"Round" Tim Mackie shouts at his red dog Pip, and his black and tan Kelpie Sass, as they move a herd of sheep around the pen, kicking up dust.
The Wallabadah Station farm manager is training for the yard dog trials at this weekend's The Way It Was Festival at Wallabadah Racecourse on May 18 and 19.
It's a weekend of heavy horse demonstrations ploughing through paddocks and sowing crops, dog trials, blacksmithing and more.
"The whole idea is to show the things that happened back in the day with Clydesdales ploughing in the paddock and working sheep with a dog," Mr Mackie said.
But it's also a chance to bring visitors to the tiny town that runs along the New England Highway, just 55 kilometres south of Tamworth, a three hour drive from Newcastle and under one hour from Scone in the Upper Hunter.
"Where else can you go and stand from here to that tree guard away from a clydesdale ploughing a paddock? Or be that close to a dog working sheep in a trial of format?," Mr Mackie said.
"It is just unique."
The place to be
Once a year Wallabadah was the place to be, with its popular New Years Day picnic horse races bringing thousands into town.
Billed as one of the oldest race meetings in the country starting in 1852, the Wallabadah Cup was canned by Racing NSW in 2022 due to safety surrounding the track.
"It wasn't viable to do anything to that track because it was nigh on impossible to put it up to standards," Mr Mackie said.
It was a big blow to the economy of a town that's home to just 382 people.
If you ask anyone in town, they'll all tell you the same thing.
Saddlemaker Hugh Bloore says people used to travel from everywhere, even as far as West Wyalong in the Riverina to come to the races.
"The Gunnedah Rugby Club BNS was the night before and then Wallabadah the next day - there was people everywhere and they'd be flowing out of the pub," Mr Bloore said.
"That to me is what it is known for and it's a shame it's still not running," he said.
No room for a tin pot town
There was an opportunity to move the race meet to another town, but that wasn't going to benefit Wallabadah.
Instead, there was a drastic need to come up with a new attraction and The Way It Was, now in its third year, is hoping to become that, Mr Mackie says.
"That's when we thought 'rightio, we will do something at the racecourse and see what happens', and this is what we're doing," he said.
Today the racecourse is also used as a multi-purpose facility by the community for birthday parties, christenings, school cross country and even a wedding.
"It's not just a racecourse, we've retained a degree of its iconic racecourse look so the history is never lost in a sense, it's just that we don't actually race horses there anymore," Mr Mackie said.
Generating more outside interest
Wallabadah has one pub, a saddlemaker, one cafe, a BP service station, an NRMA garage, a primary school, an old church and a free camping area on the northern end of town near First Fleet Memorial Garden.
Mr Mackie hopes that more people will come to town for the festival and spend a weekend camping, eating and drinking.
"Our turn-out has been consistent, we need to figure out how to grow it," he said.
"We want people to think that'd be a good weekend here and camp here - that's the direction we want to go in."
"I can see that the town will start to develop. It'll become a good drop-in town for people to pull in on the New England Highway."
He said he was optimistic about the future of the town with new pub owners and a new saddlery in town.
Social watering hole
Trent Ellison and his partner struck a deal to pour life back into the town when they purchased Wallabadah Hotel in June 2023. The pair are from Toronto, but have family property in town.
"It was just a matter of me thinking it could be a good sort of space and good for the town," Mr Ellison said.
Already with a revamped kitchen and plans to upgrade the site cosmetically including a new beer garden, the 1867-built pub has been brought back to life.
"It's the only social watering hole for the town, it's where everyone meets for celebrations, family events," Mr Ellison said.
"It blew up when we took over."
He said having a meeting place was important in a small town that faces hard times.
"A pub in Newcastle is just a pub in Newcastle but the only pub in Wallabadah is a place for social connection," he said.
"In an area like this with lots of farms you have droughts and hard times and people need an outlet."
He said he was expecting a busy weekend with The Way It Was and believed every small town needs an annual event that puts life back into it.
"I think Wallabadah is a beautiful little area and the people are friendly. I want other people to see that too."
The smell of leather
Hugh Bloore is a well-know saddlemaker and six months ago he decided to set up shop in Wallabadah.
He was the youngest ever plaitter to work for RM Williams at just 17 years-old and he's passionate about his work.
Now Wallabadah is lucky to have his talents.
"It's all about basically just making sure you do a 10 out of 10 job every time," he said.
With a huge network in the equine world, orders are popping in to the Wallabadah store both via mail and drive-by.
"There are so many orders on my white-board and I've got people driving past my shop stopping in to drop off and pick up," he said.
Mr Bloore likes to say he's like Frank Lowy, because he "purchased the first Westfield in Wallabadah".
"The shop used to be the butcher's store in 1890, my house next door used to be the general store and behind that was the bakery - it's got a lot of history," he said.
He said he has no plans to leave Wallabadah because it is "one of the few towns where everybody gets on with everybody."
"I love the town. Coming from a heavy rural background there's always class wars, townies versus cockies, farmers versus graziers, rugby versus league..."
"Whereas you come here to the pub on a Friday night, and all the raffles are on. I run the raffles and you'll see an ex senator sitting there with the local 19-year-old plumber, talking to an old chippy - and there's no class wars," he said.
