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| Uluru Central Australia |
‘People watching’ is one of my favourite hobbies. I could sit at a train station or airport or shopping centre for hours and just watch and invent other people’s lives with only my imagination and see say. My assumptions and conclusions are most likely wrong but I do find it entertaining and it vitalizes the creative juices in my veins, much like a blazing sunset or tranquil desert scene, so it is no surprise that my imagination was ignited on a recent holiday to Central Australia. It was like a box of Continental Chocolates; an assortment of characters to choose from.
‘Desert Beauty’
She couldn’t see me watching her enter the baths but I had the feeling she knew everyone took notice. My spying eyes where camouflaged under the rim of my wide brimmed hat as I bobbed about in Dalhousie Springs.
She was obviously from the city; there was an air about her. Short cropped modern hair style wrapped in a swish band that framed a face that appeared to undertake a regular beauty treatment; smooth and flawless. She had the covering of an overfed city woman maybe the product of too many lunches, yet still firm from a daily workout. Who knows?
It was the way she held herself that stood out; her head raised slightly, chin up, eyes seemed to be caste skyward, almost like you would stand if you were about to receive an award – proud, sure, strong, self-aware. Her partner was a scrawny pale specimen sporting a long skinny plait. A pot smoking muso maybe? She could have been a singer in that case although I fancy she would have been a painter or designer. The way she cocked her head could have been her spirit awakening to the beauty of our surroundings – sniffing in the colours and sounds and smells of the outback paradise.
Maybe when she goes home she’ll design a cloth stained with the memories of her desert trip or paint a scene reminiscent of her dry dusty adventure….well part of it at least. Today she is bathing in 36 degree ten thousand year old water exploding to the surface naturally through a ‘mound spring’. She was wearing a swim suit that only one with self-assuredness would dare. It was a very high cut at the leg affair, that does a cheeky disappearing act and reappears at the small of her back. She had a singlet top on that probably hid an exposed midriff but from the back it made it look like she had no pants on! Her cheeky bits resembled her nature maybe…..
Later I saw her fussing about preparing dinner in her camp kitchen, the wrap no way possible meeting and covering her and when she bent over….well, I’ll not go there. I wonder what or who she thought was impressed by her near nakedness? I was impressed by her sheer nerve and say ‘good on her’, as I blushed and turned away.
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‘Old Mate’
Old Mate as I affectionately named him had become more than just a watching game. We came across him three times on our trek through Central Australia. Still we had not exchanged names, yet a familiarity had formed; an anonymous alliance as we journeyed our distinct separate ways that always ended up in the same place, him the quest of a grey nomad, us our annual holidays. Our first encounter was on a green grassy knoll at Kings Canyon Station – an oasis after what we had previously endured making our way down the edges of three deserts. Red and dusty all around but for our camp spot and he was complaining! He reckoned the watered grass bought mozzies. He rambled on about how he liked burnt out scrub for a tent site. “It’s a sure thing there’ll be no snakes around either,’ he said in his broad pommy accent. I reckon he was cadging for a meal, but I was not going to offer. Talk is pretty much all you get from your fellow traveller when on the road and I was not about to change the rules! Besides everything was rationed for the amount of days we’d be out. I didn’t cater for generosity. Mind you his paunchy stature was evidence that his diet was more than adequate.
Our second encounter was at the roadhouse at Kings Canyon Resort the next day after walking a gorge or two. We had our thermos coffee and crackers and cheese, him with his pie and coke. I could see the envy in my husband’s eyes, junk food not on our menu. This is where we found out he was a pensioner spending as many days, or years even, adventuring. No retirement village for this happy chappie. Instead an old green Toyota 4WD ute loaded to the hilt with his tent and spare tyres and God knows what, haphazardly thrown in the back although I am sure he would know where everything was and could put his hand on it in the wiggle of a willy wagtails tail feathers! It all looked rather grubby really, dents and scratches on faded duco that may have never seen a polish rag. The tailgate of the ute was a display case for old car badges. Ford, Holden, Mazda, Toyota; a hodgepodge of all makes and models glued and screwed to the panel. He matched his vehicle; shabby maybe with torn and worn out shirt but not smelly and dirty. His shaven head smooth as a river boulder, a couple of teeth misplaced although I am sure he knew where they were and would have told us had we stuck around long enough to listen! His tattered sandshoes had seen better days. I am positive I saw a sockless toe peeking out through a split. He enjoyed telling us where he was headed and how he managed to get through fences and gates sporting NO ENTRY signs, to put up camp for free.
Our last encounter was at Ruby Bluff Gorge a week later. We had gotten ourselves bogged in a sandy riverbed. It was ‘Old Mates’ fault. We saw him camped and decided to go further into the park to keep our distance from him. Ah…such is the workings of Karma. It was a feeling of guilt that made us stop and at least say goodbye the next day after spending a night stopped in our tracks and up to our axle’s in garnet tinged sand. He looked on with amazement as we told him our story and we, as he told us his intentions of driving alone across the Simpson Desert! He wouldn’t even attempt the riverbed here. How he thought he was going to make six hundred sand dune crossings was a mystery. His front end was jacked up due to broken shocks (new ones floating around the ute somewhere) and there, out on the track, forty six gruelling kilometres from the nearest road that was one hundred and fifty kilometres to anywhere, he was about to fix it! Pure madness. We begged him to please wait at Birdsville and tag along with other travellers. Mind you other travellers wouldn’t want a bar of him I’m sure. The police had even pulled him over the day before we met again and went over his vehicle, asking him all sorts of questions and breathalysing him. At least they showed concern. They couldn’t find anything wrong so off he went on his merry way. At least he didn’t get bogged like we did! He didn’t seem to be the least bit worried…. smiley and cheerful and full of stories – probably a little bit full of himself, but harmless – Oh and very much so ‘living on the edge’.
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‘A Childs Play Ground’
Drifting about the Outback and rummaging through historic townships you are bombarded with how hard the pioneers worked and of the difficulties experienced taming the wilderness. The Hall of Fame for men in Longreach and in Alice Springs the Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame, pays tribute to those who risked all for the sake of earning a quid and making a life for their families at the same time opening up the country. Even though times have changed and machinery and communications have made things easier hardships take on a different hue. I couldn’t help notice how life is for the children in isolated areas. As a mother from a regional city I believe children need other children and socialising was a major part of teaching my lot. What if you are the only child of a family who chooses to live hundreds of kilometres in either direction from another town? I had the pleasure of meeting one young lady who lives with her parents and grandparents together running a hotel in such a place. That’s all there is…a pub after 150k’s or so from a Queensland border town, a building looms up out of the mirage. When you leave to continue your journey the road stretches for another century of kilometres. The hotel has withstood the tests of time for the last 149 years. Floods, wars, droughts and economic disasters, kings and queens and prime ministers move on into forgotten news but this little old pub remains… a comfort to the weary traveller, road gang’s drovers and stockman. It’s hard to imagine working in such a place all those years back without electricity and the creature comforts afforded today. It’s hard to imagine working there now even with all the trappings of modern day living, aircon and flushing toilets. What’s even more difficult is picturing how a child might cope.
We pulled up to what used to be a hitching rail for horses and wagons. We acknowledged a friendly nod and smile from the welcoming committee – four or five adults and a little girl about nine years old. Their party took up the entire end of the verandah. I thought at first they were fellow travellers pulled in for a rest stop just like us. In fact they were some of the owners. You couldn’t help notice the little girl. She stood out for all her smallness. Checked country shirt and blue jeans, dusty boots, hair pulled roughly into a coil – no regard for fashion taken into account – a need to keep it out of the way while she did her daily chores no doubt. Sunday must be funday as she was in her prime performing tricks in the dirt out front with her pink handled whip. Precocious and showing off her ability to control the stockman’s tool of trade and laughing at the sound it made thwacking the dirt. It was a spectacle.
After such a long day we decided to have ourselves dessert… after all, there in the bar was a chalk board that stated for $5 you could get yourself a coffee and a slice of cake. By this time all sunset watching was done and verandah sitters now became cooks and order takers and yarn spinners. Grandad was the yarn spinner specialist, mum was the cook, dad, when he wasn’t flying copters served a beer, grandma was absent tending to other family business in a real town..
“So is the sign up to date?” I ask. “Is that cake still available?”
Grabbing her pencil and order pad the miniature waitress announced that it was. “Yes and the Raspberry cake is the best ‘cause I made it.”
How could you say no to that?
She flicked an errant wisp of her dark hair away from her face then wrote down the order before rushing off to the kitchen. I ignored the fact that her hands had probably not seen a cake of soap since bath time yesterday and that her clothes were not appropriately ‘food handler’ clean. There is a time and place for such things and here was not the place or the time!
Her conversation was more like that of an adult not a child.
“Hey Grandad, we took seven dinners tonight. That’s a good day, hey. Not bad for a Sundy”
The adults both agreed, “No not bad at all” the old man nodded.
Sitting up at the ancient bar along with fellow travellers I listened to all the questions being asked. I sensed that all these inquiries had been asked before and the old man’s answers were dependant on his mood. There was a tad of sarcasm and annoyance having to respond over and over to the same old, same old, when on the wall was a history of how when where why and who about the place! I prefer to listen and wait….
“So where do you come from Boss” the grandad asked me.
My patience paid off and all the information came forth. I read the historical account but how he lived now with his family in this isolated place was what I was interested in. As it turns out he is sick of it and he’s looking to retire. “I’ll swap ya” was what he said to someone pulling up in their Winnebago earlier. “Bus for the Pub”.
Negative reply.
We all get tired; that’s why we were on holiday but there was a child no more than nine years of age willing and able to carry on when grandfather finally gives up the ghost. Before that though she will have to endure formal education; school of the air and probably boarding school. If she is lucky she may get a taste of another life and never return like so many of the young do from remote areas. Or she’ll be here till she is an old lady too or at least till the pub withers away.
We were camped across the road under a rickety old shade covering that was originally a horse shelter. It’s off the road and had a table and rough-hewn benches to sit on. We had our fill of beer and cake and it was time to jump in our swag. All around the makeshift camp area where signs of a little girl at play; a dolly’s pram and bits and bobs that furnished a cubby. It was her play ground when off duty from bar and kitchen duties and there, next to our tent lay something else, hidden.
How he saw it in the dim light of our torch is a miracle. To miss it would have been a shame although of course I’d never have known.
“I have found some ones stash”
What” I reply. “What do you mean?”
Stash to me was….well it could be anything!
“Where?”
“See those rocks in the corner; well they’re hiding a box.”
My curiosity was always going to get to me, no chance of it not.
I carefully unstacked the rocks and exposed a clear plastic lunch box. I felt like I was an intruder. I nearly put it back and left it but something apart from curiosity urged me on.
There were Macca’s toys, Minties, miniature dolls, hairclips, an assortment of treasures and in a plastic bag a small note book and pen. Dare I read it? I felt ashamed of my prying.
The small book was a place to leave a message for the little girl. Others had found it before me and written a few lines and left a small gift. What a find; Comments from all corners of the country from other prying travellers!
I rummaged through my bag and retrieved a pin with some bling on it that I had as decoration. I could live without it but even a nine year old, whip slapping, future manager of a pub in the middle of Australia needs a bit a bling, so that is what I wrote along with thank you for being so creative and allowing us to share a small piece of her life.
I’ll never know what she thought of her small gift and it doesn’t really matter. For someone so young to invent such a game intrigued me. Did she watch out the window and spy on us spying on her stash? She trusted us with her stuff though. If that was here in the city it would be nicked!
I looked in the rear view mirror as we drove away the next morning… I couldn’t help wonder what the future held for the only child in at least a hundred kilometres. Maybe one day I’ll get back there to see.
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