Instead of a dozen red roses, a bottle of bubbly or romantic poetry, Emily Parrott gave her husband a camel to celebrate their first Valentine’s Day.
“When he met me, that’s when he met camels,” she says of husband, Luke. “He found his first two loves.
“As long as I don’t ask which one comes first, then we don’t have a problem.”
Nearly 15 years after that fateful February, camels remain the centre of the Parrott family’s world.
The couple runs the Oakfield Ranch with Parrott’s father at Anna Bay in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, hosting camel rides along the picturesque beaches of Port Stephens.
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They’re gearing up to take 10 camels, including Foxy Lady, Polished Copper, Bronte, Barry and Jeffrey on a nearly 6,000km round-trip via South Australia to Queensland for theDesert Champions Way: Outback Camel Trail.
Winding through the red dust to the Queensland outposts of Jundah, Birdsville, Bedourie, Boulia and Winton in July, the trail features camel races and rides, live music and markets at every stop.
Parrott, who has been around camels since she was a baby and began racing at 14, can get the animals running up to 45km/h. It’s a bumpy – or humpy – ride around the dirt track as jockeys skilfully hover above the saddles.
“They’re not very nice to sit on at speed,” Parrott says. “They’re quite bouncy, so the less your bottom is in the saddle is probably more comfortable.”
Apart from the rollicking races, the trail is a celebration of the outback spirit and pays tribute to the history of cameleers.
Camels were brought to Australia from Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent during the gold rushes, when they were used to transport goods across the arid inland.
Cameleers established their own transport and import businesses until cars were introduced in the 1920s. Many of the animals were then released into the wild.
An eccentric “globetrotter” named HD Constantinou spent nine years walking with camels and a cameleer from Sydney to Perth in the 1930s, wearing through 50 pairs of boots.
“He stated he had walked every inch of the way across from Sydney, the camels … carrying his baggage,” Brisbane’s Telegraph newspaper reported in 1939.
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Parrott feels an affinity with the creatures, a passion passed down by her father who bought 20 camels to establish his business.
“Animals don’t get enough recognition for the amount of effort they’ve put in for humanity,” she says. “Donkeys and camels are a huge part of Australia’s history.
“They were brought over here to build Australia up.”
Her 10-year-old daughter, Abby, who will accompany her parents on the outback trail with her six-year-old brother, Cooper, has observed the deep connection between her mum and the herd.
“About six months ago she said, ‘Mum, when do I get my special power?’.
“I said, ‘what do you mean?’, and she said, ‘your special power, how you know what animals are thinking’.”
The Desert Champions Way: Outback Camel Trail kicks off with the Jundah camel races on 5 July and ends in Winton on 26 July.