Emus – Yaraka – The World
We’ve had little time to watch or listen to any news over the last week. We’ve been too busy making it! You may or may not be aware that Emus and Yaraka have gained huge notoriety not just here in Australia but around the globe.
The publicity started when the Hon David Littleproud, Deputy Leader of the National Party and Federal Minister for Agriculture (who also wears a few other hats) stayed at the hotel last Sunday night. On Monday morning, the Minister being an early riser, took photos of the sign banning the emus and as he was doing so the emus conveniently arrived and photos and selfies were taken and placed on the Minister’s Facebook page.
Shortly after that posting the telephone and emails started happening. By mid-afternoon television crews and cameras had set up outside the hotel and the interviews started for television news; radio stations sought live interviews, the press from around the world asked for photos and interviews by phone or through computer links.
The events here have been extraordinary with TV camera crews lined up in the street, journalists all here for one reason; the sign!
The locals watched the fun with a few wry smiles on their faces at the interest being shown toward the town emus. The crowd numbers were bolstered by the tourists in the Caravan Park arriving to watch the fun.
The sign at the top of the Hotel steps hanging from the emu protective barrier in the form of a rope (now upgraded to a high-quality plastic chain) prohibits the entry of emus as a result of bad behaviour.
As a result of this infamy for the emus and favourable publicity for Yaraka we have been besieged with requests for interviews from around the world – it’s easier to name the countries that haven’t sought interviews – North Korea, China, Russia, West Indies, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina – however we will never ever really know. We do know that most of the EEC countries picked it up and we did hear from Czechoslovakia!
And this has set the tone for these amazing events which continue. We have lost count on the number of interviews, some live, some pre-recorded for later showing and then all the phone and video links, and they are still continuing!
On top of all these events our webpage – yaraka.com.au – has been popular and the button that gets pushed to read the newsletters that we periodically send out has had extraordinary responses with a large number of emails being received about the publicity and the emus and a few new subscribers entering their email addresses for future Newsletters.
As you can well imagine it’s been exhausting but a great deal of fun. Obviously, the interest in the emus is a direct result of the ongoing saturation of news on the Coronavirus and this being an unusual story; our emus were in the right place and their bad behaviour happened at the right time and the gloom of Corona was pushed aside for some light relief.
We really are hoping that all this publicity will be a ‘seven-day wonder’ and everything will revert to the peaceful and tranquil place that Yaraka is renowned for –Yaraka has been spinning around the world and we now would like it to stop so we can get off!