There was a good crowd there, and I met some nice dogs — several sleek-looking pointers, plenty of labs and a sweet old golden, who reminded me of the Golden-Leave-It-There. I never thought I’d miss him, but maybe I do.
It was a cheerful crowd with plenty of kids — the sort of people you meet camping in the hills or on a sandbar on the river over Christmas.
But I wasn’t there for the dogs, or the kids — I was there for the sausage, and it was good. And I was there for the message, of course.
The rally was held to highlight the ever-increasing restrictions on how dogs and people can enjoy the outdoors, often decided by people in the city who never go there. Or if they do, they don’t want me there.
I called it Trelly’s rally, after Steve Threlfall, who led the group that organised it. Steve owns Trelly’s Outdoor, the long-established independent fishing, hunting and outdoor outlet which, to the Boss anyway, is more or less a toyshop — and it has handy gear for smart dogs like me.
The Boss has known Trelly since he was a nipper and spent time in the hills with his dad, Ken, who was a fine bushman. Ken would have been pleased to see his great-grandchildren up on the stage on Saturday, full of beans and telling the 500 onlookers how they love camping out in swags and prefer swimming in the river to swimming in a pool. Chips off the old block.
Trelly introduced Russ Bate to kick off the proceedings. The Boss told me Russ ended his 50-year career in IT as a vice-president of Sun Microsystems in the Pacific and retired to Jamieson — but he didn’t really retire. He sat on Mansfield Shire Council, where he served as mayor; he chaired Musica Viva; sat on the ABC board; chaired the Firearm Safety Foundation; and chaired Field & Game Australia for 16 years, among other things.
Having travelled extensively around the world — squeezing in a little fishing, hunting and shooting whenever he could — Russ knows how other countries manage their wild environments and carefully allow access for everybody in a sustainable way. Even the dogs were listening.
He pointed out how we had become so urbanised that many city people had no experience or links with life on the land anymore, so the cycle of life that country people understood was a mystery to them.
People who had been brought up camping, fishing, harvesting food, hunting, collecting firewood, rock climbing, or four-wheel driving in the mountains and the outback were all seeing increasing restrictions on their activities, often in an arbitrary way without sound reasons.
I’m not allowed in most national parks, even on a leash, with The Boss picking up my, er, poo. Like, it’s not as if we’re a crowded country.
The Boss reckons it’s the same urban influence advocating for unsightly wind farms around Ballarat or off coastal towns and ugly transmission lines across ‘farm country’ — peaceful places where country folk have chosen to live, often for generations — to tap into the new solar farms.
The Boss assures me they could go underground, but the Greens and city people think that’s too expensive: country people should put up with it for the sake of net zero. It wouldn’t happen in Northcote, would it? Woof!
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