Special thanks to the Bega Valley Shire Council – the use of the shire roads is an outstanding feature of the event. Also to South Coast Police, who worked to aid the organisers to ensure that all the necessary paperwork was completed, NSW Forestry Corp for the use of their roads and communications network, and all the local sponsors who we need to support the event. 

Thanks also to organisations that provide officials and services for the event including the various RFS brigades and Bega Heritage Motors, the people who helped as volunteers, without your valuable assistance the BVR would not happen.

And a very special thanks to the community and especially the residents of the roads closed for the event. Your support made our event. We have already started to organise for the June long weekend 2019.

Denise Dion's headline “$45,000 for frivolous questions” ought to read $45,000 spent and still no answers.

There was NO movement at the station, for the word had passed around, That the legislation we’d regret had got away.

And instead of rounding up feral horses,

All the cracks had gathered for a lazy day.

All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far, Had mustered at the homestead overnight,

For the bushmen love their Netflix,

And now they let the feral horses be,

And the stock-horse spirit snuffs it from lack of fight.

For PETA and the Nationals 

Love brumbies roaming free,

Regardless of the damage done 

And the insult to history.

The Man from Snowy River is neutered,

And no longer reins in feral horses, 

His legacy redundant 

Midst the muddy watercourses.

(With apologies to Banjo, but dedicated to those who have forgotten that the Man From Snowy River is about a bloke who got off his backside and REMOVED feral horses from the High Country)

Drought: the word causes shivers of fear in many Australians, particularly those in the bush. A 2015 poll found that people were more worried about drought than any other consequence of climate change.

Now farmers are complaining that the big dry means that they are having to “de-stock” or, in plain English, kill thousands of animals even earlier than they would usually be killed. Meat and Livestock Australia has revised the number of lambs that will be slaughtered this year to 22.85million, while sheep slaughter is expected to reach 7.8million, totalling an astonishing 30,665,000 animals, most little more than babies. Many of these animals will have suffered barbaric treatments such as mulesing, ear-tagging and castration, and will have been repeatedly mutilated during shearing.

The Climate Council has concluded that droughts are likely to worsen in severity and duration in southern Australia if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut deeply and rapidly. The quickest way to achieve this is to eliminate the wool and sheep meat industries. These businesses add significantly to greenhouse emissions through “enteric fermentation,” or animals belching and passing gas, as well as causing vegetation change and soil erosion and water pollution through faecal contamination and sheep dips.

It’s an easy equation: if you can’t feed them, don’t breed them. The rest of us can take a stand, and help to preserve natural ecosystems by not buying woollen garments, and not eating baby lambs.