And did it catch on in the public consciousness? Yes, it really did. So that was one thing he'd probably be happy with. He won an award for most publicity for any bicentennial event because it was covered by a lot of, no, so strange, so specific. Most publicity. Thank you. Thank you so much.

It was all worth it. This is what I do it for. Yeah, he walked the red carpet. That was basically the gold logie of its day. But it was covered by a lot of media at the time. So he was probably pretty satisfied of the outcome. I guess because unlike most events, it went for 12 weeks. Yeah.

And they checked in with the race. And there's the dramatic bit where they've all been put in quarantine. Some of them are dying. They've finally finished the race. Wait, some of them died? Well, no, Gordon got the renal failure. Oh, dying. He's seriously at risk of dying.

They always forget the yin. No one did die. And even though they could. have been hit by trucks and all that sort of stuff. Running for a total of 84 days, the race is said to be the longest animal endurance race ever, a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. Wow. It's amazing.

Even at the time, there were some animal welfare protests about the camels. Yep. I think it would be even more today. Yeah. Oh, definitely. That is a reason I think that it may never be broken. And also, it's just a wild thing to do. Like, there's no way they're using the baby as bait for the camels.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I know camels, the whole, one of the big sort of selling points on them is they can handle desert and they, you know, they don't need a heap of water, right? They just go for ages. But still, do you have to make them go? You know what I mean? Wild stuff. Yeah, it's the, the humans are choosing.

Fair enough. That's why the real winner here was old. Mate, Drew Kettle. Drew Kettle. Walked it on his own accord. I made a note to ask Mick if he knows him. Oh, great. Also, I want to hear, because yeah, he seemed like a guy with a big personality that everyone would know.

It was a bit of sweet end for the riders, having completed an incredible journey, but they also had to say goodbye to their camel racing family as they all went their separate ways to go back to the routines of normal life. Dr. Jill Cowell found it hard adjusting back to life indoors, having slept outside for many months. Apparently was a real psychological adjustment to go back to the big city. Yeah, you can't like, yeah, you can't just go back to work the next day, you know? Like, just the exhaustion as well. Oh, it's wild stuff. Like, a comedy festival ends and I sleep for a few days.

And I didn't do a full run. This is 12 weeks doing something so hard on your body and your mind. Yeah, they've pushed themselves to the absolutely amount. I think it's very similar to the comedy festival as well. I did do a full run. Yeah. And I think of that hour or night. Yeah.

I did. It is surprisingly tiring. Oh, it's exhausting. Much like, I think, quite equal to A camel race. A camel race. A 12-rate camel race. If I could put it into terms that listeners could understand, doing a full run at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

is like being in the Great Australian Camel Race. Yes. I agree. Thank you. I actually think it's true that Drew Kettle walked so you could do a full run. Yes. At the Comedy Festival. That's what Drew Kettle wanted.

That's what you wanted. On your kettle. Yeah. Wild stuff. It must have been so hard. So one of the photographers of the event, Donna Phillips, had a similar feeling adjusting to living indoors and feeling like the roof was too low.

Wow. Because you've been sleeping outside. And it's like sort of claustrophobic in your own house. So she slept outside on her balcony to get some fresh air the first night, just to sort of adjust. Amazing. Wean herself back on to indoors. Was the doctor a GP?

GP. So she's going back in and hearing people going, yeah, got a bit of a scratchy throat. I've had it for a week. Oh, yeah. I do, yeah? Do you really? Oh, okay.

It's a bit tough, is it? I just shat myself on a camel. I'm going to give you a prescription for a little bit of concrete. Harden the fuck up. He's a spoonful of cement. Then her boss comes in and says like, hey, Jill. Jill, quick word. I just wanted to check in with that patient you saw just then who had laryngitis.

I was wondering if maybe you. you think there's something else we could have done for him. Actually, I'm going to write my boss a prescription for a bit of concrete sliding across the table. Sadly for Jill, this is just tragic. She never saw her camel Tiki again, as tragically a few days after the race. He was killed when he escaped on the Gold Coast and was hit by a truck. Oh, my God. Oh, no, very, it's awful.

That's so sad. Now I was looking for her as it's family. Matthew, stop it. She did live and work on the Gold Coast, so maybe. Who's coming to find him? Oh, my God. You can't live in your backyard. It's actually so sad.

You can't leave some details out. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, this is, I mean, this is maybe more positive. After the race, Patty McHugh, who had supplied a lot of camels and traveled with his family, he went on to work with camels owned by royal families in the Middle East and founded the first professional camel race in Australia, the bullier camel races, sometimes called the Melbourne Cup of camel racing. Thanks for putting it in terms, but you understand.

It's now a big deal in that. Queensland attracting 3,000 people. Wow. Which for bulliers, that's quite a lot. Bullies come up. I've never heard of bully before, but that's where the rich man left initially. Initially from, yes, Arthur Earl. And that was it because it was a stop. Because it's just inside the Northern Territory Queensland border. Right. Then we've got vet Alex Tinson. Remember he was the one vet and then became race director for a while. Trying to sort out disputes whilst looking after 69 camels. Remember before the race, he'd never worked with camels before. Well, he ended up working for a royal family.

in Abu Dhabi with their camels, and three decades later, he's still over there working with the camels. Whoa! So he went all in on the cameras. He totally changed his life. Amazing. Shit, that's kind of cool.

And it'd be handy, because if, you know, if they have any lions, he'd be like, I can look up to them. Hey, I've got it covered. I can do both kinds of animals. What's that? That's a dog.

Ah. That's fine. Oh, get it off. Freak. A tiny little freak. That freaky little camel. You've been breeding your camels with your lions? That's illegal.

As for the winner Gordon, well, in some ways, the battle for him had only just begun. Remember his neighbour John, who initially he had the agreement with to train two of the camels, including Carla? Split the cash. Split the cash. They had a big falling out. Well, John came forward and claimed that he and Gordon had an agreement and that Gordon owed him half of the winnings. Had they written it down? What a dog.

Gordon already worked out the time and investment he'd put into the race. He was losing money because he'd spent months on it. It hadn't worked for months. And when he returned home, he actually had to close his business. It shut down. And now his enemy was coming forward to try and take even more money away from him. Fuck. The two men entered into a multi-year legal dispute, which cost another small fortune.

Of course. For the loser or for both of them? Both in legal fees. Yeah. And to add extreme insult, whilst Gordon was in Darwin for work, so we had to travel around to find more work, John came back and took Carla the camel away from Gordon's property, because he was like, I own this camel, she's mine. He took her and entered her into his local camel riding business that he ran in town.

And he said, she belongs to me. And legally, that was true. Gordon had forged a strong affinity in friendship with Carla and he was extremely distressed by this, especially when he and his family would see John and Carla at local events in their small town. Oh, that's brutal. I can understand that it was his camel. But it's just such a shame. The relationship broke down, because otherwise you'd think that he'd,

John would be like, of course, you and Carla should live together. Of course. So Gordon was desperate to get Carla back. But by this time, he'd run out of money to keep going to court, having already blown thousands. So Gordon decided to take things into his own hands and launched a covert operation to get Carla. And this is going to be next week's episode? It is pretty incredible. By this time, it was 1993, five years since the race ended.

and Gordon was on a camel kidnapping mission. The complex plan involved putting glow in the dark paint on Carla during one of the camel riding events in town. And then over several nights, Gordon and his son staked out John's property hoping to spot Carla in the herd of camels. On the third night, a bit of moonlight hit the glow in the dark paint on her hump, and Gordon recognised that hump. That belonged. He recognised the hump.

That's Carla. That lovely lady lump. I think it's the glow in the dark. dark paint he recognized. He claimed he recognized the figure. He's like, there's the paint. Yeah, because you put paint on it. She's the only one glowing in the dark. I think we'd buy that a bit easier, Gordon, if you hadn't painted it. Yeah. Oh yeah, no, I recognize it. I'd recognize that glow in the dark paint. It's not a bad idea to put the glow on the dark paint on. That's great. But then don't be like, ah, yes, I recognize that. No, you recognize it because it's glowing.

Come on, Gordon. Gordon. Come on, Gordon. We want to, we want to be on your side. Well, he so he sees the camera. He yelled out to her, he called out to her, and even after all this time, she came over and him and his sons, they grabbed her. So they rustled the camel away. John, as Gordon had hoped, then launched legal action against him. As he'd hoped. Yes, he, for some reason, legally, he wanted to be sued rather than have to be the one suing. Right. And in the end, the court sided with Gordon and found that John was only owed the price he'd paid for Carla the Campbell in 1987, which was only $500. Gordon was awarded the full prize money for the race, and John even had to pay all of the

legal costs. Yes. And had to pay Gordon for training expenses incurred for Gordon training his camel in 1987. So that makes a lot of sense to me. The idea that you have to, you get taken to court and you win, and you still have to pay for legal fees, that sucks. I like it when they say, and you've got to pay expenses. Yes, damages, plus expenses, other sort of stuff, which they do. The court didn't rule on who owned Carla, but according to the courier mail, Gordon retained custody of Carla for the rest of her days,

and she lived with him in Sapphire. She died in 2015, 27 years after winning the Great Australian Camel race, which is quite a good innings because according to PBS, the median life expectancy for camels is 17.8 years. Oh, wow. So, she was old. She was very old. I guess she really was a special camel. And her offspring and descendants still live with the O'Connell family to this day.

That's nice. I mean, that's a satisfying ending, considering we've always sided with Gordon. But can you imagine John's family side of the story? Yeah, of course. I didn't hear any of that, of course. They got completely fucked in court. It was an absolute bullshit. It's ruined them forever.

Totally. Yeah. So, unfair. So that's the end of my report, but I wanted to shout out to a few of my sources on this one, because there's not many online, but the ones that are there are really great.

There is a Facebook page for the Great Australian Camel Race. I believe it's managed by Donna Phillips, who was a photographer of the race that I mentioned at the end there. It's got loads of photos, behind-the-scenes stuff and documents. Awesome. It's got photos of extracts of the book on, Arthur L that really made me laugh. That's where I found that. It's a great archive and clearly a lot

of love and enthusiasm has been put into it. But at the time of recording, it only has 128 likes. So let's get behind it. I'll link it to him the show notes. Well, I'm lucky here right now. Me too. It's great. It's got so many great photos on there if you want to see more of it. Sounds awesome. I'll also link to the ABC Radio National podcast, The History Listen, which just last month did a two-part episode on the race. And they've interviewed some of the competitors. If you want to hear their own words describing it. Check that out. You also get to hear Gordon yelling. Ha ha, John, you asshole. That's so funny. Which is very funny. Presented by Kirstie Melville and Michelle Gaetley. It's really well done. I'll link to that. And finally, the 1988 documentary made by

Orana Films is also worth a look, especially for Drew Kettle, the guy walking with his dog laddie. Lots of great moments for him. They rule, like I said earlier, you can rent that one on video. So if you want to read or hear more, I'll link to all that stuff. Oh, this page is awesome. Yeah, it's great. The Great Australian Camel race. That's sick. So great. Well, that's the end of my report on the Great Australian Camel Race.

Well done, D-Dab. Good on D-D-D-D. Dave, what a great report. I genuinely, first one you've done in a long time when I thought, yeah. He's done it. He's done it. What about Nicholas Cage? Yeah, look, mate.

That was a soft one for me. We talked about Conair for a long time. You had a bit of fun, sure. Yeah, but this was something. This was something. Oh, no. That was nothing. Oh, hang on.

You're taking my compliment as a negative. That is classic Dave. Oh, no. I just said this was good. First one in a long time is the bit that I didn't like. You never fail, apart from that Nicholas Cage one, of course. That absolute dad. That's not my fault.

That's his fault. Yeah. But leading an extremely boring life. I think what I love most about this episode is it gives us a great opportunity for Dave to post that camel photo again where he's eating a pie on a camel I've never posted it

haven't you? I never debuted it really? No I've just have you just shown it to us Yeah I've shown you a bunch of times

because old school social media just showing us a photo He's done a slide night I posted like six photos in a week or something with me in Morocco with pies and I was like I'll give it a bit of time

and now six eight months has gone by and I've just never got round to it Oh my God A perfect opportunity Are you saving it for a big number of pie stagram? Well I have to now Yeah, you have to.

You have to serve it for 500. 1,000. I think that's fair. I think I'm on 180 or something. It's got to be a while, guys. It's a throwback. Also, it's a good opportunity for me to post the old, stupid old sketch about road trains. There's just, this is going to be a content bonanza.

Oh, my gosh. We'll be posting six times a day if you want to follow us. We've recently just hit 10,000 follows on Instagram. Don't worry about that. Not even a big deal. We're so good at content. Anyway, what are we doing now? What we're doing is thanking a few of our fantastic supporters who are,

support us on patreon.com slash dogo on pod. And if you want to do that, you should just go to the website, patreon.com slash dogo on pod, sign up on any level. There's a bunch of different rewards, including three bonus episodes a month, which includes a bonus report every month, a Brendan Fraser related podcast every month, and then a quiz or something else. We also have the nicest corner of the internet,

the Facebook group for Patreon supporters, which you'll get access to, get to vote on topics. Like Dave's report today was voted on by the Patreon's. When it was close to, you really do change the show of your own Patreon. Sometimes it's two, three. Jess has been showing us her just neck and neck poll for the last few days. She's like, I want to get started on this report, but it's level. But it is, it is tight.

It's amazing. And yeah, there's a bunch of other things, including the fact quote or question section. And if you sign up on the Sydney-Shaunberg level, you get to give us a fact quote or question or a or a suggestion, or really whatever you like. And I'll read four of them out each week. I'll read them out for the first time when I read them out. And that is basically me trying to excuse myself for bad pronunciation. First up this week, I'd love to read out Mark Wends's fact quote or question.

They also get to give themselves a title, I should say. And Mark's title is Esquire of Rohan. Oh. Does this actually have a jingle? It actually does have a jingle, I think. It's something like this. Fact quote our question. D-D-D-I-H.

He always remembers the D-Ing. And anyway, the Esquire of Rohan is asking a question saying, If you could have done any other profession, what would it have been? And I always suggest, you don't have to, but I like it if you do, answer your own question. Mark has writing, I wouldn't mind being a carpenter or retire someday as a simileet. Now, I've said that wrong, there's no L in it, right? Samillet?

No, there is, I think. Okay. Samalia. Yeah, Samillio. Sometimes those French words have a solanel. Not in this case. I'm thinking of Semillon. Ah.

Maybe. Or Semillionion, as I said, when I worked in the bottle shop, way too many times thinking that. Carpenter, I knew a carpenter once. He did a bit of wine work as well. Oh, you drew your own. Yeah. Forget his name.

But, Dave, what about you? You're a man of many talents. As a child, this is a big Brendan Fraser influence. The mummy came out and I wanted to be an archaeologist. Oh, yeah. Really being into Egypt and that kind of stuff for a few years. My dad's also very much into Egyptian antiquities and has been fascinated with that kind of stuff since he was.

Warnockian son's archaeology code. I should have done it. Yes. There's still time. Not too late. I know Martin's retired. That just means he's got time. Yes.

I wonder how long an archaeology degree takes. We've lost him to Google now. Dave self-taught. Don't worry about it. Yeah, exactly. You're just digging. Yeah, Brendan Fraser didn't study. You're doing the old digging dust?

Do I have a dig? Yeah, what about you, Bopper? I wanted to either be a nurse or play basketball for Australia. Why not both? Well, that's true. In women's sport, that's very true. Oh, gosh. I am 5'7, which is slightly above average.

You know, I'm on the taller side, but not basketball height. And did not get the grades for nursing. So here we are. Just quickly looking up. Mugsy Borgs, 1.6 metres. So you're not far off. I'm 1.7. You're even taller than Mugsy Bugs.

You're not far off. You're 10 centimetre just taller. Who's Mugsy Bokes? NBA player. Great. Was in Space Jam. Charlotte Hornets. Mugsy Bokes.

Played at the top level. Gotcha. So if you're taller. Yeah, but I'm not a guard. I'd have to retrain as a point guard. You know, I'm a forward. Brough. Okay.

Power forward. No, just a forward. Okay. On the left side, because I'm left-handed. It's an easy, you pass to my right hand, bring it in, you know, it's just an easy layup. I've just looked up a Bachelor of Archaeology here at La Trobe University of my alumni, which I've got a few connections there still. Three years, part time, sort of three is full-time or part-time equivalent.

So I could take six years maybe. It will cost me, what's that, $40,000. In hex though, mate, you pay that off, don't worry about it. Can I put it on hex if I've already had mine and... You can have more hex, I'm pretty sure. Hell yeah. I'm going to do it. I'm sure you can have more.

Hicks. Anyway, Matt, what would you be? Well, I have a bit in common with you there, Bob, because I've probably mentioned this before, but I found a, we wrote these cards in like grade three or something, primary school where we said what we'd be doing when we were, you know, in our adulthood. And I wrote that I would be a professional basketballer. Yep. And a rock star by night. Yeah. I love it. Love that.

So I guess, yeah, I was thinking that basketball would be mainly day games, but that's a pretty, that's pretty good. I'd still be pretty happy with that. And I think, like, I think what professional sport are getting a lot better at now is thinking beyond the sport. Yeah. You know, you retire and you still have, you're still so young. Yes.

You know, what's next? In the AFL that you have to be either studying or working part time. Yeah. which is great. Just setting yourself up for the next phase. For what's next? Because some of them retire. Every NFL player. I think that's...

Really? I didn't realize. You can retire like 25 and then you got your whole life, you know? That's right. So it's great, Matt, that you were thinking, well, obviously I'll play basketball and then when I retire, I'll be a rock star by night. Yeah. I think that's great. I've got it somewhere.

I drew pictures of it. That's really cute. I should say we're going to track it down. I've very seriously, I looked into, because I was changing unies at the end of my first year of uni and I went and looked at like the past year of uni and I went and looked at like the paramedicine course at Virginia. I really wanted, I thought about being a paramedic. I'm surprisingly good in a crisis,

but I don't know if I'm that good. Oh, I mean, the way you can park. I think you'd be the driver. I'm going to park the ambulance for sure. Yeah, but to be the driver, you do have to be one of the paramedic. Yeah, which I think would you do both. Yeah, okay, great.

Yeah, but like that would make you an even better candidate. Yeah. You can like do 150 kilometres an hour, like in a school zone. Piss off on an ambulance, for example. And come to a complete stop in a reverse parallel park. In a tight spot From 155Ks an hour Not back over the victim

How did that happen? The van we were driving in England that time Was bigger than an ambulance So you would be fine It was fucking huge It was so huge I parked it in a spot that like a Yaris Would struggle with

It was a nine cedar How did we get out of there? Well I think you did that as well I think it was like an 18 point turn You just went into a fugue state Suddenly we're back at Heinz. Dropping it off. Thanks so much for that question, Mark.

The next one comes from Libby Mason, aka when it says Libby's, Libby's, Libby's on the label, label, label, you will like it, like it, like it on your table, table, table. I heard this jingle my whole childhood, as this is still a popular canned food brand in the States. Though I'd rather be associated with green beans than corned beef hash. I love the name Libby. Libby.

Libby's a great name. Love it. Really? It's a nice one. I really like Libby. Was it, there was an Australian swimmer Libby, something? Trickett. Libby Trickett.

Oh, man, what a great. I forgot how good that. It comes. I'm strong. And she changed her name when she got married too. Which is a mistake. Or is Tricket. No, no, no.

Her name was Libby Tricket. Ney Lenton. That's right. She was Libby Lenton. Libby Lenton. Also fantastic. Libby Lenton was already good. Libby Tricket's actually very good as well.

Yeah, so that's why you understand why she took the name. A wartime Olympic gold medalist. You cannot take an inferior name though. No. If you already have a name like Libby Lenton. You got to marry up. You got to marry up. And she was only 167 centimetre tall just.

I'm taller than Libby Lenton. You could have been a swimmer, maybe. Maybe you're too tall. Look at these shoulders. I could have been a swimmer. Yeah. Except I get ear infections. I wonder if she's ever met Peter Vangton, who didn't bang.

Oh, the Dutch flyer. Or the flying Dutchman. Libby's got a fact writing. I sincerely hope Matt recited his most current fact about North Carolina before he gets to this part. Well, North Carolina, finally enough, is my most current fact about that is perhaps that Venus flytraps are from there. But anyway, Libby says, my first ever contribution to the fact, question, brag or suggestion segment is all about North Carolina. Thanks so much for getting involved, Libby.

Writing, firstly, I would like to debunk the Blue Fire Truck pseudo fact that only applies to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Yeah, okay. The science is in. And we've enraged Libby enough that she's given us money just to tell us that we're wrong. But says that Chapel Hill is home of UNC Chapel Hill where Michael Jordan played college basketball and wore the legendary blue shorts that would one day go on to change the fashion of professional basketball. Well, there you go. So, I mean, it's relevant to the North Carolina that I know and love. Yeah, Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill.

Jordan's. J&C. JNC. Now to the fact, in 1774, Penelope Barker organized the first recorded political demonstration by women in America to protest the 1773 T Act. Then in 1775, North Carolina became the first state to declare independence from Britain with the Mecklenburg. Don't worry, Matt, it's pronounced how it's spelled. Mecklenburg. Oh, nailed it.

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Freedom. I don't claim these to be fun facts, but at least a bit interesting. As the resident feminist on the pod, perhaps Matt will find Penelope Barker's protests interesting enough to replace the Venus Firetrap fact. Yeah, okay, so the first, I've already forgotten it. First, it's still written in front of you. First protest, I've scrolled too far down. Oh, yeah, first protest. 1774.

Yep. I'm retaining that. Penelope Barker, Penelope Barker. Anyway, huge thank you for all the laughs, groans have discussed, and genuine entertainment y'all have provided for the last seven years. I love y'all so much, and I can't wait to come to a live show. Back to y'all. Just to hear Matt say y'all.

Libby, Libby, Libby. Fantastic work and a fantastic debut from you. Next one comes from Nathan Damon, aka podcast Dad. Yes, you can have a cookie. Just don't tell Mom. Thank you. I'm telling mum. Oh, no.

Nathan's fact is, beer is good. That is all. Nathan, I'm with you there. I agree with that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that I do agree. I agree to disagree. Unless we...

Okay. Why, I already told mum. I'm a tattletale. I like beer. I like having a beer. We know. What? That was my closest held secret.

The second season of beer pie. should be coming out soon. Apparently, this Australian winter it's coming out, which talks, you know, I'm in a lot of the places we talked about today in the Northern Territory. And the final one this week in the fact quote of question section comes from Ryan Butterfield, aka Senior Chief Submariner in charge of the smartest dumb people on the planet. And Ryan, oh, he's, I think, is this the first time? He's going with not a fact, not a quote, not a question, not a brag, not a suggestion, but a bet. Oh, I love it.

Love that. Writing, oh, this is, I don't know, this is the first time we've said it outside of Patreon, but he said, just got the message that you're going to try for an American tour. My cousin, also a Patreon, told me that if you guys come to the United States, he would buy my ticket to come see your show live if I bought his plane ticket to one of the following places. Washington, D.C., Philadelphia or Boston. What do we need to do to make this happen? Oh, okay, you weren't betting us, you've bet your cousin.

Right. So the cousin will pay for a ticket and he just has to organise a flight. But do we know where the cousin's flying from? No. Because our ticket, we haven't said a ticket price yet, but if we did, it will be very much likely cheaper than a plane. So you are losing on the deal there. But I think it's a beautiful deal. It'll be a beautiful bet between cousins.

I'll go on a tropical holiday with you. All you have to do is pay for my flights accommodation, give me $5,000 and spend. money, I bet you are. I bet you are too much of a wuss to do it. I would love to take that bet. Okay. But I would, like, you have to, I'd bet that you wouldn't fly me to a tropical destination to give me five grand spending.

I think there'd be a decent chance we'd get to one of those places, I think, maybe. I have no idea. Dave's, is crunching the numbers. I think New York City is the, is more likely. So are there a couple hours from Philly? Can you just make the extra little bit? Yeah. In the middle there.

Thank you so much. Ryan Butterfield. And yeah, for people who don't know, we're back on that path, hopefully getting something together. Yeah, it's the visa path. If we could come without any trouble, we'd be there tomorrow, but we are jumping through some hoops as we speak. Well, we've got some American lawyers working on it. We literally have an immigration lawyer. Thank you so much for those facts, quotes and questions. The next thing we like to do is thank a few other great supporters. Jess, you normally have a bit of a game here based on the topic at hand. I know it seems a bit obvious, but could we name their camel?

Great, a great one. Because some of them had really fun names. And remember I had that horse name generator? Is it a random camel name generator? I'll see, camel name generator. Oh my God, there is. No. Animal names.org.

Fantastic. Let's see. Oh, it just sort of gives you a list. I want, I want, nah, I'm going to find the one that I had last time. Yeah. We'll just have to tweak them slightly to make it more camel-y. Yeah, that's right. Good jumping off point.

Uh, if I can kick us off. First up, I'd love to thank from Elgin or Elgin in Moray in Great Britain. It's Jenna Morrison. Jenna Morrison. What about Nathan Camilleri? Cause is that just the name of a, that kid who played guitar in the 90s on Hay Hatt Saturday? Yeah. Camelieri?

So Nathan Camelieri is the name of her camel. Oh, yeah. What do you think? Camelieri. Camelieri. What is that, what is that? Just his name? I'm pretty sure it is.

Yeah. He was a. child prodigy guitarist. Yeah, Nathan Cameliery. I think that's a great name for a camel. Great. And one that, a name that would definitely make sense

to someone from Elgin. Sorry, his name's Nathan Cavaliery. Oh, is it? So it is a pun. All right, if that's what a pun is. That's great. Thank you so much, Jenna. Jenna Morrison,

writing Nathan Camelieri. That's good. Next, I love to thank from, oh my God, from God's country, Cincinnati, Ohio, in United States. It's Richard Wheeler. Chocolate Pongo.

My God. No tweaks needed. That is fantastic. Chocolate. That is camel ready. Pongo! Pongo! Pongo! Pachula Pongo! That's his bucking you on. Chocolate Pongo.

Do you get chocolate-colored camels, Dave? If you have got the pongos. Yeah. You know what I mean? If you've got Shigella, that will be a chocolate-covered camel. Okay, I see what you're saying. It's a fucking gross. She's got a camel.

Yeah, no, we got it. Well, I didn't think you did. I wish I didn't. Finally from me, I'd love to thank from Vancouver in Washington in the United States. It's Denise Goldworthy. Blue Skin Adios. So the delivery is great too, Jess. Thank you.

Blue Skin Adios is amazing. Thank you. It's hard to make heads or tails of it. I love it. Can I thank some people and you can keep those names coming, Jess. I would like to thank from Indianapolis, Indiana, Joanna, Warner or Werner. David Letterman. Fluffy moon

Oh, that's good Especially if it's one of those baby fluffy ones Fluffy moon is so good I would like to thank now from I got a great one Great, I'm so excited for it I'd like to thank now from Rotarua In the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand

It's Richard Jones Writing Hocus Pocus Dandy Oh yeah That's so great That's so great I can picture that camel Yeah, it's got a bit of a razzle-dazzle time.

Yeah, a bit of a nightmare in the mornings to get going, but... Well, we're going to give it to some of that Matt and I know from Birmingham in the greatest of Britain's Helena Heath. Oh, Helena Heath. Hellenah Heath who we've hung out with and been on who knew it with Matt Stewart, live in Birmingham. I didn't realize Helena was a patron, you legend, Helena. Amazing. And Helena's... Oh, writing on...

What's Helena writing? Unexpected cinnamon. Oh, yeah. Where's it come from? You don't want that. It's especially if you think you're, you know, you've got a spoonful of porridge. Yeah. But it's just full cinnamon.

That's trouble. Oh, no. That was unexpected. That was unexpected. That was unexpected cinnamon. It's coating my, have you ever done the cinnamon challenge? No, it looks awful. It is.

It just, you basically can't breathe. Yeah, I think I did it for like community TV or something stupid like that. What a guy? What about the Sprite challenge? Do you see people do that? The one where the guy hits his head on the garage. Oh, holy shit. That is.

I watch that over and over and over again. Because I'm so skeptical about most of those videos, but you can't fake that. Just him going, what do I do? What is he saying? Oh, no. He has another one where two girls are sitting in a car. You just have to get through like a whole can of Sprite or a whole bottle of Sprite or something without burping. You have to do it quickly.

And they're chugging it and it's like really painful. And one of them's just like, oh my God, it hurts. And the other's taking a sip. And she just goes like, blah. There's like this huge burp that comes out of it. It's incredible. I'll show you after this. Okay, great.

Next, I got another good one. Here we go. Amazing. I'm over to you, Jess. Oh, damn it. No, I can read them out. You keep the names coming. Okay, yeah, great, yeah.

I would like to thank from Furn Tree Gully in the ACT, Cass Cooper. Rocky Blue. Oh, yes. Great, Rocky Blue across the line. I like that one. I would like to thank from Rochester. Rochester. In Great Britain, it's here we go.

Harry, Beth and Willow the Cat. Well, they are all. Writing on? Secret Tank. Oh, that's appropriate. That's a big. That's a big. You don't realize it.

Until you're right up next to it, but secret tank is huge. That's a secret tank. I love it. Thanks, Harry Beth and Willow. And finally, I'd like to thank from Lindisfarne in Tasmania, Eliza Murphy. Writing on Captain Legend. That's great. Captain Legend is, that's a camel you can trust.

This might be one of my new favorite websites. I love it. But they don't fail either. No. Because we get sick of it pretty quick otherwise. I'm refreshing every time and it's giving me six and I then I'm combining a couple. So there's a little bit of work from me here, I will say. A little bit of genius from me.

Yeah, okay. We don't want to leave it all up to AI. Yeah. They're going to take our jobs eventually. What about Jetset Bentley? Or Gemini, Pony Express, Gemini. This is good stuff. This is all real good.

Thank you so much to Eliza, Harry Beth Willer. So Cass Helena, Richard Joanna, Denise, Richard and Jenna. And Helena's podcast, if you want to listen to it, is called, Hey, I love that movie. And it's about movies they loved as a kid, or one of them, the three of them did. And they rewatch it and normally go, huh, that's more problematic than I remember. Yeah. The last thing we need to do is just welcome in a small handful of people into the trip to

Club, just five inductees this week. Dave, what's the TripDitch Club all about? Well, this is basically our opportunity to shout out people. We've already shouted out to before on the shoutout level, but they've been there for three consecutive years now. So to enshrine them in a Hall of Fame type ceremony, we welcome them into the TripTidge Club, which is part Hall of Fame, part Hangout Zone, part Clubhouse where we gather with all the other people, once you're in, you can't leave, but why would you want to?

Because we've got live bands. We've got snacks, cocktails. there's an air hockey table, Fuseball, we play all the sports. There's a sport area. There's a full, full AFL-sized Aussie rules ground. Yeah, yeah.

Indoorse. Indoorse. It's like the new Tasmanian Stadium. That's going to be indoors. It's going to have a roof. Oh, I'm going to have a roof, fantastic. And, yeah, it's just a great place to be. So what we do is we shout out to these people.

Jess usually organizes some food and drink that we add to the menu. Yeah, camel. Camel. camel milk. Yep. Camel cigarettes. Camel cigarettes and then camel meat. I won't lie to you.

There's a pie place that I went out of my way to go to, I can't remember the name of it. You said you wouldn't lie to us, Dave. You remember the name. No, I'll look it up for you. So it's about an hour west, I think, of Brisbane. And they do something like 200 different types of pie. Whoa, that's too many. If Gordon Ramsey went in there, he'd say simplify the menu.

You fucks. You fucking toilet. Shut your lid, you fucking toilet. Sit before this menu. Or... It's the old Foon Vale bakery. They do 200 different types of pie, and I got there, and I thought, you know, I'll have to try something exotic.

Yeah. First one I saw it was like, all right, I've got to try the camel pie. They do a camel pie. And I was relieved when they said, it's sold out. So I didn't have to eat it. I'll admit that to you. Okay. Why'd you order it?

Because, you know, when else am I going to have a camel pie? Yeah, you could go for like a Mexican... cheese pie or something, you know? I ended up getting like, it was called something like a roast, and it was like a full roast inside a pie. So you, what, okay, so, you know, you're happy to eat a baby sheep, but a camel to you is too far. I think it was a beef.

It was a beef. Oh, you're happy to eat a fully grown cow or bull. Anyway, so yeah, I'm saying. They're beautiful animals, Dave. It's more of the camel. I think it would be quite a tough meat, I imagine. Yeah, I'm imagining that too, but I've put it in the slow cooker. Thank you.

For quite a long time. I think it'll be all right. Dave, you're going to. going to fricking eat it. Okay. Just made it. I made it. I made it.

I don't even eat meat. I slaughtered a camel for you, Dave. She cut its throat. She cut its beautiful long throat. It was awful, Dave. They're such a beautiful long-throated animal. Oh, four. Four.

Four. All right. So let's welcome some people in. Oh, Dave's booked a band? I booked the band called Camel. Oh, great. I thought you might have had friends of Rome playing a man's on a camel in full, but this is even better. This is an English progressive rock band formed in the 1970s.

Missy journalist, Mark Blake describes Camel as the great unsung heroes of the 70s prog rock. So enjoy Camel. Prog rock is often pretty unsung. A lot of instrumental stuff. Now, five inductees this week. Firstly, so just seeing the list of albums, one of them is called, I can see your house from here. That's awesome. I like that very much. So from Address Unknown, first up, I'd love to welcome into the club. And Dave, sorry, I should say, is the MCA. He's going to hype them up.

You ready to hype up, Dave? Let me hype. Jess will hype Dave up because he's very, self-esteem's low. All right, from address unknown, please welcome in Daniel Pilgard. Well, I was feeling a bit defensive, but I've let down my pill guard for Daniel. Be vulnerable! I'm real for you! I'd also love to welcome in from Belfast in Northern Ireland.

It's Mike Lawrence. It's Belfast's favorite Lauren's son. Favorite son, Mark Lawrence, son. From Eaton in Western Australia, it's Adam DeMarty. Let me buy you a de Martini. Yum. Put on them a tab. I'd also love to welcome in from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Kayla Marvin.

Well, can I just say to you, what's going on? Caleb Marvin Gay. Yes. That was an episode a few weeks ago of who knew it, Matt Stewart, and one of the questions was, what does Albuquerque mean? The episode with Cass and Dan Simpson. Oh, I'd like to know that. I'd love to listen.

And finally, from Kensington. in Victoria Australia, it's Holly Griffiths. Holy Griffiths, it's Holly Griffiths. Welcome in Holly Kayla, Adam, Mark and Daniel. Make yourselves at home. Mikaasa, Asu-Casa. Enjoy the camel, the food and band.

And cigarettes. And that brings us to the end of the episode. Is there anything we need to tell people before we go, that we love them? And that anybody can suggest the topic. There's a link in the show notes. And you can also go to our website, which is do go onpod.com.

Where you can find all that information as well. you can find us on social media at DoGoOnPod and follow us and love us. Please love us online. Boot at home, D-dub. Hey, we'll be back next week. With another episode, we are rocketing towards 400. Can you believe it?

I can't be done. We are proving them wrong week by week. We'll be back. And until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening. And goodbye. Later. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are

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