One of the region’s most unusual Australia Day events is quickly putting Camooweal on the map.
Hundreds of people flocked to the border town for the third annual Australia Day Lawnmower Racing festival.
For the last three years on the national day, the side street from the Post Office hotel is blocked off and people from town and the surrounding properties bring in their ride-ons to test their mettle against the rest.
It’s loud, noisy and a lot of fun.
Sgt Amit Singh of Camooweal Police organised the event as a way of getting the community together but the word is getting out and many visitors from Mount Isa took ringside seats at the pub to watch the event.
MC Will Seymour was in charge of bringing order from the chaos and managed to do with in style though perhaps turned a blind eye to some of the obvious cheating going on in the course as well as inventing rules on the fly such as insisting competitors do push ups as they changed over to the second driver.
Out of all the chaos, Team Gemma and Travis from Myuma won the John Deere category while a gun team from Rocklands were too open in the opens.
Peaky Blinders were judged best dressed.
There was plenty on offer for the kids to with a combined bicycle/foot race which also involved the fun of sliding through the water-filled slippery slide.
Sgt Singh thanked the Camooweal community for getting behind the event and sponsors Mark Strain (Mount Isa trophies) and Kris Doyle (Camooweal Post Office Hotel) who threw their support behind the day.
It is certainly a different way to spend Australia Day and a Live Facebook feed put up by the North West Star attracted over 5000 viewers who loved what they were seeing.