LAT LONG
110 Australian GeographicE
NTER ANY SMALL town in Australia and
you will feel eyes upon you. Usually it will
be the patrons at the local pub who may
make you feel akin to a penguin in a polar bear
colony, but drive through Coolatai after dark and you
may catch a mysterious red-eye glow from an entirely
diff erent creature.
If local legend is to be believed, that creature could
be a black panther. Although big black cats have
long been part of Australian folklore, panther-mania
fi rst took hold in Coolatai in 1958 after 13-year-old
David Wheatley was thrown from his horse when it
spooked at a “large black-furred, panther-like beast”.
The incident made national headlines. Another
local claimed he was “trapped” in his caravan as the
animal prowled the perimeter, and over the years
irregular sightings persisted. In 1995 a local ‘expert’
declared the panther lived around Coolatai and made
an annual migratory pattern around the north-
west of the state.
Today, panthers adorn the entrance signs to
the village, and at the only commercial outlet, the
Wallaroo Hotel, you can see a depiction of the feline
locked in mortal combat with one of the area’s feral
pigs. But with the panther only providing sporadic
distractions, the residents of Coolatai turned their
attentions to another form of entertainment – a
vintage tractor pull.
“When I first proposed the idea of holding a
tractor pull I had two main problems,” organiser Chris
Gooda says, laughing. “The competitors wanted to
know ‘Where the hell is Coolatai?’ and the locals
wanted to know ‘What the hell is a tractor pull?’” For
the competitors it was a fair question. Situated among
rich cropping and grazing land on the north-western
slopes of NSW, Coolatai is 640km north-west of
Sydney and 380km south-west of Brisbane. You might
say the middle of nowhere; to the residents it is the
centre of everything.
Coolatai’s population is 38, if everybody is at home,
and from the surrounding district comes a dedicated
group of people who contribute to a thriving commu-
nity. The fact that they didn’t know what a tractorLAT LONG 29° 15ˇ S 150° 45ˇ E
STORY AND PHOTOGR APHY BY MANDY MCKEESICKA mysterious feline and a vintage tractor pull attracts the
curious to the small village of Coolatai in northern NSW.
COOL ATAI
Case in point. Enthusiasts (right) and a
selection of vintage agricultural machinery.Generation game. Father-and-daughter team Rick and Lucy
Nelson (above top) prepare for the competition on their Case LA.
Vintage goods (above) are displayed at the tractor pull.