August 1 has always been an exciting date for me since my boyhood.
Back then, it was my horses’ birthday and they are the animals I have most known and loved.
So it used to be carrots, sugar lumps, and an extra sheaf of the best lucerne hay.
Since the early nineties, when I came to Gympie to train horses, there has been the added excitement factor of the Gympie Music Muster.
Once we’re into August, it seems it’s almost here— the one Gympie event that makes it on to the calendar of National Icons.
It is to be hoped that many locals will join the visitors and give them a taste of the famous Gympie welcome and hospitality.
There will be an exciting Pre-Muster line-up in the days and nights preceding the Muster proper in the last week of August.
If you haven’t been to the Muster for a while, you will be amazed at the upgrades to both the facilities and the range of entertainment.
In fact, the term ‘Music Muster’ seems somehow too limiting a label for the contemporary event.
There is still, of course, the extensive musical menu of Country and other popular genres and the ever-popular Bush Poetry.
But there is also a vast diversity of entertainment for all ages, from rodeo to several forms of join-in tutored dance classes and plenty of exciting children’s entertainment.
The variety of food on offer is mouth-watering.
Apart from the excellent local catering, there is an endless variety of ethnic foods to be sampled.
Since its inception, several decades ago, the Gympie Music Muster has raised millions of dollars for important dedicated charities.
It is an event of which Gympie can be justly proud.
Keep some of your winnings at the Nolan’s Meats Muster Cup Race Meeting [this weekend] for the Gympie Muster the following long weekend.
You’ll be pleased you did.
– Merv Welch,
The Palms.
