A TALK ON CAMELS                                                 BY THE LATE JACK LOWE Mr Lowe, at the age of 86 years, addressed members of the Broken Hill Historical Society at the meeting on May 11,1992. He began by explaining that as a boy he had travelled with his father driving camel teams to all the stations from Tarrawingee to the Queensland border working for Sir Sidney Kidman. He then began: A camel wagon was large enough to carry ten tons or more and the team varied from sixteen to twenty-five.  I have seen a team of twenty-five camels but the team I drove had sixteen camels so I will speak mainly of that. The camels were all named and there were not two that looked alike.  They each had a regular place in the team.   A mustering horse was kept at the wagon and in the morning the first job was to ride out and bring in the camels from the scrub where they had been turned out hobbled the night before to graze.  If there were plenty of feed about they would be found within two or three miles but if feed was scarce we may have had to go six miles away to get them.  They were usually hobbled in the bush and a rope put round their necks to bring them back to their place in the team. The two shifters were harnessed up first then four lots of three abreast and finally a pair in front making up the sixteen camels in the team.  It usually took the best part of an hour to harness up.  A camel seems to lift when it is pulling so a camel collar has more padding at the top than a horse collar. A horse collar could be used in emergency but it was put on upside down. We had to get them down to harness and unharness them, as they were too tall to reach easily when standing. When the team was ready a whistle brought them to their feet ready for work. On the road the teamster carried a long whip on his shoulder ready to reach any animal that was slacking and not doing its job.  We usually travelled until about midday when we stopped for lunch then on again for the afternoon.  The team travelled at about two to two and a half miles per hour and we travelled for about six hours per day making in all about twelve to fifteen miles per day or around one hundred miles per week and five thousand miles per year.  Once on the road we travelled continuously.  In the four years that I was on the road with my dad that is about the distance we travelled working from Tarrawingee to the stations up to the Queensland border.                                                                THE CAMELS Camels were not difficult to break in and were fairly harmless.  They had the same strength as a normal sized horse and could pull around eight hundred weight on the wagon so that sixteen camels pulled up to about seven tons on the wagon. They could go without water for a long time but held their condition much better during the summer they are less likely to perish than horses or bullocks.  The camels were the only animal that could be used in the outback during droughts because they don't knock up and perish as quickly as the other animals. THE LONGEST TRIP The longest journey we did was from Tarrawingee to Wanaaring, Wanaaring to Olive Downs, then from Olive Downs back to Tarrawingee, roughly six hundred miles. It was six weeks from when we left till we got back to Tarrawingee.  Once on the road we travelled every day including Saturday and Sunday and there was no time and a half for Sunday and no overtime.  The only breaks were for loading and unloading.  We would take produce out to the stations and spend a day unloading and perhaps another day loading up if there was wool to come back to Tarrawingee.  On the trip to Wanaaring and Olive Downs I                                        CONTINUE