Each year the league meets in a different state; Bulahdelah was one of the stops this year because of local resident and league member Harold Blanch.

Mr Blanch has over 65 years experience in handling and training bullock teams and currently boasts the largest working devon bullock team in Australia.

The bullocks are an attraction in their own right, with busloads coming from Newcastle to visit Mr Blanch and his bullocks and country shows around the region requesting they perform.

Mr Blanch does not work the bullocks commercially however draws logs from the forest with his team as a hobby.

While a working team of bullocks is a rare site today, bullocks were used to shape the country in the past.

“Before 1900 every main construction had bullocks involved,” league member Ron McKinnon said.

Stories from younger days of watching the bullocks bring logs into the town were remembered by a few of the members; one member recalled 800 bullock teams were used at one time to take ore out of Broken Hill.

The league was established in 1982 in Gundagai by a few enthusiasts who wanted to keep the trade alive.

Even with strict environmental laws and a dramatic drop in the way bullocks are used, numbers in the league have increased over the past few years.

The league’s youngest member Daniel Gaunt (15) attended the meeting alongside the oldest member Les Avery (92).

Mr Gaunt joined the league three years ago after seeing the bullocks in action at Timbertown.

“I started talking with (Timbertown bullocky) Craig Lockwood about cows and he got me interested in bullocks,” Mr Gaunt said.

Working with bullocks is a rare trade and these days many just do it as a hobby.

Philip Thompson from Southern Queensland is the youngest member to have worked commercially with a bullock team.

Mr Thompson worked the bullocks for a living for 30 years pulling hoop pine and case timber for banana boxes.

In 1992 he stopped working full time but still has a team of bullocks.

“The bug gets you and you can’t get rid of it,” Mr Thompson said.

Bullock drivers have a strong connection to their animals, speaking to them rather than handling them when they are working.

While the bullock drivers agree they are not the most beautiful creatures they disagree on which breed is best and which is the better way to handle a team.

Each driver has their own preferences and their own technique.

“You have to have a passion for bullocks to even stick with them,” Mr McKinnon said.