Converge

I should have known that yesterday was going to be trouble when I received a phone call from Josh before Stuart and I had even left the Brisbane city limits. Josh was ringing to say that they'd started a bush fire which had necessitated the Esk Rural Fire Brigade visiting the party to put the flames out. Josh had burned his foot and was recieving medical treatment. This was before midday.

Stuart and I were heading out to Esk for the races. Dave Wassman is living out there now, and he had decided to have a celebration of his birthday at the track. Stuart and I were suited and booted and heading out there when the call came through.

The Esk races were BYO as long as you didn't have any glass, so I had an eski filled with goldies and ice in the backseat. I had a few beers on the way out there.

We stopped at Fernvale and had something from the bakery. The weather was perfect and there was plenty of people on the road.

By the time Stuart and I had arrived at Dave's place the emergency was over and everyone was standing around getting ready to go into town. So into town we went. Josh was feeling a bit under the weather, what with all of the fire and injuries and staying up all night drinking, so we pumped some Airbourne for him and he was revitalised.

The races themselves were a huge event. There had to be 100 buses out there. And thousands of people. 15000? It was massive! All the action was in the centre of the track, and it was a maze of marquees. Walking over the track itself was quite novel, and it didn't take long for everything below the knees to be covered in a thick coating of dust.

Inside it was Bedlam. Lots of older people getting drunk. Real drunk. It was pretty chaotic. Kind of fun too. I was sticking to the goldies, and I guess I sort of thought that I could pretty much drink as many of them as I felt like, because they're only a mid-strength beer. This was a mistake that I paid for later on. But getting back to the scene inside the race track. There were people everywhere, with large lines for everything. There were 6 races at the track, but from our position I only saw horseflesh a couple of times. It was pretty full on. I put some bets on with Josh and actually had win with Ming Ping or something.

There was all sorts of tents that were holding all sorts of social groups. Some of them had barbecues. Some of them had seating. Some of them had music. They all had lots of drunk people. Old drunk people. It was sickening. Not!

Later in the day there were people doing beer bongs and rum bongs. I saw some guy jump up on top of one of the tents. Then when he hopped down some other guy tried to fight him. There was a race with people being dragged on milk crates. There was people randomly kissing other people. It was intense. Josh had a bit of a sleep at one point.

After the last race Stuart and I hit the road. Unfortunately I kept on drinking those beers, and they had taken their toll on me. I was pretty sure that I was repeating myself and getting tired and belligerent.

Thanks to Stuart for driving back. Apologies to Ria for being a drunk dickhead who plays unfunny games.