PUB OWNERS

TURN your mobile phone off before walking into the Einasleigh pub. By all means leave it on if you can’t bear to be unplugged from your device, but keep in mind if you are spotted speaking on it or looking down at it to read or send a text message, consider yourself busted. You will have to shout the bar.

They are a thirsty lot out Einasleigh way and keeping this lot in liquor could prove to be a costly undertaking. After 100 years of being cut off from mainstream Australia in a telecommunications sense, Einasleigh, out there on the Copperfield River, has been launched into the 21st century.

Who would have thought that out here in the land of Chinese leg wrestling and goanna pulling competitions that you would ever be able to stand in the street and speak on a mobile. It was not that long ago the street was the domain of pensionedoff horses living out their days in the Long Yard and of docile brahmans which had swapped life in the bush for a more refined urban existence.

Einasleigh publicans John Green and Bianca Brooker have laid down the law: no phones in the pub. The Walkabout Hotel – Croc Dundee’s old hangout – at Mckinlay south of Julia Creek has a similar “no phones” edict. Einasleigh was always a step back in time. John and Bianca want to keep it that way.

GOANNA PULLING: Bushies reckon goanna pulling is a form of pilates designed to strengthen neck muscles. To play you need to join two sturdy leather belts. Contestants then get down on hands and knees either side of a line in the dirt. They then place one end of the belts over their head and start pulling using neck muscles. The first contestant to be pulled over the line loses.

CHINESE LEG WRESTLING: Devotees say Einasleigh is the spiritual home of Chinese leg wrestling. Opponents lie on backs leg to leg. At the start of the match contestants each raise one leg vertically. At the count of three they each use their legs, hooking the opponent behind the knee with their leg. The first one to force the opponent’s leg to the floor is the winner.

(Goanna pulling and Chinese leg wrestling are usually associated with the consumption of alcohol.)

BARRA MOAN DAY

THERE is a move on now to stop imported South-east Asian sea bass and pia kapong being labelled “barramundi” in Australian seafood outlets. It is no different to Aussie winemakers from the Hunter Valley or the Mornington Peninsula sending sparkling white wines labelled “champagne” to France. The Frenchies didn’t like us misappropriating the name of the wine which originat

Don't use your mobile phone in the Einasleigh pub unless you want to shout the bar (above left). The patrons are more likely to embark on Chinese leg wrestling (above) and goanna pulling competitions (left). ed in their Champagne region east of Paris and told us to cease and desist. Now we call our “champers” “Australian sparkling wine”. Aficionados say the best Aussie drops are as good or even better than what comes out