By Derek Schlennstedt
Ferntree Gully’s Caroline Power is gearing up for a taste of Outback adventure as she prepares to travel more than 2175 kilometres to volunteer at this year’s Birdsville Races.
Caroline will leave on 29 August for Australia’s oldest and most remote thoroughbred racing carnival and will reach her destination on 1 September after three days of driving.
The two-day race meet sees the small township of Birdsville – regular population 115 – swell to around 7000 as racegoers flock from across Australia to revel in an Outback experience like no other.
The 28-year-old is one of the race’s youngest volunteer and will be helping out at the races as part of NAB’s agribusiness team which offers its staff the opportunity to volunteer in an event of their choice.
In this case Caroline decided to volunteer at the Birdsville Races where she will also be raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service – a charity that provides medical help to remote areas.
This is her first time travelling to Birdsville and Caroline said she was excited to go and hoped the funds raised could help improve the Flying Doctor Service.
“Doing something like this is really worthwhile,” she said.
“I haven’t ever needed to use the services of the flying doctors before because I have been lucky enough to work in towns that have medical services, but there are lots of people who live in rural communities that don’t so they definitely need the flying doctors.
“You know that it is something quite important to those communities and so it’s really fulfilling to be a part of that.”
The 2017 Birdsville Races will comprise of a 13 race program and offer a prize pool of $200,000.
