Series 2 of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ returned on Channel Ten last night with yet another episode featuring a social occasion – this time, a trip to the Brunette (ABC) Races. Held on Brunette Downs (Barkly Tableland, NT) twice a year but with the largest gathering held in June, this Keeping up with the Joneses episode was filmed in 2010 – the year of the Brunette Races Centenary.
Typically cloudless dry season skies above typically dusty horizons – with the ‘Barkly Breeze’ putting in an appearance making the fancy outfits fly up around the ears and campfires spread into the mitchell grass.
The Brunette Races were described on ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ as the Territory’s biggest sporting event, which is not actually true (for example there are annual races in Darwin and Alice Springs which draw large crowds). However in 2010 the Brunette Races were the busiest they’d ever been because so many extra people made the effort to travel from all over Australia to attend the special centenary celebrations. The Brunette races are held over several days and feature horse races, a campdraft, rodeo and childrens events. The first couple of days are quieter, mostly residents from surrounding cattle stations. Whereas the last 2 days (weekend days) have a much bigger crowd, which includes more visitors from further afield. While there is food and drink to be purchased, visitors have to be largely self-sufficient – and it’s many hundreds of kilometres to the nearest supermarket of any kind.
Next week’s episode of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ apparently features the chopper crash, which has appeared in the promos since last year, and the arrival of a couple of backpackers.
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Tags: Coolibah Station, Keeping up with the Joneses, Australian outback TV and film