Clancy Job Photography: Rodeo & Camp Draft, Daly Waters NT 2014

Daly Waters is a small town in the Northern Territory about 620km south of Darwin and 3km west of the Stuart Highway and home to our mates Jack, Kimbo and Mac from the HI-Way Inn Roadhouse.

The name Daly Waters was given to a series of natural springs by John McDouall Stuart during his third attempt to cross Australia from south to north, in 1861-1862. Stuart named the springs after the new Governor of South Australia, Sir Dominick Daly.

The Overland Telegraph Line reached Daly Waters from the north in June 1872 and for two months a 'pony express' carried messages the 421 km to Tennant Creek via Renner Springs, Northern Territory.

Daly Waters Airfield was a centre for the London to Sydney air race of 1926, a refuelling stop for early Qantas flights to Singapore, a World War II Airforce base and more recently an operational base for joint military manoeuvres. Although the aerodrome was closed to commercial traffic in 1965 the original Qantas hangar still stands, housing exhibits of photographs and equipment from the area's aviation past.

Today Daly Waters is host to a great Rodeo and camp Draft put on by local Stations 'Kalala' and 'Avago' and runs smoothly with the awesome help and involvement of many others. Its the first Camp Draft for the year in the NT. We usually travel up from NSW for this weekend however this year we were pretty excited to attend as locals and only had a 3 hour drive to get there from Moolooloo Station.

I would have loved to cover more events but i was only there for a short time and with two little ones at foot my camera spent a bit more time in its bag than usual.