As the fireworks erupted and celebrations began at the end of a hard slog for the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners, there was a moment to pay homage to a little boy from Echuca, Victoria who didn’t make the trip.

Twelve-year-old Morgan Elliott had always dreamed of going on a hay run but tragically lost his life in a farm accident in 2018; his dad joined the run to Quilpie in his son’s place this year.

These are the stories of the people who are the heart and soul of what has become an annual pilgrimage to drought-stricken outback Australia.

Big-hearted volunteers donate their time, trucks and hay to support Brendan Farrell’s quest to “keep the dream alive” for the country’s forgotten farmers.

Some of the characters are colourful and larger than life even.

Take Big Kev, from Jindabyne, who is more accustomed to driving through snow than blistering heat; or online personality Jillaroo Jess, “the can-do-cowgirl” who posts about her day-to-day efforts running bores, mustering cattle and driving road trains.

But mostly volunteers are a steady stream of everyday people with a passion for supporting others doing it tough on the land.

And there is absolutely no doubt hay run stalwarts from the Border, Burrumbuttock, Culcairn, Jindera, Walla and Walbundrie are instrumental in keeping the big wheels rolling on this massive undertaking.

It’s the fourth trip for transport operator Geoffro Amarant, 40, of Burrumbuttock, who took three trucks and a front-end loader this time.

He and his wife answered the call for the 2016 Ilfracombe run and Geoffro has been going ever since.

“It’s an opportunity to give something back when our own business has been going well,” Geoffro says.

“It’s not a holiday; it’s about paying it forward and you never know when the day might come that you might need a hand.”

Geoffro says the experience proved an eye-opener for one of his drivers, Pat Cross, who took a road train with 60 round bales out to some farming folk doing it pretty tough.

“Pat couldn’t believe how friendly these people were and that they were so grateful,” Geoffro says.

“They met him at the gate and put lunch on for him.

“They lived pretty simply and were real salt-of-the-earth people.

“The kids had drawn a picture and had a card to say thankyou.”

Pat gave the kids a ride in the truck and they were “over the moon”, according to Geoffro.

This is what the hay run is truly about – hearts and hope.

Eulo farmer Shane Warner summed it up pretty well when Jindera’s Jim Parrett arrived with a truckload of round bales, dog food, toys and tennis racquets.

“This hay, well … to know someone else is looking after you,” Shane said.

“It’s worth more to your mental stability than anything.”

The affable Shane, who previously ran 2500 breeding cows with wife Peta on their 330,000-acre property, told The Border Mail this is their seventh year of drought.

And it’s the worst.

The trip up in the truck from Cobar through to Cunnamulla provided evidence enough of that.

Animal carcasses littered the roadside and the landscape was devastatingly bare.

There was an almost eerie emptiness to the vast, barren expanses devoid of stock save for a handful of crows pecking over roadkill, the odd goat and a defeated kangaroo sheltering under a tree.

At Merimo Station, the Warners are down to 500 breeding cows, a couple of hundred weaners and 50 sheep.

The hay delivery would keep stock alive for a week, Shane told us.

It’s a short but, oh so welcome reprieve from the daily strain of keeping stock alive – and the relentless search for hay.

“It’s humbling to have somebody go to this effort for us,” Shane said.

“Everything helps – it’s just amazing that people have been so generous with their time, labour and produce.”

It’s for these reasons volunteers get almost hooked on coming back year after year.

Walbundrie’s Brett Lieschke, one of the original three musketeers on the first hay run to Bourke, still marvels at the resilience of the people who keep going here.

“With drought in our region, you can still generally manage to salvage something out of it,” he reflected.

“Our country is relatively fool-proof by comparison.”

Mark Hutchings, branch manager for Rodwells Culcairn, has clocked up his 11th hay run.

He says it can be a sad experience but fun at the same time.

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“I go because I get an opportunity to help farmers and meet people I would never have the opportunity to meet otherwise,” he says.

It’s the same for stalwarts Mark and Sally Lavery, of Albury, who lead the charge as escorts for the hay run convoy and carry the all-important liquid refreshments.

The owner of Mark’s Spray Barn,  dubbed “captain convoy”, says detractors are missing the point when they question the value of hay runs.

“We can never solve the problem in a million years but at least someone is doing something,” Mark (Lavery) says.

BHR warhorse Howie Muller, from Alma Park, agrees a trailer load of fodder is “minuscule” compared to what’s needed to turn the tide.

“But it’s about so much more than that – these people are so happy to see us; they are so grateful someone else is still interested in their lives,” he insists.

“City people think if you get one lot of rain it fixes things – they are not educated in the way the bush works.”

It’s one of Brendan Farrell’s bug bears (along with “bleeding hearts” and the fickleness of the media).

City people ignoring the plight of the people who put food on the table and clothes on their back.

It was a particularly pertinent point on Australia Day and in a video interview Bumpa urged everyone to sit down for an hour and think of people in the outback.

“They are still cutting mulga every single day, for the last four or five years, with chainsaws,” he said.

“It’s hot, it’s barren, it’s … rooted.

“There is no point sugar coating a problem; Mother Nature does not want to rain.”

Brendan challenged Australians to sit down with their families and point out three things in the kitchen that come from farming.

“That kitchen bench is from wood, so that’s forestry; the clothes on your back are from cotton; the bread that you put in your toaster comes from a wheat farmer,” he explained.

“A lot of our kids have forgotten where all their tucker comes from.

“We have to make sure these farmers out here keep going and that’s what we are trying to do.”

At the raucous Australia Day celebrations on Saturday night, Bumpa admitted the Quilpie run had been the toughest yet.

And the trip had been hot –  “bloody hot”.

At Cunnamulla on January 24, it was 40.6 degrees at 10.30pm while at Quilpie on January 25, it was still 45 degrees at 5.30pm.

Those crippling conditions combined with the stress of pulling together a logistical operation of this magnitude mean that at times tempers flare and longstanding friendships are tested.

Brendan acknowledged “the great team of people behind me who have been with me for a long time”.

This loyal crew stayed behind to redistribute hay on trucks in the blistering afternoon heat when most had fled to the shelter of the racecourse verandah or local pool.

They were the ones who worked behind the scenes to soothe ruffled feathers when inevitable tensions arose or a curt order had not been followed to the letter of Bumpa’s law.

All the “one-percenters” that help get the job done.

In an expansive thankyou speech  – minus many of his customary expletives – Brendan Farrell admitted the success of every hay run came down to each and every individual who put their hand up to help.

It’s the sponsors, the support crews, the community caterers and the mechanics who literally keep the show on the road.

Brendan reserved the biggest vote of thanks for all the truck drivers “who slugged it out up the highway when it was 80.1 degrees on the asphalt” and who took to the road again the next day to deliver hay to farms before a long trek home.

There were rounds of applause aplenty that night in Quilpie.

Many of the 220-plus farmers who received a hay delivery earlier that day drove in to town for the evening’s entertainment.

“It’s the pill of giving; that’s what the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners is all about,” says Brendan who admits he still gets emotional even after 14 hay runs.

“If you don't get that fuzzy feeling or that emotional roller-coaster that means you’ve forgotten what it’s about.

“You choke up straight away when you see a little four-year-old kid with his thumbs up … yeah, you know you are doing the right thing.

“You just have to make sure the job’s done right.”

For the hundreds of volunteers who sign up for this mission of mercy every year, a hay run stays with them long after the dust has settled in the rear view mirror.

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