Reporter: Charles Wooley
Producer: Nick Greenaway
It must rank as one of our greatest-ever inventions - a true monument to Aussie ingenuity.
No, it's not Vegemite or the wine cask or even the Hills Hoist - I'm talking about that quintessential symbol of Australian manhood - the ute.
Each October, tens of thousand of rev-heads from around the country descend on the town of Deniliquin in southern New South Wales to pay homage to this uniquely Australian vehicle.
And as Charles Wooley discovers, the Deni Ute Muster is one wild party. A giant outback shindig that’s become a celebration of everything Australian. And, as you'll see, it's not just the boys who are having all the fun.
Full transcript below:
STORY - CHARLES WOOLEY: In the bush, almost everyone has one. From your honest, farmer's knockabout to a customised plaything. All of them much more than a mere conveyance. Here, at the Deni Ute Muster, in all their glory, they are a shiny reflection of their owners' personalities, sometimes even revealing their vanities and their foibles. I'm intrigued by the butterfly emblem on your ute.
KAREN: Yes, that's my tattoo.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Now, that's got to be Deni, isn't it?
KAREN: Definitely Deni, yeah. This is my fifth year here, so...
CHARLES WOOLEY: Oh well, you're a Deni junkie.
KAREN: I am.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Fair crack of the whip - she might live in the city, but Karen Joyce is country at heart, loves her ute and has spent a fortune to prove it. How much did you spend on it?
KAREN: Oh, about $65,00.
CHARLES WOOLEY: $65,000?!
KAREN: Yes, we do all the work ourselves, though,
CHARLES WOOLEY: $65,000!
KAREN: Yes.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Some, like Karen's are show-ponies. Others, like Paul's, are real workhorses, but they are equally loved. What do you love about your ute?
PAUL: It's a ute, an original ute, you know. It's not something you can buy off a showroom floor.
CHARLES WOOLEY: You must be Nan? This is a beautiful old Ford. What year is it?
NAN: I don't know, I think it's 42 years old.
CHARLES WOOLEY: 42 years old. Do you still love it?
NAN: Well, I'm sitting in it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Back in the late '90s, things were crook in Deni. What the town needed was a drawcard to bring visitors and money. And the unlikely idea they came up with was a ute muster. I mean, a ute muster? Whoever would want to go to one of those? And the answer is, everyone!
LINDSAY RENWICK: We actually were planning to have a gathering of a couple of hundred utes, and all of a sudden, year one, all of a sudden we had 2,700 utes turn up. My God, I tell you what! We actually talk about, you know, soil your pants - we didn't know what to do. They were driving all around the town. The police didn't know which which way to go. We ute-locked the town. And it's just the greatest thing. It's the greatest boost the bush has ever had.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Everyone knows Lindsay Renwick, a born and bred local politician and a founding father and proudest advocate of the Deni Ute Muster. If I want to know about utes, no better place in the world?
LINDSAY RENWICK: This is the place you will see every ute known to mankind, here in Deniliquin, the ute capital of the world. And that's what we're famous for, utes!
CHARLES WOOLEY: And, fair enough, because the ute is actually an Australian invention. More importantly, the world's first ute was inspired by a woman, towards the end of the Great Depression. It's actually a history that begins here in Australia, back in 1933, with a Gippsland farmer, or, rather, with his wife. These were hard times, remember, and the wife writes to the Ford Motor Corporation of Australia, saying that the farmer can only afford one car, but she needs two purposes. She wants a car that he can take her to church in on Sunday, and then, on a Monday, a car that he can take the pig to market. Only a year later, and this is what Ford Motor Corporation come up with - the world's first you-beaut ute and, amazingly, I'm driving it now. And just in case people think I'm gilding the lily, there it is - there's the number plate, 001 - the very first ute.
ADRIAN RYAN: That's it, yes, that's right.
CHARLES WOOLEY: You just want to touch it, don't you?
ADRIAN RYAN: Not touch it, caress it.
CHARLES WOOLEY: To Ford historian Adrian Ryan, this ute is a triumph of both style and substance. Now, of course, the critical question is Was the farmer's wife entirely happy with what she got?
ADRIAN RYAN: Yes, evidently, very, very happy, yes, and so were a lot of other farmers' wives in the decades following, you know.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The connection between Aussie sheilas and utes is still alive and well. The Deni Ute Muster proves that. And, on the family farm, 200km north of Deniliquin, the five Cheers girls are tuning up for the big weekend, following the golden rule of the bush - if you've got a ute, you've got to be able to fix it yourself.
JESSICA CHEERS: It needed a new radiator, so it's now got a new Statesman radiator in it. It needed a new shifter.
CHARLES WOOLEY: You don't need a mechanic?
JESSICA CHEERS: Oh, I wouldn't like to have to ask a mechanic. Like, if it broke down in the middle of the road, I'd probably be able to work something out.
CHARLES WOOLEY: You're only 10, are you looking forward to getting your first ute?
CLAUDIA CHEERS: Ah, yeah.
CHARLES WOOLEY: What do you want?
CLAUDIA CHEERS: Ah, a pink WB.
CHARLES WOOLEY: A pink one?
CLAUDIA CHEERS: Yeah.
CHARLES WOOLEY: There isn't a prouder dad in the bush than Ray Cheers, but it's a tough love in a hard country.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I understand they've never got girly Christmas or birthday presents either?
RAY CHEERS: No, no. The last few Christmases they've been getting tools.
CHARLES WOOLEY: What, tool boxes for Christmas?
RAY CHEERS: Yeah. Tool boxes and spanners...
CHARLES WOOLEY: What do you reckon about that?
RAY CHEERS: Thanks, Dad!
MEGAN CHEERS: Yeah, it means he wants me to do more work.
CHARLES WOOLEY: On this 3,300 hectare property, no job is too tough for the girls. Ray has bred an enthusiastic team of capable female workers. But, out in the huge paddocks, it's a grim story. Another failed crop in what has been a long, 10-year drought. Mate, this is not looking like a good investment?
RAY CHEERS: No, no it's a total loss.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Total loss of how much?
RAY CHEERS: Um, roughly $200,000.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The only thing you've raised successfully are the flies, the flies are terrific here?
RAY CHEERS: Yeah, well, if we had as much rain as we have flies, we'd be a lot better off!
CHARLES WOOLEY: Ray reckons that sometimes it's enough to make a bloke feel completely knackered. Speaking of which, no agrarian task is too grisly for the Cheers girls. This is the last job before the family can head off to the Muster and forget their troubles.
CHARLES WOOLEY: So it's a bit of castration then off to the Deni Ute Muster?
MEGAN CHEERS: Yeah.
CHARLES WOOLEY: The blokes down there better watch out!
MEGAN CHEERS: Yeah, they wouldn't want to get on the wrong side.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And, so, the Cheers girls hit the road to join the world's biggest ute migration, travelling across the country, heading for Deni. They disappear into a vast sea of 20,000 people and over 7,000 utes. Do you love your ute?
PAM MCPHERSON: I do love my ute, yes, and I think it's me and, at my age, it's nice to have something that is just you.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Among them, Pam McPherson, who drove from Bribie Island, Queensland, in her old Vanguard.
PAM MCPHERSON: There we are.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Wow! It's clean! You've driven all the way from Bribie Island?
PAM MCPHERSON: Yes, I haven't washed it since I got here. I didn't wipe it - I forgot to.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Do you have a bloke that goes with this?
PAM MCPHERSON: No, no, I don't. Certainly not, no. You can't afford a ute and a bloke!
CHARLES WOOLEY: Cash-strapped and drought-stricken Deniliquin might be but, by the end of this weekend, they will be better off by an estimated $20 million. Not bad on the back of utes, beer, and Bundy. But, if Deni is about raising cash and the spirits of the bush, it's also about raising a lot of dust.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I was in for the most popular event at the Deni muster. They call it circle work, which involves going round in circles at extremely high speed, in this case with the Australian champion, Darren Page. I smell burning burning rubber.
DARREN PAGE: That's the clutch.
CHARLES WOOLEY: I think the driver who raises the most dust wins the prize.
DARREN PAGE: Hope you enjoyed the ride.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Oh, shit!
DARREN PAGE: No swearing on the camera!
CHARLES WOOLEY: This is the stuff that you yell at your kids for in any other situation.
LINDSAY RENWICK: Oh, yeah! "Don't rip the arse out of me ute!" But that's what they can do here, they can do it in front of the public and have a ball.
CHARLES WOOLEY: And, indeed, everyone did. Though, ironically, it rained at Deni this weekend, rained on the festival that had, in fact, been created because there was no rain.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Good to see you've finally forgotten your troubles, and it's raining!
RAY CHEERS: It's raining, yeah!
CHARLES WOOLEY: Maybe it wasn't enough to break the drought, but more than enough to break the gloom for the battling Cheers family which, of course, is what Deni is all about.
