If your only contact with sheep shearing has been jumpers and socks, it's time you jumped in the car, pointed it west and headed out to historical Hay, NSW's gateway to the outback.
There you'll find a rather avant-garde steel structure jutting from the monotonously flat landscape, which contains a long-overdue, proud-to-be-Australian tribute to that unsung rural hero - the shearer.
Shear Outback is Australia's latest museum. And while Hay, plonked in the middle of hundreds of kilometres of grassy plains, might seem an unlikely locale for a major tourism project, it's the perfect place to pay homage to the larrikin characters at the heart of the song, Click Go the Shears, and Australia's most successful export, wool.
Not only is Hay and the surrounding district (by district, we mean several thousand square kilometres) the hub of the shearing industry, the town sits conveniently at the juncture of six highways, ensuring a steady flow of travelers keen to stretch their legs.
And there's plenty to take in at Shear Outback.
You can breathe a sigh of relief - this is not another wool exhibition. In fact, the only yarn-spinning you're likely to experience is from industry hands like Dick Tomkins, who spent most of his life working a wool press on the shearing floor. He's now Shear Outback's part-time curator (the job called for a new set of teeth) and Hay's street sweeper.
Apart from spiking exhibition tours with tidbits of shearing history and personal accounts from far-flung wool sheds, Dick ensures all aspects of the museum paint a true picture of the shearing community, from its fierce competitiveness to its even fiercer camaraderie. He even insisted the museum cafe add to its menu wool shed favourites such as minced lamb sandwiches and damper drizzled with Golden Syrup.
What strikes you as you make your way through Shear Outback is how little shearing itself has changed in 150-odd years. Apart from a switch to machine shears in the 1920s, the industry remains fairly untainted by technology. There was an ambitious, if not ridiculous, attempt to replace the shearer with a rotisserie-like robot (it's now a museum piece) but nothing has proven more efficient than a deft hand.
If you want to get a snapshot of how a shearer's life has changed in the past 60 years, catch the 'now and then' video interview between two shearers.
The museum's interactive exhibits give you a healthy appreciation of how much stamina, skill and strength it takes to shear a sheep. You can even sample the distinct aromas of the shearing shed, including sheep urine and lanolin. Don't worry, it's not real urine but rather a specially crafted perfume that gets topped up about every six weeks. And no, the gift shop doesn't stock it.
Although folklore paints the shearer as something of a free spirit, you'll learn the industry runs on well-oiled routines, with every man and woman knowing their turf and sticking to it. By the time you make your way across the paddock to the wool shed for the shearing display, you'll probably know what a 'rousie' and a 'rip' do and why you're not likely to see many 'cockies' in the kitchen with the cooks.
If you've ever worked the shearing floor, spend time exploring the shearing database or, better still, share your story.
Built in 1926, the timber wool shed at Shear Outback was transported in about 500 pieces from Murray Downs, Swan Hill. So meticulous was the rebuilding that an elderly, blind visitor who sheared in the shed decades ago was able to recognise his old stomping ground by running his hands along the walls.
There are five shearing displays a day. If you're there at 1pm on a Sunday, you might recognise the guy wielding the hand blades as Justin Campbell, cover pin-up of the Nude Shearers Calendar. The calendar shots, most of which feature burly blokes with strategically-placed fleeces, also make an entertaining backdrop for diners at the local Riverina Hotel.
There's a more official and historical Shearers Hall of Fame at Shear Outback. The first inductee, Jackie Howe, threw down the gauntlet to fellow shearers in the late 1800s with a record tally of 321 sheep in one day. More than 100 years on, shearers still debate whether Jack's record stands. He also fashioned that iconic Aussie garment - the work singlet.
If you're still thinking it's an awfully long way to go for a holiday, then you've missed the spirit of Shear Outback. This is about getting out to the country, rubbing shoulders with the shearing industry and taking in some of our wide brown land. You'll feel oddly patriotic as you emerge from Shear Outback, dust off your shoes and climb into your car to head back out on the plains.
4WD
