In less than a week, the Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce has travelled more than 8000 kilometres by car and plane across Queensland. From the Atherton Tablelands in the far north, to the dusty cattle town of Longreach, down the coast and out west, he has endured the hand-shattering grips of locals and the glare of spotlights cast from dozens of cameras.

Rising before dawn, he has rushed madly between airports, car rental offices, small north Queensland towns and meetings where lamingtons and reactionary politics abound.

By Saturday he is in Longreach, helping to herd 1600 head of cattle while photographers and reporters mill about.

At night, as he sits down to a dinner at the airport with about 50 businessmen flown in on the mining magnate Clive Palmer's private jet, across the road the Longreach rodeo is under way.

The headline act is the Queensland Brahman bull-riding finals. Under spotlights in a fenced dirt ring, the bulls careen out of the gates, kicking over three metres in the air with hooves that could smash cement.

The wide-eyed animals thrash and spin in a frenzy as the lean cowboys grip with one gloved hand a thick rope wrapped around the bull's belly.

Jared Borghero is leading the competition on Saturday night after two rounds of bruising battle with the huge, snorting Brahman bulls. A fellow rider says it's about time that Mr Borghero won.

''They always bully me at rodeos,'' Mr Borghero, 20, says. ''Maybe I'll go into politics, go and see Julia Gillard.

''Actually, too much shit to put up with in politics. We got a lot better job. I couldn't sit in an office; they couldn't keep me in school let alone an office.''

Earlier in the day the Herald had sat down with Senator Joyce, who said he had some regret at his busy schedule. ''In the first six months of last year, I spent eight nights in my own bed. I know because [my wife] Nat reminds me,'' he said.