Of Bulls and Barrels

Every year the good folks in Dardanup run a festival to celebrate all that the region has to offer.  Called the Bull and Barrel festival the star of the show (at least from where I sit) is always the wooden bull, which is different every year.  This year, the bull was racing his EH Holden around the park. 

We were lucky enough to meet one of the two guys who build the bull every year.  He started building the bull when he lived in Wellington Mill, a 20-minute drive away from Dardanup through the beautiful Ferguson Valley.  He now lives in Queensland and travels West every year just so he can build the bull.  He told us that is how much he loves doing it.  He also told us that it takes about three weeks to build the bull.  I had imagined it took months because seriously, the bull is huge.  I've taken a pic of the bull with a ute next to it so you can get a size of the scale.  A tall person could stand under the front bumper of the FJ and still have plenty of head room.

I tried to find out some history of why the bull is burnt, without any luck I'm afraid.  There are certainly lots of posts of people sharing how much the love the tradition and photos of past bulls.  Here are my pics.

He looks quite dramatic against the storm clouds.  

There are plenty of videos of the bull burning on line.  Here's a link to one posted on the ABC South West FB page:  (1) Video | Facebook.  It looks amazing on fire but I still think it's sad to burn it.