The showgrounds, Saturday: A modest crowd is gathered in the stands to watch two men on motorcycles hurtle up a ramp, sail a long way through the air, and touch down safely if thumpingly.
To a fresh eye, it looks pretty freaky, but the spectators aren't moved to blinking. The megaphoned announcer explains: "They're just testing the breeze, making sure it isn't too hectic and ... whoa, see that heel-click, he's not scared."
Mostly people pay attention to their kids, share campfire stories from their bushwhacking adventures and take in the brand new sunshine. The National 4x4 Outdoors Show and Fishing & Boating Expo doesn't have the overdriven hard-rocking loudness of the Grand Prix. It's more a gathering of people who live for their summer holidays.
Has anybody seen Ricky? The senator? Australia Motoring Enthusiasts Party? It's only when you mention he's involved in a 4x4 stunt, the penny drops. "That'd be the other arena. This is bikes."
Two minutes later, you see him, in the centre of a clump of mainly small people. His five-year-old daughter dancing back and forth, and then lunging to hug him. His nine-year-old son stands shyly to the side, won't look at the cameras. His 20-month son - the one who called out "daddy" when Muir was sworn in - points a finger at everything he can name. There are five children in total. Muir's wife Kerrie-Anne smiles warily and nods agreeably at it being a nice day.
Muir himself can't shake the almost hurt aspect that lives in his smile. When he turns to find more cameras upon him, he visibly pulls focus, not with his eyes , but his emotional posture.
"The family's coping pretty well, I think," he says of the attention. "Usually on a day like this I'd be going around with a video camera, filming everything. We'll do what we have to do here and then have a look around."
Invited by the event organisers, Muir's immediate duties involve doing a turn as a passenger in a ute that travels through the mud, tilted sideways, on two wheels. In another ute, he is taken up a ramp so steep it's sphincter-clenching just to watch. He emerges red-faced and then calls over the family. Kerrie-Anne and three of the children climb into the back seat of a ute and wave dutifully as Ricky drives at a sedate speed around a course strewn with clay speed humps.
There are not a lot of people watching. Those who know him almost dare you to ask a smart-arse question. At the short "doorstop" afterward, no one has a particularly pressing question to ask the man.
He says he's looking forward to the second term of Parliament, hopes to make some gains in the area of road safety, wants to do his best for his party and all Australians. Yes, he's taken a few late-night calls from various people during the break. Regarding Clive Palmer and Jacqui Lambie, they have their own opinions. And yes, the Senate is a steeper learning curve than the ramp he's just negotiated.
With that he wanders off into the crowd, baby in the stroller, wife and children gathered close, in search of what everyone else is up to.
