Three days to get to the next event. 3000 kms. Firstly, south through the termites to 3-Ways, the 40 kms north of Tennant Creek roadhouse outpost and turnoff to the Queensland border. On the way Manu starts doing the small wave you do at oncoming cars on country roads. He does it relentlessly to every car for 3 hours to check the friendliness rating – at one point he got 11 from 11.
The Retreat blows a tyre near the Daly Waters turnoff and Ben fits the remaining spare. A lack of phone signal prevents him from alerting us to pick up another one in the Land Cruiser at Tennant Creek. Later, Ben pulls the Retreat into 3-ways, tells us he’s got no spares left and continues to Queensland while Manu and I dash into Tennant Creek with the shredded one. The guy at the tyre place says, ‘No mate. Haven’t got one. You wouldn’t find one round here either. There’s probably only 4 places in Australia that sell ‘em.’ The tyres on the Retreat trailers are European size; slightly smaller than regular tyres to comply with height restrictions. Manu phones Kim at Crawford’s home-base and within seconds she finds 2 for us to pick up in Mt Isa. The truck has to travel 700ish kms with no spare.
You can see along way ahead on the Barkly Hwy. And deceptively so; the underestimated distance you see in daylight is revealed at night when oncoming headlights take 12 minutes to pass. Driving 40 minutes without turning the wheel across a treeless landscape toward an evaporating horizon requires loud music, preferably Chisel. At one point I thought deafening opera would do the trick, but alas, I didn’t bring any. Aside from a concert hall with orchestral backing, desert driving seems an appropriate setting for a tenor filled opus; the tragic verse washing over so many deceased kangaroos, the barren earth joins the cloudless sky looking like the edge of the world once feared in opera’s time of origin. But don’t start me on opera in TV commercials – they should have stopped after the roller-door ad in the 70’s (even then, apologies to Carmen) – slow motion shots of shiny, monotonously designed cars driving past women in long dresses sipping cocktails over an ill-fitting aria. I suppose the look is to conjure something high-class – no doubt all on the back of the other current prostitution of opera with the ‘20 tenors’, or however many they can cram onto one stage. 86? Why not go all the way? Ladies and gentlemen: the 400 Tenors.
Hang on, better not give them any ideas.
Most roo carcasses lie on the side of, or just off the road. Every so often one is situated in the middle of the lane. Some are pulverised enough to fit between the wheels and drive over. Just a leg and a tail – that sort of arrangement. Others are huge lumps requiring you to swerve around. During the opera daydream a lump materialised from the haze in the distance. For a while it appeared to be sitting up. The reason revealed itself as we got closer – standing over the roo, having an afternoon snack, was a real live, for-heavens-sake, monster Wedge-tailed Eagle. I turned down Chisel and thought it necessary to go round. All hawks and crows who scavenge skippys always fly or hop out of the way. As the cruiser approached, the eagle stopped eating, looked up stared at us. It didn’t move a feather. It stood on the white line, motionless, regarding a large vehicle come toward it at 130kmh. It watched calmly over its left shoulder like a James Bond poster shot. Blue steel. The bird’s ownership of the roo and reluctance to budge raised the theory that it may have nailed the marsupial and was not merely taking nuts off the bar, as it were. In the revision mirror I saw it continue eating, no doubt shaking its head in exasperation of our rude interruption.
Ben got the Retreat to Camooweal, about 15kms over the border, and crashed out in the cab immediately. We arrived an hour later, figured he was asleep, and went like moths to the only lights still on in town, the pub. There were 3 other people there and a motel out the back. The town looked so peaceful we thought it would be a shoe-in to get a room. But no, the whole town was chockaz. The publican said it was all the carnies passing through, not an inch of space anywhere. Except outside. We resigned ourselves to swagging it during the second beer. The publican kept the bar open for an extra hour and thoughtful, animated discussions erupted over certain government spending in the installation of the National Broadband Network around the area; of course the government would never just ignore the lobby-group red-tape that it spent thousands of dollars, digging unneeded holes under rivers and just trust a long-time local of the region to easily run the cable ‘just along here’ for a 1000th of the cost. For another hour we talked about my other favourite subject – the ban of live cattle exports. We promised we’d take a photo of the Retreat in front of his pub and send it on. Eventually we shuffled off, rolled out the swags on the 2 metal platforms on the Retreat and slept under a very visible Milky Way. And no bugs crawled up my nose.
Post Office Hotel Motel, Camooweal, QLD
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