This was published 6 years ago
Ord Valley Muster festival, The Kimberley: What it's like to visit one of Australia's best regional festivals
By Steve Meacham
The Ord Valley Muster in 2018 will host at least 30 events.Credit: Tourism WA
Colin Fassnidge – Irish-born restaurateur, chef and My Kitchen Rules judge – has already asked if there are any vegetarians in the audience.
Nearly 400 of us are gathered on this sultry late May afternoon on the banks of Lake Kununurra. One brave female vegetarian, in the front row, puts up her hand and is mercilessly picked on for the remainder of the al fresco cooking demonstration.
"Here comes Babe," some joker shouts as Fassnidge's support crew brings out an entire pig carcass, parading it triumphantly through the crowd sheltering under the boab trees at Celebrity Tree Park.
Chef Colin Fassnidge prepares to demonstrate his porcine butchery skills.Credit: Tourism WA
"Why did you pay $70 to watch me cut up a pig?" Fassnidge asks the vegetarian, not unreasonably.
Over the next two hours, Fassnidge demonstrates his butchery skills, explaining how he learnt to cook virtually every part of an animal back in his Irish youth.
Then he turned into a swine evangelist, telling us how it is still more economical for two or three families in Australia to buy an entire pig and divide it on a kitchen table rather than purchase expensive pork from the local supermarket. (Provided you're not vegetarian, Jewish or Muslim, of course.)
The Ord Valley Muster rodeo is one of the biggest in WA.Credit: Tourism WA
Fassnidge – who has studied under famous chefs such as Raymond Blanc and Marco Pierre White – is a pioneer of the "nose-to-tail" revival.
While dissecting "Babe" with a single sharp knife, the founder and owner of Sydney's Bird In Hand pub restaurant in Sydney's Paddington explains the best way of cooking each cut. Every cheek, ear, snout, trotter, belly, piece of offal or tail is described according to the best way to eat it: pan-fried, slow-cooked, sauted or boiled.
Even the vegetarian doesn't storm out (or any of the other vegetarians in the audience who later identified themselves once they realised the chef was joking).
Mirima dancers at the Ord Valley Muster.Credit: Tourism WA
Perhaps Fassnidge's "show" has persuaded them that "Babe" was an honourable sacrifice. More likely, they've consumed more than one glass of the free champers, wine or beer which comes with each entry ticket.
So this is the famous Ord Valley Muster, which celebrated its 17th anniversary in May 2017 with 30 events.
Fassnidge's porcine pep-talk was the seventh Kimberley Kitchen session. Previous celebrity chef hosts have included Matt Moran, George Calombaris and Manu Feildel.
Ord Valley Muster is held each May over 10 days. Credit: Tourism WA
The full program for 2018 won't be released until February but if 2017 is anything to go by, it will be a ripper.
Let's start with the closing event. The open-air concert at the Jim Hughes Amphitheatre is known as the Kimberley Moon Experience. Jimmy Barnes was the main act in 2017, supported by Daryl Braithwaite, the McClymonts and enough others to stretch the concert from 3pm-11pm and beyond. Previous headline acts at Kimberley Moon read like a "who's who" of authentic Australian music: Paul Kelly, John Farnham, Kasey Chambers, John Williamson and Guy Sebastian for starters.
On the flight to Kununurra I sat next to a lovely Western Australian woman who explained – shortly after takeoff and after "a couple of wines" – that her husband had been diagnosed with cancer, so he was back in Perth. They had lived in Kununurra for several years and always tried to return each year for "the muster". This year he was too sick to fly.
She had felt guilty, but he had said: "It's the Ord Valley Muster, and Jimmy Barnes is the main act. Of course, you'll go."
The event – held each May over 10 days, culminating on the final Saturday with the Kimberley Moon Experience – has been recognised as one of Australia's best regional festivals.
Where else can you tour a world-class diamond mine, watch one of the most competitive rodeos in the country, take part in a 660-kilometre team mountain biking event, laugh at three of the best graduates of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, enjoy a lunch listening to a highly regarded author, and experience a corroboree under the stars at the same event?
Arriving at the Waringarri Aboriginal Arts Centre, founded in the late 1970s and one of oldest continuously operating Indigenous art centres in Australia (the late Rover Thomas is perhaps its most famous member), we were treated to the usual hospitality.
After being welcomed to country by elder Pamela Simon, we were shown into the gallery with an exhibition of recent work, curated by Leanne Collier. If only most trendy galleries in Sydney or Melbourne had work of such quality.
I spent half an hour talking to Ted Carlton, the senior guide – 1.9 metres tall and bow-legged (presumably from years riding stock horses).
Now 63, Carlton began his working life as a 13-year-old stockman on Carlton Station (which is how his family got its Anglicised name). He's still bitter about his people being driven off the land and forced to resettle in places such as Kununurra. But surely that, too, was a form of near-slavery, working for mere food and lodging? Perhaps, Carlton replied, but at least we then lived on our ancestral country.
By now we were running late for the sunset, so it was almost pitch black when our group arrived on the appointed spot to hear a handful of Indigenous locals perform a series of haunting songs accompanied by didgeridoo and clapsticks. One of the performers was Chris Griffiths, son of one of Australia's most celebrated Indigenous living artists, Alan Griffiths. The elder Griffiths had a landmark exhibition at Sydney's Carriage Works in 2017 and has led a life that should be made into a movie (perhaps part of it was in Baz Luhrmann's Australia?).
Narelle Brook, now chair of Ord Valley Events, has been there since the beginning. She was executive officer of the local Chamber of Commerce in 2001, when the event began as a five-day program, culminating in a pleasant dinner in the outback for locals, sponsored (as it has been continually) by 130 local businesses.
The 2018 Muster will consist of at least 30 events.
"The Ord Valley Muster kicks off the 'tourist season'," Brook said. "It brings people into Kununurra during May, which was previously a shoulder month. The muster this year had over 16,000 attendees for the 10 days of events and boosts the local economy significantly. There's a festival vibe on the streets as the community gets to show our visitors how lucky we are to live here."
Argyle Diamonds, the naming sponsor for the past 11 years, is host to a couple of the most popular events – a guided tour of the mines, and a once-a-year opportunity to dig for diamonds buried under a tonne of sand.
But there's a bewildering spectrum of activities which demonstrates the full complexity of one of the most remote parts of Australia.
We met several saddle-sore cyclists who had completed the team relay event from Derby along the Gibb River Road to El Questro, the most famous outback station in the Kimberley. We bathed in the Zebedee thermal springs at El Questro and took a champagne cruise down the the gorge carved out by the Chamberlain River.
We drank rum at The Hoochery, one of Australia's oldest boutique rum distilleries and venue for the annual comedy festival. We walked to the Hotel Kununurra to watch the infamous Muster Idol where visitors are encouraged to challenge locals to demonstrate their lack of talent. And we were only in Kununurra for two days.
That meant we missed the Ord Valley Muster Rodeo, one of the biggest in WA. Also the float parade and street party; the 55-kilometre Dam to Dam speedboat race between Lake Argyle Dam and the Kununurra Diversion Dam; and the glamorous starlit, long-table dinner at the Durack homestead – made famous in Mary Durack's 1959 classic, Kings of Grass Castles.
Ah well, there's always next year's muster.
TRIP NOTES
MORE
FLY
Airnorth, a subsidiary of Qantas, flies from Broome, Darwin and Perth to East Kimberly Airport (Kununurra) and Virgin flies from Perth. See airnorth.com.au and virginaustralia.com/au
MUSTER
The 2018 Ord Valley Muster program will be released in February. See ordvalleymuster.com.au
Steve Meacham travelled as a guest of Tourism Western Australia. See www.westernaustralia.com
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