Back up a bit...
Plenty of "Spirit" in Outback 'stralia? You better believe it! I once tried to hitch hike across the Outback. Fram Cairns to Perth. Boy, do you ever meet some colorful individuals. Between Mount Isa and Camooweal I got a lift from a Station Owner. An old guy, raspy voice from years of smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. We were in the REAL Outback, mile after mile of dead straight road, very few vehicles, really, nothing to look at, mate. All of a sudden the old guy says, "You ain't never SEEN scenery like this!" I'm Canadian, but to those Outback guys, anybody with a North American accent must be from Brooklyn, never left the Big City till they came here. I answered, "Well, I grew up in the Rocky Mountain foothills..." "YOU AIN'T NEVER SEEN SCENERY LIKE THIS!!!" he roars back. Three hundred and sixty degrees of dead flat horizon, spinifex and red dust. What scenery? But, hey, I didn't want to get DROPPED OFF in the middle of the Outback, "That's right, Sir, I ain't never seen anything like this!"
A few weeks later I was working on a Sheep Station outside of Fitzroy crossing, a place called Laurel Downs. It was being run by another old guy, a WWII Veteran and his two sons a few years older than I was. The mother had had enough of the Outback and had returned to Adelaide. We spoke with the neighbors by radio, that's how isolated we were. It took five days to drive, by Land Rover, around the perimeter of the place to mend fences. At the opposite corner of the property was an abandoned Ghost Town. They kept a few cattle there, it had a natural Bore, a spring, and there were trees arond the place. Cockatoos and Galahs everywhere. Apparently the settlers in the 19th Century had been "Emu Bobbers", Opal pickers. The place was going to be the "Next Coober Pedy", but the opals ran out. I did happen to find one Opal. I later gave it to my mother who had it set in a ring. We "de-knackered" young rams there, cut out their testicles. We went into the Crossing on three Saturday nights and each time I got into a fist fight. Aww, yes, PLENTY of Spirit in the Outback.
Howzat? Science? Oh, well, there's a Meteorite Impact Crater in WA. Goat Paddock.
Last edited by Wolfman; 06/16/07 08:27 PM.
