Author: aussiecossiedarwin@hotmail.com

 

Rugby League as I know it is dead.

The rot started when they first took away the baggy cotton jumpers in favour of dressing in skin tight lycra – like a Jazz Ballet troop.

The whole game has gone soft – with so many rule changes that fans no longer understand the sport.
Shoulder charges have been banned altogether – with an explicit exception of certain players for certain teams, in certain circumstances (which no one – except the judiciary understand).
Punching has been banned altogether – however, shirt-pulling and dirty looks are allowed, as is creating a ‘melee’ as seen in various other soft, non-contact sports.
There is also a strict addendum to this rule – Broncos players are free to kick with their foot, any other player they encounter hindering their forward progress.
There is now a new, secret algorithm used to determine what constitutes a legitimate try – with a randomly generated variable which is strictly secured and disclosed only to the inhabitants of The Bunker on game day. No one else should have any clue as to the nature of said algorithm – but must stand by the big chicken sign to hear the Bunker God’s determination.

I read recently that the company that makes Lego almost went broke – lost $292 Million in one year. This was due to trying to over-innovate and keep up with the emergence of computer games etc. They increased the colour of bricks from 6 to 50, and had multiple new forms etc.

They got a new CEO in – who took it back to basics, cut out all the new sh!t.
The following year they made $117 Million profit!

This is what the league need to do.

1. Choose a single team jersey – cotton man clothes – you cannot alter this strip for 5 years.
(So we all know at a glance, which two teams are playing)
2. A single referee who makes decisions that the common man understands – if it looks like a try, it’s a try.
3. Fill in The Bunker with gravel – and 8 inches of concrete on top so the f@ckers can’t get out
4. Bring back the Biff. (Not spear tackles or dangerous play – just one on one harmless punch-ups. Penalise the participants by all means – it might stop the unsportsmanlike petty hair ruffling when someone f@cks up).
5. Don’t change the rules in the last 5 minutes of a game, or Golden Point. Offside is offside, always.
6. Have a qualified Judiciary (or any bloke off the street) who examine the facts as they are and punish accordingly, and consistently.
Just take it back to a point where fans, commentators, referees and players all share an understanding of the simple rules FFS.

 

My old high school is having a reunion this weekend.

Not everyone – just the kids who attended in my year – from 1979-84. That makes it about thirty years since we left, which also means some of us are closing in on 50 years old.

For various reasons I can’t make it – work and the fact that it’s being held 900kms away from Jacobs Well – which is where I currently reside.

It’s a pretty bizarre ride nonetheless.

I haven’t really kept in contact with anyone from those days, though I occasionally ran into a few of my old mates at long-favoured watering holes such as the Stop and Rest Hotel at Mt Pritchard.

Brett Symons, Wayne ‘Longy’ Long and a few others whose names presently escape me.

 

Funnily enough, I am still in contact with a handful of other guys who attended Busby High – blokes who started out friends, or friends of friends, and various hangers-on of my younger sister. I didn’t really know them at school but we have since become very firm and lifelong friends!

 

This is a unique time in history I believe and it is this that adds to the surreal nature of the impending reunion.

 

I first attended Busby High in 1979 – I guess because my brother went there – I have no idea why he went there. Ninety percent of the students who attended Mt Pritchard Public School, as we did, went on to Bonnyrigg High, which was much closer.

 

So when I arrived – and I still recall the first ‘assembly’, with a mob of kids milling about in the quadrangle, I found very few familiar faces.

I was shuffling around in my new desert boots, eyeing off my fellow prisoners and potential weaknesses in the perimeter, like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

I was chatting to my old mate Barry Davis and we recognised the hulking form of Rob Foster (who had been 6 foot plus for as long as I could remember), then the pretty features of Pam Clarke – who’d been my first friend in Kindergarten. There was also Neil Saddler (we’d both been caned together once, for instigating a trend of ‘Horsey-Bite’ slaps to the unsuspecting cold hamstring of fellow students). Outside of that, I recall Peter Cowell, David Small and not too many others.

 

So they were assigning us all to our new barracks – sorry Rollcall Classes.

From memory, the classes were numbered 7R1 – 7R5? That was five classes of about thirty students in each.

I went to 7R1 – I still don’t know what they based this on but Bazza went to about 7R3 and Smally to 5, I think.

 

All the other kids – a hundred and thirty or so, seemed to all know everyone – having gone to Busby Primary, Busby West Primary or Heckenberg Primary together.

 

When we ended up in Rollcall, I think I was with Rob Foster and Pam – outside of that, they were all strangers to me.

There were some odd-looking people, some funny names, big fellas, little guys and WHOA!!! Who’s she?!

‘Petina Beattie?’ ……’Here’

 

Wow. She’s cute – nice name too. I wonder where she lives?

(My recollection thirty years later, would be of a beautifully kind face, with a Farrah Fawcett, Charlie’s Angels hairdo – only better looking!).

 

After several months, everyone seemed to have buddied up with mates of similar interest.

I recall one day in a ‘Commercialism’ class (where you learned how to fill out a cheque, studied the origins of currency and discussed conflict), a precursor to ‘Commerce’ – we had a teacher called Killeen . I thought he was a prick. He hated me for some reason – and he once made an out-of-line and derogatory comment about my mate Mark Luckwell, to which I took offense.

I think one of the reasons he didn’t like me was because by that time, Bob Roberts had become my best mate – and he was left handed. When we sat together, our elbows would occasionally bump as we were writing – causing, initially a slight stutter in someone’s writing. These things more often than not escalated quickly – ending with stabbing and scribbling all over each other’s work – which we would then need to hand in to said teacher for assessment.

I’d get low marks for my bookwork, which I felt was unjustified – the mess was Bob’s after all! But then I’d study and blitz it in the exam – which I don’t think he liked either.

 

I thought I had the last laugh on him when we went on an excursion to the Snowy Mountains several years later.

He was on a toboggan and pissing down the hill at a rate of knots, leaning forward with his ears pinned back, sunnies on and teeth sparkling below his bristling moustache – then KAPOW!!!

He was smashed square in the face with a well formed and hardened snowball!

Now he was rolling in the snow. His sunnies gone, beanie disappeared and toboggan bouncing away on its listless descent – as I slinked back into the throng, my work there done.

 

However, years later still, I ran into him again at the Busby High Deputy Principal’s (Mr Bob Stock) farewell, which I’d serendipitously stumbled upon at Mounties one night. Killeen had run out of money and I somehow got shamed into shouting him a beer – which he never paid back. So I guess we can call it square after all.

 

The day I earlier referred to, Killeen had taken a sickie and the kids were all doing what kids do with no proper teacher in control. Myself, Lucky Luckwell and Bobby Roberts took it upon ourselves to have a vote on who was the best looking chick in the class. It came down to three – though Petina got my number one vote, hands down.

After the votes were tallied and preferences given, I believe Petina came in second – the other two spots went to….well two other worthy contenders who shall remain nameless.

Upon conclusion of our very personal little discussion on the individual virtues of our girly classmates, we went our separate ways.

THEN – I was sitting there, relaxing (people didn’t yet chill-out), and minding my own business when I noticed a silhouette approaching from twelve o’clock.

I looked up and stared directly into the baby-blues of Petina Beattie!

She says sweetly “Thankyou Steve – Mark just told me you voted me second prettiest girl in the class”

 

I blazed a hundred shades of red, my mouth hung open like a stunned mullet as my brain searched for something witty to say – but all I could think of, was – “WHY THE FK DID MARK GO AND TELL YOU THAT, FFS?”

I didn’t say anything – though I think I did manage to force a half grin of acknowledgement. It felt like we’d locked eyes for about twenty minutes. Following that mortifying exchange, I believe I went red every time she looked at me for the next two years.

I’d like to think that these days, being more mature and self confident – if Petina approached for a chat, that I’d be able to charm her with witty banter and a suave persona. I fear however, that I’d immediately revert to the stuttering, red mullet and just stare blankly into her exquisite baby-blues and just blaze away in silence until she once again left me!

 

The reason I mention my personal history, in regard to the upcoming reunion is that it explains in part why I don’t remember some of the names on the guest list.

I had very little to do with some of the kids who were not in my classes. And though I’m sure I knew their names and faces at the time, after thirty years my mind draws a complete blank in some instances.

In addition, some of these kids left school earlier than others.

By the time year eleven and twelve rolled round, our entire year was down to about 28 kids.

We all became close then – and school changed.

The teachers suddenly showed more individual respect to the students and vice versa. I think everyone realised that we were now there only because we wanted to be (or our parents wanted us to be!) – not because the government declared it so.

Maybe if the kids that left earlier had have experienced this respect, some others may have hung around too?

Regardless, the school environment was far more conducive to both study and fun in the final two years, despite the pressure of the ‘all important HSC’ looming ominously above us all.

 

I declared this a unique time in history as it encompasses the globally sweeping evolution of technology between 1984 and now.

For instance – I lived about 2.6kms from Busby High, so I’d ride my bike, without a helmet – to Bob’s place, which was about 500m from the school and we’d walk the rest.

We had no mobile phones, no internet, no air-conditioning, no computers. The video games available were Pong through some adapter kit on your TV – or later, Space Invaders at the local Milk Bar (which was invariably owned by Greeks).

Most of us still had a Black & White TV – colour had been in Australia less than 5 years (1975).

There were no video recorders, camera’s used film – which you had to use sparingly and send away for a week to be processed. CD’s had not been invented – we just sat around an AM radio for hours waiting to tape your favourite song on a mix tape (which some blowhard DJ would always insist on speaking over till halfway through!).

DJ’s played records – Disk Jockeys. They were not standalone musicians – and they still aren’t!

Fixing a single headphone to one’s ear with two fingers and bobbing your head to other-people’s music, does not make you a headline act. Sit down, shut up and play the records the punters request of you!

Trains were known as Red Rattlers and had huge wide doors and windows that actually opened and let in the foetid air of the city’s unfiltered industrial pollution to replace the billowing cigarette smoke from the passengers.

Planes all had ashtrays in the armrests – not that many could afford to actually fly in one back then.

People coated themselves in beautifully smelling coconut oil and sat on the beach all day – with the aim of increasing the sun’s burn and depth of tan.

For the health conscious – you would dab a smear of white zinc cream on your nose and lips – then duck off all day in a pair of boardies, reassured that the sun could do you no harm on this particular day!

Retractable lap-sash seatbelts were still a novelty in cars.

Takeaway food was a rarity and often consisted of forty cents worth of hot chips from a milk bar (and would be enough to satisfy three hungry kids).

There were a few Kentucky Fried Chicken shops around – advertised by a family of cartoon fat kids chomping down in the back seat of a car.

Macca’s were around – but didn’t have playgrounds and certainly didn’t sell coffee.

There were no coffee shops with furniture scattered in the gutter of a main thoroughfare for the discerning punter’s convenience – no one in Australia had ever heard of a cafe latte or cappuccino. And you certainly wouldn’t leave home on a special excursion whose sole purpose was to buy a cup of coffee! You’d make the bastard yourself, in your own kitchen, in about 45 seconds and for a cost of 2 cents.

 

A viscous, plummy potion called ‘Blackberry Nip’ was the choice alcoholic beverage for the ladies.

 

A special family treat involved a trip to the Bistro of the local club, we you dined on such exotic dishes as ‘Chicken in a Basket’ and ‘Chicken Maryland’ – and the Oldman usually had ‘Roast of the Day’.

 

When I left Busby, the school had recently acquired 2 Apple Macintosh computers – which I never laid eyes on, let alone played with.

 

The first couple of Asian students had arrived at Busby as well – Vietnamese refugees – apparently their names were Tom and Fred!

 

No boys ever used any type of ‘product’ in their hair.

Certainly no boys dyed their hair a different colour! I remember one sandy haired fella who turned up with black hair one day – he was ridiculed and laughed out of the school!

These days, it seems every kid has some kind of highlight or fashion product sculpting their follicles – and they openly discuss it!

 

Underpants were just that. They didn’t ever stick out above your daks for public display – you’d be forever declared a wanker! (Actually – this is one facet of Eighties culture that I maintain should stand the test of time!)

 

In a school of 1200 kids – no one was gay.

I speak to kids now and it seems a third of their friends are gay – and they are allowed to be so and are in fact supported in this by their classmates and schools!

I said – don’t the other kids take the piss or bash them? It was explained to me that it was in fact quite the opposite – if someone tried to, it is they who would incur the wrath of the multitudes for being such an intolerant dick!

Same these days goes for orthodontic braces – when I went to school, people were called ‘Metal Mouth’, ‘Railway Tracks’, ‘Shark Attack’ and many other derogatory names, which must have been very hurtful for the poor kids trying to improve their look.

These days braces are apparently a fashion statement – they come in all colours and styles! While they no doubt remain physically painful and aesthetically challenging, the stigma and personal insults have gone.

Similarly with spectacles – it was ‘Four Eyes’, ‘Coke Bottles’, ‘Blind Man’ and countless other heckles at kids who were already struggling with their sight and didn’t need the extra stress from cold-hearted colleagues.

Once again – specs are now cool and a fashion statement.

 

For the life of me, I don’t know how some of these attitudes were changed on such a broad front in such a short time? I think it is in kids’ nature to seize upon anything different about their mates – and to a large extent, that continues into adulthood, with good natured jibes.

Maybe some of today’s teachers, who were victims themselves of such unwarranted targeting, decided to straighten out their charges before they too repeated this abhorrent bullying?

 

I don’t know the cause but I remain most impressed with the result.

 

As I said – Bob was my best mate – but that doesn’t mean we always got along.

He was an hilarious bloke Bob – had the guts to do just about anything (some of which would probably be frowned upon in today’s politically correct world). But he had me legless with laughter many times.

At school every group had their own little hangout during breaks in class – lunches, recesses etc. Ours was under the steps and balcony that led to the English Staff Room. I remember one time Bob passionately cut loose with the filthiest tirade of swear words you’ve ever heard – I recall it commenced with “F’N BULLSH1T C@#T……”

I was sitting down leaning against the wall like a Mexican, sipping on my drink bottle – next thing you know, Mr Norris, the English master whirls around the staircase!

‘Would you mind repeating what you just said please Mr Roberts?’

Bob says “Bullo!”

 

I almost blew orange cordial out of my nostrils as I struggled to stop my back from shaking as I laughed so hard internally that it almost hurt!

A brilliant summation there Bob.

 

Norris was cool – had a shot at me for laughing and advised Bob not to speak so passionately or some such thing, then turned and left us to roll around the ground in hysterics.

 

Another time, I think I mistakenly stumbled over Bob’s bag. They were the old Adidas, fake leather looking sports bag things – in the days before people used backpacks.

So Bob sees me kick his bag and retaliates by kicking mine twice as far, so then I reef his as hard as I can, and he does the same to mine. But I feel he got the better of me – so I grab his bag by the handles and throw it with all my might upwards against the underside of the concrete balcony. Then Bob rips the handles clean off my bag so I’ve gotta carry it under my arm like a football.

So during our next class – which is a double period of Art – we have to leave our bags out the front (in case someone has an idea to steal used art-supplies).

Slowly simmering about my damaged bag, I set to work – I pulled apart a pencil sharpener and took the blade outside and slice the bottom out of Bob’s bag along three sides, so all his sh1t would fall out.

 

As I said earlier – things sometimes escalated quickly.

I think we both got in strife from our respective Mum’s re the bag issue and I remember another time sitting through half a day of classes with only one sleave – I copped it at home for that one too (though I can’t recall what I did to justify him ripping it off me).

 

After we left school in 1984, a bunch of the guys stayed in touch through drinking at the same venues on weekends and a few trips away, 21^st birthday celebrations and even a wedding and a kid.

Some of the old watering holes include Mounties, The Stoppa, Sweethearts, Alexanders, The Sound Factory, Cabra Diggers, Livo RSL, Fairfield RSL, Parramatta Leagues, Stallions at Parra, Suttos (for the extreme Desperados), Cabra Leagues and various other establishments around town.

 

Every now and then I’d catch the train to Parramatta on a Friday arvo and meet Bob and his work mates at the Collector Tavern (he worked in Parra at the Electricity Mob). From there we’d adjourn to Parra Leagues for dollar drinks – and then, after we were well and truly rocking, we’d go to Stallions nightclub (in Church Street, I think).

 

One time though – Bob brought one of his work mates to Mounties on a Friday night – to see The Beatnix (an excellent Beatles cover band). His mate Jim actually lived out that way – up around Prairiewood or Greenfield Park or something.

Jim’s full name was actually Jim Hymen – they called him ‘Buster’.

Anyway, we were having a few schooners and a few rounds of snooker – Buster Hymen was doing his best to keep up. By this time, we used to give it a nudge – and so we did that night.

We caught the 9:30 session of the Beatnix and continued drinking jugs of beer in the auditorium – it was great fun!

That was until Buster lost control – he spewed his guts up and p1ssed his pants.

We went to take him home and he fell over in the car park and ripped his trousers at the knees.

I think Bob was driving his old ’68 Monaro and there was Myself, Buster, Brett Symons, Al Waters and maybe Pete Hodge.

We drove up round Buster’s neighbourhood so he could point out his house – he was beyond recalling his actual address by this time.

He pointed to one place and a couple of us got out, carrying Buster upright – an arm over each shoulder, like the front row of a scrum.

I knocked loudly on the screen door and after a while, the front timber door opened. The screen door was one of those types where you can see out but can’t see in – so I said “G’day – we’ve brought your son home”

This was met with a barrage of excited and animated rantings in a dialect I guessed to be Cantonese – Yep, it was the wrong house – turns out that they didn’t have a son called Buster.

In addition – Buster Hymen’s parents weren’t even Asian! Which kind of made sense, because neither was he.

 

The second house that our legless colleague claimed he lived in was opened by a large bear of a man – he had stooped shoulders, an open dressing-gown and a head like Boris Yeltsin! He too made it quite clear that our man Jim would not be staying the night at his place.

 

We gave him one more shot to find his house and after strike three, someone said ‘Well f*ck ya Buster, you can come with us till you sober up – but no more p1ssin’ ya pants!’

 

We continued on to someone’s house in Fairfield West, or Smithfield – I think it may have been Al Waters’ joint. Buster spewed one more time and the bulk of the vomitus dribbled down between the outer skin of the Monaro and the inner door trim, making it a bitch to clean up the next day.

Sprawled on the floor, unconsciously confined to the torturous sleep of the alcoholically condemned was the last vision I ever had of Jim ‘Buster’ Hymen. I guess someone drove him home the next day – when he could once again recall his address – but I bet the flashbacks of wet pants and skinned knees still haunt him to this day.

Unfortunately, as such things do – the boys eventually all drifted apart and moved on.

 

Enter computers, mobile phones, the internet, digital cameras, Google Earth, Facebook, cheap domestic flights.

 

I took to Facebook begrudgingly, as I had set up a MySpace page whose format I much preferred – but found, like the Beta tape and Vinyl LP album – no bastard was using it anymore.

I found Mark ‘Lucky’ Luckwell on FB and followed his impressive pursuits in the dart realm for a while.

It stood out to me that Mark was still the genuine, fair minded gentleman he’d been as a young fella.

I became ‘friends’ with a few other old mates, commented on posts and checked their photos.

We are the first generation that has been able to do this. I reckon most people would occasionally wonder how old friends, or even enemies, are getting on in life.

The generation older than us largely ignore FB and such and so have missed this opportunity – our generation is at an age where we are still young enough to embrace the available technology and yet old enough to make spying interesting!

 

To his credit, I believe inspired by his experience organising ‘Friendly’ International darts competitions, Lucky Luckwell proposed we organise a school reunion this year. The suggestion had credit and thus the organisational wheels were set in motion.

 

It’s been very interesting as more and more ex-students have been ratted out of their respective burrows and have jumped on board.

 

Special mention goes to Helen Heckenberg – who was the Hermione Granger of our year and has done a fantastic job investigating and chasing down several illusive fugitives whom no one else could find!

Helen was always a sensible girl, very clever, respected by everyone – and if you ever had a doubt about the right thing to do, you could ask Helen and she’d set you straight. She had an indefectible moral compass – and like Hermione, she grew more attractive every year.

 

With a hundred and fifty kids all up – there are some I would swear I’ve never seen or heard of before and I’m sure didn’t go to school with me. But others are convinced they were there.

There are hot girls who remain hot women to this very day. There are some girls whose looks have improved since high school. Some people look much older – some not so much. There is one bloke from a few years below me who now looks like my grandfather!

There are some chicks who you secretly hope had failed marriages and might be once again on the market.

You inspect some photos and wonder how the hell they ended up with them?!

 

However – the thing that I found most astounding is that people’s personalities have changed very little from when we went to school!

In my mind these people remain 17 years old – I’m chatting to someone within spitting distance of 50 years old, and my mind somehow refuses to recognise them beyond the summer of ’84!

It’s freaking me out.

 

The plan is to have the Reunion at Mounties – an old stomping ground of mine.

I fear that if I were to attend, force of habit would find me next morning in my old bedroom, spread eagle on the single bed with half a kebab and a schooner of cold water on the floor beside – having walked drunkenly home on auto-pilot, like so many times before.

Unfortunately my old house was sold to a Vietnamese family about three years ago and I imagine they would become frightened as my inebriated snoring reached a crescendo and woke themselves (and possibly a few ancestors) from their silent slumber in the next bedroom.

 

Karen, who has assisted Mark in the organisation of this whole affair, is working furiously on putting together a video/slideshow of the people in our year – including those who are unable to attend.

She asked me to record a few words of greeting to the folk who will be there on Saturday night. So feeling a little tired and emotional after a night at the pub, I opened a rather robust Cabernet Sauvignon, sat down with my Iphone and commenced an eight minute monologue.

Having watched it back the next day, I realised it sounded like a Tony Abbott media address – with too many um’s & arr’s as my foggy mind struggled to plan what to say next.

That too was an unusual experience – sitting in an empty room addressing a phone, as though it were forty of my fifty-seventeen year old friends.

 

It appears there is little left to do now – except look forward to the photos and reports of the night.

 

The physical party aside, I think it has been a worthy achievement to simply get all the players back in contact – some will no doubt choose to fade back into the ether, but I’m sure others will once again keep in contact when the whole show is over.

The teenage years have a huge influence on the rest of your life and the strong bonds formed back then are definitely hard to break.

Novacastrian Nuptials – That Whole Shower Unpleasantness

This episode took place a few years ago now, but I’ll do my best to recall things as I saw them at the time….(and add some photos a little later).

My mate Mark – who attended Busby High with my sister Kerrie many moons ago, and who was at the time a cop, sent me a drunken SMS one night.
He’d been out to Parkes to visit his Police Academy mate Scotty – and as such gatherings go, they’d gone to the local pub for a relaxing beverage or two.
Mark as it turned out found himself quite smitten with one of Scotty’s colleagues – a sweet young constable by the name of Kate.
Mark couldn’t believe a honey such as this would find him attractive – to this day, the boys and I concur.

So sometime later, Mark and Kate are getting married – and it is with great personal honour that I fly down from Qld to fulfil my honour as a groomsman.

I hired a car – turned out to be a brand-spanking new black Ford XR6. I intended to stay at Patonga for the first night (apparently they have a new hotel there!). Upon questioning as to the nightly fee, I was advised it was $340 or some such outrageous tally!
I acknowledged their offer with grace (after physically recoiling in horror at their exorbitant rates!)

So I decided I might as well head straight to Mark’s for the night (I was actually hoping for some decent sleep before the wedding proper, but shit happens, eh?).

I think I was there for about ten seconds before I was down on all fours, playing Hungry, Hungry Hippo with Mark’s two young fellas. Don’t be misled – this is an extremely violent game – and please don’t ever get yourself in a winning position with two animated young fellas, hell bent on kicking your arse!

My next recollection is from the following day, when the rest of the boys arrived for pre-wedding rehearsals.

It was stipulated that part of the wedding party requirements was to perform a specific dance upon entry to the reception. We were all allocated an individual style – mine happened to be Gangnam Style!
I am at heart a cynical bastard and subsequently questioned this specification at length!
I was assured that all was kosher (though I retained my suspicions).
Despite my reservations re the dancing requirement, I decided that if you’re gonna do it at all, you may as well throw everything into it! So that was my plan.

So for the pre-wedding night, we drank beer, played darts, watched footy and pretty much behaved ourselves.
I was however most impressed with Scotty’s catering performance. He baked a couple of chickens and a hunk of pork – which he pulled all apart, mixed up with some gravy and dished out on fresh bread rolls. It was superb!

So in the end, if I recall correctly (given it was two years ago), there was myself, Mark’s most beautiful daughter Ebony, Mark, Scott, Dean (Mark’s best mate), Craig (Mark’s brother), Dave (Kate’s brother – who reminded me very much of the bearded Hangover dude – and a top bloke to boot), and David De Vries.
What with one thing or another, we all kind of slept at Mark & Kate’s Cessnock pad that night.

Dave DV is another old Busby High dude. We’ve been mates for 30 years.
Dave is probably the most well read man I have ever met. He can give you the history behind Rhodesia becoming Zimbabwe, Hitler coming to power, Dutch soccer stars, Ned Kelly’s politics, Eastern Suburbs premierships, Pink’s preferred lingerie, Indian Swami magic or how best to steam asparagus!
He is also a very witty bastard, keen on amusing repartee.
Everyone loves The Dave.
Sometimes though, Dave doesn’t plan things out as thoroughly as he probably should.

The official wedding ceremony was to be on the headland at Newcastle – only a few hundred metres from the resort we were all staying at, where the reception was to be celebrated shortly thereafter.

Before we left Mark’s place – for the serious side of the wedding preparations, when we were all more or less hungover and confused, Dave enquires of me, in a deceptively harmless manner:
‘Did you book a good room at the resort Stegga?’
I replied in good faith, “Dunno mate. I just booked a room”

You see – I’ve been here before – so I booked ahead!
I booked two nights at the resort – based upon the expectation that I’d be fairly incapacitated by hangover the day after the wedding. So I’d put out the ‘Do not Disturb’ sign, so I could sleep the pain away for at least another day. (I’m no Dummy!).

So Dave says – “That’s good mate. You mind if I stay with ya?”

“What!? Didn’t you book a room?!”
‘Well, by the time I got around to it, there was only the penthouse available and it was like, three hundred bucks a night!’

Knowing Dave’s extenuating circumstances in this case, I conceded – no worries mate.
‘I can’t guarantee a bed or pillows or blankets and stuff mate – but you’re certainly welcome to stay in my room’

So we head off from Mark’s Cessnock residence, to Noah’s on the Beach Resort in Newcastle.
Dave was not part of the wedding party on this occasion, so I lost track of him – I booked into my own room – and a fine room it was too! A beautiful sweeping view of Newcastle beach, via floor to ceiling sliding glass doors, a nice TV, luxurious queen bed, a frigid air-conditioner and a fancy-dan bathroom and shower suite.

The wedding party lads then headed to a nearby pub where they brew their own beer and provide decent meals (the pub – not the wedding party). We ate something and had a few drinks and some laughs.

 

As a group, we were an eclectic conglomeration of body-types and personalities – we had the Lanky six-foot-five leviathan from Inverell, the clean-shaven, bull-necked portly guy, the rather girthy, greying groom, the groom’s older brother – who appears to be getting younger each year, the stocky, bristle bearded brother-in-law and the pencil-necked, gel-haired best man.
We were also joined by Mark’s young fellas, Patrick and Nash, looking mighty dapper in matching suits.

The ceremony on the hill was faultless – a magical view with a kind, cooling sea breeze maintaining everyone’s comfort. I had never seen the bride looking more beautiful, and her supporting party followed suit – sparkling in elegant, off-the-shoulder cobalt blue dresses. (I know this because I once had a blue shirt, whose tag declared it “Cobalt” – and it was almost the same colour as these dresses!).

I think the bride’s dress was white.

We took a host of photos around the general area and then jumped into an old reconditioned Kombi and headed to a magnificent old stone church, where we took a few more photos (and an esky full of beer).

 

When we once again arrived back at the Hotel, it was time for the reception – everyone else was already seated and well cheery by this stage. I guess few had retired to their rooms after the ceremony, preferring to mingle at one of the bars instead.

So it’s time to enter, upon the formal announcement of our presence – and of course to perform our individually allocated dance routines. As I said – with things such as this, it’s in for a penny, in for a pound!
We knew everyone would laugh – so you just rip in with great gusto. I was pretty much firing on all cylinders by this stage anyway – so, with my gorgeous partner Bridget in tow, I burst through the doors doing my best to emulate that chubby little Korean we’ve all grown to love – Psy!
Everyone laughed at my dodgy Gangnam Style antics, as I’d expected – but I will admit that I was pretty happy to be shown my seat and sit down! I can’t even remember what the other dicky dances were – though I think Dean may have been Too Sexy for his Shirt?

 

Anyway – the big joke came down to the fact that the bride and groom didn’t do a dance – they just entered in a respectable fashion and laughed at us for making fools of ourselves!
(Unfortunately I’ve done things in my life for which I am far more embarrassed than that little jig! But it was a good trick nonetheless).

The speeches were excellent – some bringing tears due to their heartfelt and honest nature.

A bunch of Kate’s family did the super-hero act and ripped open their shirts to display a Newcastle Knights footy jersey beneath – much to Mark’s disgust (being a fanatical to the point of lunacy, Rabbitohs supporter).

Some of the family took time out to catch the closing minutes of the Knights match on a small mobile TV. They seem obsessed with the Knights down that way for some reason – they’re almost as bad as Queenslanders!

I ran into several of Mark’s family who I’d met on previous occasions – but failed to recognize here, so out of context! Some I’d met camping out in the bush, some when they were merely kids and by now had grown into big men with wives and kids, and others I just hadn’t expected to see.
I’ve always had trouble placing people out of their natural habitat – and dressed formally (and behaving respectably).

Anyway, a great time was had by all.

There was a huge round table with many of my old mates sitting around – Including my brother Al and his wife Candy, Lloydy and his wife Nic, Dave (who confided he had high hopes for a beautiful lady he’d recently met in Adelaide), Derek and his missus Rochelle, Linda (Dean’s wife) and a couple of others.

By this hour, we were all mingling and dancing and such – incidentally, have you ever noticed that all girls throw their arms aloft when they dance, reaching for the sky, and most blokes just swing theirs low, as though they are nonchalantly jogging through a park?

It was getting late by then and Dave had not mentioned sharing the room since earlier that morning. I began to assume he’d sorted something with the Lloyd-Jones’ or Mitchell’s.

When wedding kick-out time approached, I was just about at the end of my tether – I’d had enough to drink and couldn’t wait to kick my boots off and lie down.
Al and Candy hadn’t seen Dave or Lloydy for several years and were all stepping high and in no mood to cease the partying just yet! So they decided to head out in search of a kick-on venue.

Lloydy first had to get his Visa stamped by the missus, validating his permission to be out on the town without her, and just before they left, Dave confirms his accommodation for the night.

I say ‘No worries mate – just call my mobile when you get back and I’ll let you in’

It must have been around two thirty, I’m not sure – but there was a thunderous pounding on my door and a repeated bellowing of my name!
I yelled out “Okay – I’m coming. Take it easy”
The pounding and bellowing continued till I made it to the door and opened it up to see my idiot, rollicking brother laughing uproariously, his wife close behind in a glassy-eyed giggle and Dave standing tall.
I just muttered something like ‘Fughhh……’, pushed the door open so Dave could enter, then turned around and headed for bed.
I pointed to the floor between the bed and the glass doors and said ‘There’s a couple of pillows there – there’s no mattress and I dunno about blankets’.
Dave thanked me very much and said how much he appreciated the offer and assured me he’d be fine now.
I passed out again….

I’m guessing it must have been about two hours later (based solely upon the minimum time required to cause that level of damage).
I felt my blankets being dragged off me – toward the window….
I look up startled – What the F…..
Dave has snuck in the other side of my bed and is covering himself with my blanky!
This is not really an issue – I’ve known him for years and I’m really confident that I’m not at all his type.
Not only that, he is of very slender build and takes up no room at all – I dare say, if it were long enough – Dave could sleep quite comfortable on an ironing board.

He does however, snore.

I’m told that I do too on occasion – but I remain unconvinced.
So after many celebratory drinks earlier and my new bed-mate snoring next to me, I thought I’d best take the opportunity for a comforting wizza. So up I hopped and off to the ensuite……

I took two steps and on about the third, I felt squelch, squelch, squelch…
WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED HERE!? I spluttered.

The carpet was all soaked for about two and a half metres outside of the bathroom!

I continued into the bathroom, with my hazy brain trying to make some kind of sense of the cold, wet carpet.
I stood there and noticed – drip, drip, drip – something raining down upon my head, from the blank ceiling no less!
I turned the light on and the entire room was dripping with water – some kind of condensation!!! EVERYWHERE – It looked like someone had lost control of a fire hose! There was water pissing down the walls, dribbling from the ceiling, down the mirror, basin and throne! All over the floor and about nine square metres of carpet wringing wet, squelching between my toes at each step.
I had a wiz and went back to bed – Dave stirred – so I enquired ‘What the fuck happened in there?!”
He said ‘I had a shower’, and went back to sleep.

Try as I may, I could barely get back to sleep – worrying about how the hell to explain (and pay for) this damage – in a room booked for one. Me!

As a group we’d booked breakfast – and had to get the early sitting due to the large number of us. It was something like thirty bucks a head – which is a lot more than I usually pay for breakfast!

In the cold darkness, with Dave snoring contentedly beside me, I tried to work out how this could have happened?!

Granted – the shower floor only had a one inch step between it and the bathroom floor and from there, it was a free-for-all out onto the carpet. But when I had a shower earlier – this was not an issue – the water all just ran straight down the drain.
The possible scenarios that I came up with were that firstly Dave got freezing cold – not having any blankets, with the aircon blasting polar air all round the room. So I’m not sure if he just had a shower to warm up and mistakenly stood on the drain hole – which you would surely notice before too long. Or he attempted to steam the whole room warm by letting the hot water run unchecked – this would explain all the condensation in the bathroom. Or perhaps he was having a nice hot shower and just slinked down to the floor and lie in the foetal position as the hot water rained down upon him?
I don’t suppose the ‘how’ really matters – it’s like a Scooby Doo ghost – there is probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, but in the end, the mystery merely adds to the tale.

When the sun finally came up and breakfast was calling, I got out of bed, wandered around to the big windows and whooshed the light-proof curtains across – the windows were all opaque – were all fogged up, from the floor to the ceiling!

Dave quips “She’s a regular pea-souper out there”.

Still largely unimpressed, I squelched my way across the room to check if the spillage had escaped our room.
I opened the door and noticed the wetness had made its way about four metres down the hallway, past the next guys entry door.
As a courtesy to guests, this fab hotel had supplied the daily newspaper – which they slip strategically under your door.
Mine was approximately an inch and a half thick – all swollen and waterlogged – (the paper that is) – perhaps Dave had been reading it in the shower? Who knows?

I showered and prepared for breakfast.

Dave asked how much he owed for staying in the room – I said ‘Nothing at all mate for staying here – but I dunno what the hell they’re gonna charge to clean up this mess – I’m not gonna pay for that’.

So I left the room and commenced squelching down the hallway toward the breakfast venue.
I fronted the reception desk on the way – looking mightily sheepish I imagine and I explained to the chickie:
“Good morning – how are you today?”
She said she was fine and asked how I was?
I said “Well I’m very well thank you – it was a lovely wedding last night! ……….Just on that – after the wedding was over, a mate asked if he could use my shower – which I said would be fine.
Now….there was a bit of an issue with the water from the shower spilling over onto the carpet a bit”

She said ‘Oh no. Is it bad?’
I said ‘Well it’s not good’
She said ‘Are you able to step over it for a while until it dries’
I said ‘Not really. I think you may need to get one of those wet & dry vacuum cleaner things up there’

She apologised and said ‘Yes – this has happened before’
I wasn’t so sure about that – she hadn’t seen the extent of the dampness and I’d kind of undersold the entire situation.

It was with great concern over what the ultimate charge may be, that I proceeded to breakfast.
I grabbed some tucker and joined the crowd – they said – ‘How was your night?’
I shook my head and said ‘You’ve got no friggen idea!’
Then it was – “Why, what happened?”

I started to explain and both Linda and Nichole were near wetting themselves with laughter! It was the first time I had actually seen the funny side at all.

Dave eventually turned up for the thirty buck brekky special – which he hadn’t ordered or paid for but enjoyed nonetheless.

With intent to avoid my room for some time, I walked down to the beach after brekky – I think initially with Linda and Dean?
After a while, my mobile rang and it was my brother Al. He’d seen me sitting on the beach via binoculars from his balcony. He says come up to our room for a chat – they had a late-exit deal and were flying back to the Goldy in the arvo.
Going back past the reception and the chickie calls me over and asks if it would be too inconvenient for me to take a new room for tonight – as they had a hot-air-carpet-blower in my room at the moment?

I said ‘Why certainly not’ and apologised again.
I got upstairs and there was a dude vacuuming the hallway and another bloke with a huge blower, working overtime inside my room.

I went up to Al’s room and asked how they slept. They said ‘Fine – except for some fucking idiot with a vacuum cleaner blasting past our door this morning!’

It was about here that I really started to see the funny side.
I said ‘Yeah – that was Dave’, and proceeded to tell them the story – and they nearly p1ssed themselves as well!

I think we all went for another walk along the beach before going back – I had volunteered to give them a lift to Newcastle airport in my hire car.
Pretty much everyone else had left by this stage, as they had to be out by ten am and many had to return to Sydney.

The bloke was still at it with the hot air blaster in my room, so I stepped elusively past him and his machine, grabbed my bag and headed to my new, dry room.

I dropped Al and Candy off at the airport and returned to my room.

Dave was most concerned and sent several messages enquiring as to the damage and cost. I was in no hurry to hound staff for the final cleanup figure.
After all my forward planning and best intentions for a sensible sleep and recovery session, I still found myself buggered early in the evening of the second day – so I bought a twenty-nine dollar room service chicken schnitty and crashed at about seven PM.

The next day, I headed for the lift with my bag in tow, it opened up and the same bloke was there with another hot air blower. I smiled and nodded and let him past before I went down to face the damage.

The reception chickie says “Thanks for the key Steve – hope you enjoyed your stay. Sorry again for that mess with the shower. Please come back and stay again sometime’

I smiled and said ‘Thank you very much Christine – it’s been a pleasure!’

I threw my bag in the boot of the XR6 and texted Dave – ‘It’s all cool Brother – no charge!’

……..Dave later posts on Facebook from Adelaide, something like – ‘Had a fantastic time at the wedding in Newcastle – except for that whole shower unpleasantness’

BYROCK ’10

September again means but one thing – Byrock Time.

To cover all possible scenarios with my upcoming roster change, I booked my holidays early – in about February and made sure I covered the October long-weekend (for NSW), and then some.

When the dust settled, it meant that I had 23 consecutive days off, commencing on the 15^th September. I put out the usual feelers and nobody was keen for an early start, nor some pre-Byrock vermin shooting.

In the end I decided to travel to Sydney to catch up with a few old mates who would be absent from Byrock this year, for one reason or another.

Before heading south, I did the ring-around to see which of the boys – of my very close friends – of those closest to me for the past 20 plus years, might care to join me for a bevvy or two at the local watering hole, our old stomping ground at Mounties.

The Boneman ruled himself out because he wanted to play D-grade cricket the next day – well that was the lame reason he proffered, though I suspect the real reason is that ever-bristling wild hair protruding proudly from his arse, like a muzzle-loading ramrod! He boldly maintains the rage over my inability to attend his 40^th birthday function last year, due to prior work commitments. I’m not sure how long the apologies and punishment must endure before he accepts the fact that it was entirely a work thing and not any disrespect directed toward him and his family.

As fate would have it, the first time I drive down to Sydney in many a long year and Pauly was needed back on the ranch at Newcastle, despite his usual habit of lingering round Canley Vale on weekends.

I gave up years ago trying to convince reluctant friends into joining me in certain ventures – I figure if they’d prefer to be elsewhere, then that is probably best all round. I harbour no animosity nor hold any grudges – life is far too short for such petty bickering.

Ned was keen to do the Flametree-shuffle on Saturday: a gutful of beer, a general p1sstake of the fellow patrons and a few rounds of ‘do you remember so-and-so’.

Okay – that’ll do me, I hadn’t caught up with Ned for a year or so, so I was looking forward to it.

I finished work at 7am on Wednesday morning, drove home and packed two thirds of my gear into the car. Feeling tired, I crashed in bed for a stint. When I woke up I packed the remainder of the car, watched some telly for a while and crashed again. I emerged at half past midnight, showered and reversed the Landcruiser up the driveway while I threw in the final few things needed for three weeks of ground sleeping and camp-cooking.

At 1am, standing in my driveway at Upper Coomera, a populous suburb on the northern end of Queensland’s Gold Coast, I heard a peculiar sound descending my way, from up the hill. At first it sounded like a kid running will a basketball – the cadence of the bounce distinct, but no accompanying footsteps. I stood alert and peered into the darkness and down the centre of my own street, bounded an Eastern Grey Kangaroo doe! She hopped on past me and into the park two doors down. I’ve no notion of her origin, unless it be several kilometres north, past Old Coach Road – but even that would require the negotiation of several roundabouts and intersections? Maybe it’s a well worn path for the local macropod population? Or perhaps she had a Tom-Tom instead of a Joey her pouch – who knows? But I found it a remarkable spectacle on this trip even before I’d left my driveway. (Incidentally, I drove another 850k’s to Sydney throughout the night, cutting through vast eucalypt forests and didn’t spot another roo!).

I discovered that my Lightforce spotlights, with the crystal-blue lenses worked an absolute treat in the pitch-black early hours on Highway 1 – it’s like running down an airport runway (until you need to dim them for the oncoming B-Doubles). I cruised all night switching between my music and the comical complaints of passing truckies on the UHF. One young foul-mouthed destroyer bitched for twenty minutes about car drivers showing him no courtesy and how he’d try to chase them up and intimidate them whenever he took offence. He then whined about people calling up his boss and reporting his dangerous and inconsiderate antics – said he’d had five complaints in the last few months. His older colleague, a Pommy bloke who didn’t swear, said he refuses to be rattled by the car drivers – they’re everywhere, it’s just part of the job…..oh, and he’d never had a complaint filed against him.

Is there a moral in there somewhere? I don’t know.

Another truckie who’d been playing leapfrog for 200 kilometres with a Pommy tourist in a Britz-Australia van, saw the bloke pull over into a garage and felt compelled to follow him. He lined up at the tucker counter ordered something to eat and asked the Van driver where they were sitting?

In response to the Van driver’s Why? The truckie responds “Well we’ve been that close over the past 200ks that I feel I know you intimately and thought we should have breakfast together?”

He then went on to explain the etiquette of cutting in front of a semi and slowing down to 80ks etc.

The Pommy Van driver says, as the truckie was leaving – “Can you do me a favour?”

In disbelief the truckie says “What?”

“Can you tell me how to get back onto the Pacific Highway?”

“You’re on it”

“No – the highway. I’m on my way down from Queensland and I was on it there – it was three lanes wide and beautiful smooth concrete and blacktop. Somehow I’ve taken a wrong turn over the border and ended up on this old goat track”

“This is the Pacific Highway mate – NSW”

“You’re kidding? Bollocks – this old goat track?”

“Yep – that’s it mate”

“This wouldn’t be considered fit as a village by-road back in England! This is the Pacific Highway? Good Lord….”

The never-ending Pacific Highway improvements are obviously working a treat – just one more independent and thoroughly satisfied customer.

I called the oldies from Wyong to say I’d be there in about 2 hours – they didn’t know I was coming to stay. There was a slight panic from Mum as she had to rush out to the shops and then, unfortunately I beat her home. It was great to be around the Oldies again and to top it off, Mum brought out a swag of fresh prawns for lunch.

Saturday night found me downing schooners at Mounties with Ned and his wife Kerrie. We took the mickey out of nearly every individual who joined the passing parade as they ambled past our table. Simple things like fashion sense, facial hair, body-shape, Apparent IQ – generally anything we could pass ill-founded judgement upon, without ever meeting these folk. I drank Resches – which is a luxury I seldom get to enjoy living in Queensland, and Ned drank Tooheys New. Kerrie had small scotches.

Late in the evening Kerrie thought she’d try a Cointreau and lemonade – unfortunately these do-gooder imbeciles no longer allow any single person to purchase more than 2 drinks at a time after some certain mystical magical hour. I had a shout for 2 beers then Ned went and got Kerrie her Cointreau.

Kerrie remained unconvinced that her glass actually contained any trace of her requested liqueur and proceeded to take it back and challenge the bar manager to identify said ingredient by smell, then taste. He gave her a new one. For some reason on the next shout Ned decided he’d have the Resches and gave me the New – I guess he must have felt like we both needed a change at 1am?

Next day the Boneman drove myself and the Oldman to Warwick Farm races. We bumped into Mark and his young fella at the entry gate. The old bloke had a blinder and cleaned up with four or five winners, and I came out some 300 up. Dean won a bit and I think Mark did too (with phone-bets as he drove back to Cessnock after the 6^th race).

Next day Dean drove the Oldman and myself up to Cessnock races – to see his and Mark’s horse run around. Oddly we listened to Mick Bubble and then Harry Connick Jnr throughout the trip – does anyone know when Dean became such a zany swinger?

Of course Mark met us at the track. We proceeded to the stalls to see Integrand and chat to the trainer Jeff. Jeff was rustling around with a trio of horses, assisted by his trusty, ruddy-rimmed strapper who had a lust for life and a penchant for hugging strange fat men (myself).

The horse missed the start but managed to catch up and run a reasonable race carrying stable jockey, the illusive Hari-the-hoop. Dad won again, I backed one short-priced winner but still lost and I care not for the ordinary performances of the remaining crew.

My beautiful niece Taliah flew to the oldies from Queensland – she was a date for her old school’s year 12 graduation party. She had turned 18 the week before, so being the responsible family that we are, we took her directly to Mounties to introduce her to spirituous liquors and poker machines. She won forty or so bucks playing her first poker machine with her Pop then I asked her to play my machine while I went for a round of drinks. Upon my return she had won $173 in one shot! I think I gave her ninety bucks for her share and amazingly, I won a few hundred more shortly thereafter. Probably as a timely warning, I put a fifty in one last machine for Taliah and Mum to play together – zip, nada, nothing. Fifty smackers gone in a blink – Taliah couldn’t believe the waste and lack of return! Good – remember that.

Friday rolled around and it was time for me to head to The Rock. Car packed to the rafters and a quick diesel fix and I’d be on my way, it was around 8am. On someone’s insistence, I’ve taken to adding a special conditioner mix to my diesel …..Ahh, lovely – the bottle has somehow found it’s way upside down and spilt the remaining contents onto my back floor! So now, all filled up with conditioner-less diesel in my dual tanks and a cup or so of said substance now taking deep root in the plush-pile of my rear carpet, I was ready to hit the road.

I hit Coolabah at around 4:30 and was fair dinkum tonguing for a cold beer. The long-haired publican was smoking out the front with some of his family – I was the only one actually inside the pub. He tossed his bumper and returned behind the bar to pour me a beer – I followed him outside to socialise with the rest of the local folk. He commented that I hadn’t been there for a while – I said, no that’s right – this time last year, just after the dust storm.

He then told me the same story about the dust as he told me last year. He claimed he remembered me because he recognised the gold and black vanity plates on my car. I found this at once remarkable because I didn’t have those plates last year.

There was a young local bloke with his Missus and small daughter waiting for the school bus, returning their older children from school in Nyngan. They drank and smoked while they waited and the toddler ran rampant in the gravel and bull-dust carpark. When the kids ran from the bus, eager to tell their parents about their day, the eldest girl, of about nine summers still sported half a dozen coloured crepe-paper streamers tied around her waste. She twirled around making them flare out as she danced “Look what I got Daddy”.

“Pull those stupid things off and put ‘em in the garbage! Go on – in the garbage”.

The poor girl pulled them off and put them in the bin.

I thought to myself “You Prick!”

The kids here wear baggy shorts, tee-shirt, and a daggy hat to school. She just wanted to be a little girl for a while – not a blo0dy farm hand. This big tough prick couldn’t see it and maybe his missus was brought up the same way. There’s a lot to be said for a country up-bringing but my word, there’s a lot that could be improved too. Sure people are under stress with climate, stock and finance worries – but it doesn’t cost anything to ditch your f*cking smoke and watch your little girl dance and feel beautiful for a few minutes!

I bought a stubbie-holder, loaded up a roadie and thundered down the final fifty kilometre stretch to the Mulga Creek Hotel. It was Friday arvo and Mark and Crazy Dave wouldn’t be there until sometime Monday. I wondered how it would play out, on my own again in the bush for the next few days.

I hopped out of my car and hadn’t shut the door before I heard a cry of “Steve, mate” from across the carpark. I turned around to see Pete the publican fetching merchandise from the pub Hilux. His ever-lovin’ wife Gloria wasn’t far away. I went over and shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before following them inside the pub, where Pete declared my first schooner to be on the house.

I was introduced to the new German barmaid:

“Steve, this is Sinbin, she’s our new girl”

Sinbin, or Cindy as her parents named her, was the latest foreign barmaid to seek employment at the Mulga Creek Hotel. She was an attractive young piece in a smallish package with clear skin, bright eyes and a tremendous head of honey-blonde hair which seemed to resent her attempts to control it.

Cindy was only nineteen years old and had been in Australia less than a month, with three of those weeks being stationed at Byrock. She was determined to become proficient at speaking English (and in fact had a very good grasp already, I’d fancy about eighty five percent there), but continued to do kids ‘find-the-word’ puzzles in her spare time. She was staying in the pub’s caravan near where we camp, about one hundred and fifty metres behind the pub’s main building.

 

There was another new barmaid in attendance as well – Tarni.

Now she was an individual. She favoured the Gothic style of makeup, daily applying a white powdery foundation to her face and some strange sparkly eye-shadow. She was a tall girl and usually wore tight blue jeans, which she filled out well and a hippy style loose top, which seemed to highlight the ample breasts which she displayed with help from a push-up brazier.

She was hungover the day we met – apparently tied one on the night before.

I put her vagueness and lack of spark down to the hangover – this proved to be an inaccurate assumption. Vague is Tarni’s natural state of being. While she doesn’t tend to endear herself to punters, she is far from offensive. Tarni is eighteen years old and was apparently dropped at the Mulga Creek Hotel by Mick James, the publican’s mate, after an intended horse-riding escapade fell through. She has a background of riding trackwork down south – and it was rumoured, displayed these skills in a nudie-ride around the pub after losing a bet to Buggsy, a fellow character and man-about-town. Someone suggested that she may have been carrying a black poodle in her lap throughout the ride, though she assured us there were no such accoutrements around that region of her body!

I enquired about the whereabouts of Jani, my favourite barmaid from last year and much to my delight she was due in that very afternoon, after holidaying in Sydney with her father, who’d visited from Germany.

I had many beers and spoke to a few locals that night, including one red-headed stranger who’d wandered into town. He was rotten drunk when I met him and said he’d come from the Murray River area of late, though originally heralded from Bourke. He boasted the typical wasted physique of a long term drinker who had little interest in eating. He was plastered but continued drinking cans of Jack Daniels and smoking rollies. He mentioned that he was the ‘Son Of Mick’ – I was thankful he hadn’t said ‘Sam’. He appeared to be living in an old four cylinder Toyota short wheelbase four wheel drive, whose condition resembled its owner.

Jani showed up with her usual beaming grin and hearty greeting – she is much loved and very much respected by all.

The party was in full swing that Friday night but I’d reached my limit of beer and waking hours by about half past midnight, so I headed back to make camp.

Being still on my lonesome, I chose to head further down the track and into the bush to roll out my swag this night. Once I go to bed I prefer not to be woken up to deal with drunken campers, be they serial killers, simple wasters or even fun-loving mates. So I pulled into a clear spot, laid out a tarp for a ground sheet, set up my swag with my esky and bottle of water next to my pillow and marvelled at the stars as I drifted off to deep and worry free slumber.

I woke in the morning at about eight thirty and headed for the shed to cook up a good feed of bacon, eggs and tomatoes for brekky. It was now that I discovered I’d left all my cooking and eating utensils at home. I had paper plates, frying pan and Billy and my big old pig-stabber hunting knife, but very little else in the way of tucker hardware. I began to rustle up a hearty bush breakfast with the knife, when a fellow camper on his morning dawdle-of-discovery among the gidgee wandered by. He commended me on my efforts and asked if he could share? I said ‘Mate, there’s plenty in the pan, I’m sure you can’.

He laughed and agreed and then moved on.

The red-headed stranger then appeared at the ablutions block, Jack Daniels can in hand. We discussed the merits of Toyota four wheel drives and the prices and deals on the tyres our cars sported. Apparently his car was quite the beast and he’d secured a remarkable bargain with the no-name tyres that out-performed all others. He appeared unimpressed with my Pirelli Scorpions – which by all reports are the most capable all-Terrain tyres on the market.

He opened another can – his forth of the day he claimed – and headed in to freshen up.

I’m not sure what he did, but he emerged about twenty minutes later looking largely the same as when he went in. He thought his father Mick might show up today, so he headed to the pub just in case.

I ate most of my bacon and eggs and enjoyed a beautiful cup of tea, lounging back in the sun in my super-comfy, big-mans camp chair.

Being in no great hurry to return to the pub and another full glass of beer, I decided to lounge around camp in the sun and in fact read a few chapters of the novel I’d been reading since February – ‘Brother Fish’, by Bryce Courtney. It’s a great Australian tale told by an expert story-teller.

At around lunchtime I headed to the pub. It was Aussie Rules Grand Final Day as well as the league final between the Tigers and St George. There was little interest in the Aussie Rules at the pub – except for my mate, the early morning wanderer and his missus. This bloke was a St Kilda supporter and was fairly enthralled in the game – he’d been glad to find a venue where he could watch the Grand Final, drink a few cold beers and simply walk back to his camp after the siren. His team were behind from the first kick but heading into the final quarter, seemed to be coming good.

I’d downed a few by then and started revving the guy up and this in turn piqued my own interest for the first time in an Aussie Rules game. It was good fun watching the final few minutes but I lost all interest again once I learned that a draw meant they had to play the thing all over again the next week!

There was a bit of a lull before the proper footy kicked off but I was fired up for this one, being a Tigers supporter. Unfortunately we lost, which I found disappointing but my main grievance was with the ten year old St George supporter sitting behind me and cheering against me. I was tempted to elbow the little bastard in the face at one stage, though decided against it. The thought occurred to me to have a word with the publican, pointing out that this little smart arse shouldn’t really be allowed in this part of the bar, but finally settled on the mature action of clapping loudly in his face when things went the Tigers way.

I walked outside and noticed an old red headed bloke leaning up against the wall, straight up and down like a yard of pump water, his face weather-beaten, grey eyes a little dull – ahh, that’d be Mick was my immediate thought. The young fella was an absolute clone and yet they seemed none too close emotionally.

Both sat and drank and smoked while paying little attention to their long lost kinfolk.

I spoke to Kelly and his young wife Erin. They run a local property and always have two cute little blonde kids in tow. Both parents are blonde and Erin at least is a long term local – she went to school with Buggsy, whose main ambition in those years was to make Erin cry at every opportunity. They seem to have come to some kind of mutual respect these days and even seem to enjoy each other’s company. At one stage I noticed the pub door was about to close on the little blonde kid’s fingers – I leapt up and grabbed the door just as it got him. They all seemed to find it amusing and joked that parents get used to such things and that I must have some kind of fatherly instinct. I dunno about that – but I certainly don’t wanna see the little blighter screaming with a fistful of busted fingers.

Kelly was saying that he was having trouble with mobs of wild dogs around his way lately. Apparently a lot of piggers with dogs tend to lose an animal or two and have to shoot through after their weekend is up, leaving these trained mongrels behind in the bush to fend for them selves. Being a naturally gregarious creature, the abandoned mutts seek company and tend to run together in mobs, like their brethren the wolves. They then attack sheep, goats, cattle and occasionally, people. One of Kelly’s neighbours was recently treed by such a mob of baying hounds, so now the common reaction is to shoot any unknown dog on sight! He even spoke of someone he knows poisoning pigdogs in their ute cages, as their owners drink inside at the bar of the local pubs.

One of the nice blokes there was Harrison, whose roadtrain had died due to a faulty pneumatic valve somewhere in the engine – luckily he made it to the Mulga Creek car park before pulling up. He was now stranded at the pub for several days. He runs a trucking company out of Hay, which was bloody miles away, so he made the most of his situation and kept Pete the publican good company and shared willingly in all the pubs fare. Harrison continued to run the company via his mobile phone which rang with annoying regularity. Cody was one of his drivers who also made a habit of calling into Byrock as he passed doing his ‘Corn run’ from Bourke. He is a fine young fella, originally from Humpty Doo in the great Northern Territory.

Bourke corn was the big contract for the moment, with truckloads of the stuff heading south. I understand that it wasn’t your sweetcorn, which we eat off the cob, it was some other type and it was shipped already stripped off its cob and waiting in pellets for the ride. Apparently the majority of this crop ends up Kellogs. Who knew they made Cornflakes out of Bourke-born corn niblits?

Pete confided that he couldn’t really understand why Tarni was working, since he had sacked her on the Thursday night, when she was fairly sideways and running amok around the premises. Apparently she just fronted up for work the next day, totally oblivious to the previous night’s proceedings – claimed she had a blackout and knew nothing of her poor behaviour or being given the bullet.

Now, I dunno if that was true or simply some George-Costanza ploy to keep her job, but she was still there three weeks later – so she’s either got an alcoholic blackout problem or balls like a frigging cannon!

A bunch of young girls from Brewarrina showed up at the Mulga Creek for a night on the turps. They were largely average looking country girls, hell bent on having a party, but they brought along one petite young blonde chippie – Annabelle, a barmaid from Germany – and lately a friend of Sinbin.

Annabelle was quickly renamed Tinkerbell, I think by Harrison, but it could have been Pete the publican. Tinkerbell wore a long cotton summer dress and flashed a devilish smile as she roamed the premises snapping souvenir photos for Sinbin, who was both working and drinking at this stage.

At one stage, I believe around midnight, I entered the pub to be greeted by a whipped up skirt and panty-flash from Tinkerbell and to find three or four of the Bree-girls dancing on the bar with great gusto! Everyone was singing along to the jukebox – a few unlikely songs which I recall ringing out, are The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton, The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, of course American Pie, as well as Turn it On, Turn it Up, Turn me Loose by Dwight Yoakam!

Everybody drank and sang and danced and smoked for the next few hours – I finally ran out of stamina at around three thirty am. I hopped in the car and drove back to my clearing for a poorly rewarding six hours of unconsciousness in my swag before the sun rose and the increasing temperature drove me out. I cooked a steak and a Suimin noodle cup for breakfast – which I commenced to eat with my hunting knife. Sick of the noodles slipping off the blade, I eventually drank the juice and then the noodles as they poured out of the foam cup.

I spent that entire day bludging round the camp – no alcohol. I read my book, drank cups of tea, drove around town and country for a look-see and to charge my batteries, cooked some dinner and largely just waited for the sun to go down, so I could go back to bed!

I jumped the gun a bit – went to bed at half past six, before the sun was completely down. This was the first time at Byrock where I didn’t visit the pub or drink at camp. It was great to wake up after five hours sleep and realise you’ve still got another eight hours to go.

I got up next morning fully recovered and ready to handle a new onslaught, with the imminent arrival that day of Mark and Crazy Dave.

I cooked some brekky and was about to have a shower, when the bloody cleaner grabbed the fire hose and rushed the ablutions block like it was a roaring inferno. He drenched everything bar the light sockets and left all surfaces dribbling wet, less than ideal for the placement of dry, clean clothes.

Of course I sent Mark an SMS asking where they were and what time they’d arrive. Of course being Mark, he told me a load of garbage and that Dave had just arrived and they would likely leave home around 9am. Of course I didn’t believe him and it left me none the wiser when they might appear.

I decided to charge my batteries up by driving around, which would also give the shower-block time to dry out a bit. I had drinks in the esky but tucker in my Engel fridge in the back of the cruiser. I was both out of ice and the fridge battery was dead, but the tucker still semi frozen.

I decided to drive to Coolabah – this would be a hundred kilometre round trip – good for the battery, waste a bit of time and I might catch the boys as they call in on the way to Byrock (though it was likely still a touch early).

When I got to Coolabah I was the only patron there – granted it was still early morning. Mine host at this hour was a dry old lady manning the bar on her lonesome. I bought a schooner and played the pokies – my first bet on the Cleopatra/Pyramid machine saw me collar the special feature of fifteen free games! This is alright, I thought.

Unfortunately I was wrong once again – it wasn’t alright – it was about my last winning stroke and King Tut’s curse saw my fifty bucks soon disappear into the bowels of the great pharaoh’s tomb.

I had another beer, sitting out the front, as the old bird had gone out to impart her overwhelming hospitality on a young local lady who’d arrived with her kids and was splurging on a pub lunch on the way to the river where the kids were heading to take a dip.

While dinner was being prepared, I listened to this ten year old kid telling his mother about various tractors, headers and assorted large-scale farm equipment. The kid knew his stuff from working with his old man – even to the point of which vehicles would be accessible by his younger brother, due to the height of the first step of the cabin ladder. He appeared expert on fittings, attachments, limitations and requirements for different uses and even improvisations should the situation demand it in a pinch.

He spoke with great authority (and made myself feel quite inadequate in his presence) and he did it all with that genuine outback accent that some of these isolated folk tend to develop. He was a little ripper!

Speaking of that outback accent – it’s difficult to describe on paper. The red-headed stranger boasted a degree of it, which tended to dominate the more he drank.

A typical statement would sound something like:

“That fulla over there mate, he a real drinkin’ man. Eel doh twenny beerz inna sittin’….”

I’ve listened intently on numerous occasion, however it’s hard to actually describe – though you recognise it as soon as you here it. It’s unique yet does not vary greatly from your standard Aussie accent.

One local Byrock bloke who apparently appreciates the accent is a young bloke called Geordie. He is as unlikely a customer as you’re likely to meet out there. He appears to be of Indian or Pakistani descent – a nuggetty dark-skinned fella who basks in the lifestyle of a born and bred Aussie bushman. He was actually raised in the Dubbo region and has largely knocked around those parts for thirty something years or so.

He lives in calf-length cowboy boots (even when he wears boardshorts) and usually sports RM Williams long pants, a button up shirt, Akubra hat and rodeo style belt buckle. He smokes rollies which he delights in manufacturing, and enjoys a yarn with anyone who’ll listen.

Geordie falls in and out of the aforementioned accent – usually laying it on thick early but seemingly forgetting his character as he pushes on. He’s a friendly bloke and quite entertaining, spending work stretches down a mine several hundred kilometres away.

Geordie has a house at Byrock but spends great swathes of time (and I suspect cash) at the pub drinking beer and dining on their fine cuisine.

Spending several days alone at a country town does wonders for the soul. The local hospitality and unsolicited, genuine friendship offered by the inhabitants, refreshes one’s belief in the nature of men. I always felt surrounded by friends who’d see me right should I get into strife and never once felt isolated or alone. I recommend it to all – you’re guaranteed to meet some fine folk….well, at least some very interesting folk………

I had another beer and fancied the look of the young mother’s chicken schnitty roll, so decided to have and early lunch myself at Coolabah pub. I sat inside waiting for my roll and having a general chat with mine host. She had some kid’s program on the TV, where some pommy kids had emerged from a cave, onto the beach where the rock they sat on turned out to be a live turtley-crab thing that was chatting with the kids. So, having already lost my yella-back to the bandits, you will understand that the entertainment options on offer were now limited, to say the very least.

The lunch was alright and I decided after four beers that I’d best not over do it, with fifty k’s to drive back to Byrock. So just before I left, I asked for a bag of ice:

“Do you have a bag of ice?”

“Ummm – not many”

“What?” I say staring blankly.

“I can give you one if you buy a carton of beer?”

“What do you mean?” I repeat dumbfounded.

Apparently round these parts a fifty dollar donation to the pokies, plus four schooners and a meal does not necessarily qualify one to BUY a bag of ice. You have to purchase a carton as well!

I continued to look at her shaking my head in disbelief.

“How urgent is it?”

“I don’t have any”

“Ohh…….well…I suppose it’ll be alright this time. It’s just that we don’t have many”

“Okay. Thanks”

I put the ice over my drinks and the fridge had kicked into gear as soon as I started driving, so the tucker should be alright.

I got back to Byrock and had a shower.

I hit the pub and there was a decent mob already out front, drinking and smoking and generally hanging about. There was one fella there of note. He was a big chap with light brown hair, fashioned in the Mohawk style. On the bald part on either side of his scalp, he sported the tattoo ‘WHITE POWER’ and at the corner of each eye, high on the cheek, he had tattooed the nazi SS symbols.

He wore a large swastika ring and had numerous tattoos on his arms and neck and hands. He was a fairly imposing figure and quite an intimidating bloke. I had a few laughs with this rooster and the rest of those milling about. But even while he laughed, his eyes reminded me of a set I last saw at the Territory Wildlife Park. They belonged to a nine foot long, very healthy King Brown Snake – even when in a relaxed, non-threatening state, they still looked inherently mean. His little mate (and travelling companion) was making fun of the guy – started telling a tale about his recent mishap with drugs and driving. Mr White Power soon took over and finished the story himself. Apparently somebody had given him some tablets – said they were speed, so the big bloke immediately downed six of them in a hit. According to him and his mate, all they did was make him wanna sh!t like a demon! The little fella had to pull up at every garage along the highway for the big bloke to run in and void his bowel. They both laughed heartily at the recollection of these scenes.

The little bloke commented, out of the other bloke’s presence, that he was a good bloke. He said ‘Well I’m part black-fella and he’s got no problems with me!’

The big bloke mentioned in passing that he hadn’t been out this was for about nine years. I didn’t ask him what had kept him away so long.

While I found the big fella pleasant enough to talk to – I was glad when they left the car park. The simple presence of such men, tend to keep you in a state of alertness. It’s like riding your pushbike through a park in springtime – you’re not sure that a magpie is gonna swoop, but you’re aware that there’s a fair to middlin’ chance he will!

Of course, I sent Mark another SMS – asking where they were now? And of course he replied, telling me they were at Dubbo – still some three hours away! Of course I didn’t believe him then either – God knows where they bloody were, you can’t believe a thing that bloke tells ya.

When they finally arrived, I didn’t recognise Mark’s car – my recollection had it a much lighter shade, so no great fuss was made in the guise of a welcome. We shook hands in the normal crushing hand-strength challenge and said hello. It was about ten minutes after he told me they were at Dubbo. Clown.

We had a couple of beers and a general catch-up and then the boys headed back to set up their camps. Crazy Dave had a fully erect and functional family tent in which he stowed all his and Mark’s gear, as well as his sleeping paraphernalia.

Mark slept in the back of his ute – under the hard-top canopy. Due to the shortness of the rear compartment, he needed to lower the tailgate and open the rear window, which left him susceptible to foul weather. To combat this, they (Crazy Dave) erected a tight-as-a-drum tarp over the top. At a glance, the handiwork was too good for Mark’s skill level and Crazy Dave is pretty adept at the camping game.

My memory is a little hazy now, but I believe we went back to the Pub and Mark was experiencing difficulty in keeping the beers down, much to his disgust (and ours too). I recall him leaving at around 9:30 declaring exhaustion from the drive etc. I tend to think that Dave and I were not too far behind – figuring an early night was probably not an altogether ridiculous idea.

The next morning found us shuffling round the tucker shed, Crazy Dave was having a smoke and a cup of coffee, whilst frustratingly attempting to solve one of those stupid Japanese number puzzles – Sodoku or Sudoko or Suduko …… I dunno what they call them, but I do know the inventor ought to be sodomised for his contribution to human relaxation.

We cooked too much brekky and wrapped the left-overs in foil, stored in my fridge until it was ready to be thrown in the garbage a few days later.

Mark tucked into his bowl of coco-pops, which looked beautiful with cold milk all over them – but checking his stash, it appeared he only had enough to last him for a few days and I suspected he’d be reluctant to share, so I had steak and snags.

We bummed around camp a bit – Dave discovered that the bag of chips he left on his chair the day before had been ripped apart and its contents scattered about. We sat around the fire for a few hours while everyone showered, refreshed and drank tea and coffee. Unfortunately, one of us displayed a blatant disregard for camp etiquette and bush living – by partaking of the ever-so dainty caramel latte, instead of billy tea! To spare the embarrassment he shall remain nameless – however, I’d like to make it clear that I hate coffee in all it’s forms and Crazy Dave is too manly to drink (or at least allow himself to be caught drinking) such a feminine concoction……

I think we went to Bourke that day and played the pokies at the RSL – where a couple of us got smashed to the tune of about six hundred bucks each. Those fools too shall remain nameless, to protect them from their own stupidity – suffice it to say however, that Crazy Dave was too clever to blow such a wad in the hard-hitting bandits. We drowned our sorrows back at the pub at Byrock, where Mark was once again struggling with a little tummy upset and unable to imbibe sufficient beverages to get a buzz on.

When we returned to camp, Mark discovered his coco-pops were scattered to the four winds – that was bad luck! We blamed a wily old crow who’d been poking about – he was the most likely contender to have ransacked Dave’s chippies the previous day too. The mongrel was working up quite a rap-sheet yet no one could claim to have actually witnessed any of the offences.

Mark crashed early again and Dave and I stayed up drinking round the fire and lounging in our comfy camp chairs. We received an unexpected visitor late in the night – Sinbin decided to stop by after her shift and nightly shower. We invited her to pull up a stump and so she did. We chatted till I could barely recognise a blurry orange blaze through what felt like Sandy Blight eyeballs and my speech was not much clearer. But having pretty company, I struggled on several hours beyond my limit and continued to drink, as did Crazy Dave. In the end I was wishing she’d head to bed, I was not convinced I could extricate myself from my chair with any dignity anymore, nor stand unassisted should I make the upright position in any case.

Eventually, at about two thirty Sinbin declared it stumps and headed for her van – I would suggest Dave and I bid each other a fine night, but I can’t be sure, I just climbed into my swag and passed out like I’d swallowed a fist-full of ‘rowies’!

In the morning I cooked up a damper in the camp oven and covered great hunks in the honey I’d brought along for that single purpose. It had been a few years and I forgot to coat the mix in dry flour before it’s placement in the camp oven – so instead of a smooth loaf, it went into the oven a sticky mass. It came out alright though and we all partook of the bounty, sloshed down with a camp mug full of hot billy tea (or caramel latte, as the case may be…).

We seemed to be scattered around a bit and all happened to be away from the kitchen shed, when I suddenly turned back to get something out of my car. I spooked the illusive Black-Bandito as he snatched a packet of potato straws, which I’d jammed between two slats in the table! The dirty crow picked them up, flew two hundred metres away shook the contents onto the ground and commenced to tuck into their greasy goodness! I was tempted to send a 48 grain .22 magnum hollow point burning up his jurtzie just for good measure but decided against it.

We were doing the camp thing thick and strong by this stage, so I decided to cook a chicken in the camp oven for lunch. The bird turned out quite a success – nice and brown skinned, tender breast and succulent thighs…. Oh, hang on – I digress, that was ‘Belle de Jour’ that I picked up at the races a few weeks later. The chicken made a beautiful lunch, though the bread was beginning to stale by now.

We went to the pub where Mark arranged with Tarni to go horse riding the next day. Tarni had a thoroughbred and Mark was to ride the big old roan Clydesdale mare. Tarni was by all reports a talented rider – Mark by all accounts is not, though I hand it to him for wanting to climb aboard such a massive beast, given his limited equine experience. I guess he figured that he’s backed enough slow horses over the years that he can recognise one at a glance and they owed him one and karma would thus ensure he’s safe return.

 

Tarni was bragging to one and all of her new ambition to become a gypsy! She vowed to buy a gypsy wagon and just cruise the roads behind her horse. She was quite overwhelmed by the limitless possibilities this new life may offer and couldn’t believe the idea had not dawned on her before. When questioned, she declared that she’d read tarot cards for a living.

“Oh? Do you know how to read tarot cards?”

“No – not yet”

Hmmm….

She appeared unconcerned about her trundling van sharing the highways with road-trains etc, couldn’t see where it might be a problem?

Now, don’t get me wrong – I think following your dreams is a fine undertaking but somewhere you need to face the realities of such an endeavour. At least she didn’t plan to have the cabin pulled around by a unicorn I suppose.

So if you find yourself in the near future, angrily chugging around a mountain course in your three hundred horse-power sports car, behind a lurching gypsy van – don’t forget to give Tarni a wave, or perhaps even pull over and have your future told……..

Speaking of road-trains, Pete the publican was in long-time love with the old ‘W Model’ Kenworth trucks and was fairly keen on buying one. As luck would have it, young Harrison had one in his possession that had recently been done up to original specs and was looking for a new owner. Pete would have it known that this was a match made in heaven – Gloria suggested it was a more a match made at the end of the bar, after way too many beers!

Pete was like a little kid waiting for a new toy and his missus was pointing out every reason why it was a bad idea. Including that she’d not planned on riding shotgun in a road-train during her retirement years. Pete said it would be a fun adventure, Gloria claimed it would be a hard-work pain in the arsenal!

After a few weeks of excited banter, I think Pedro was finally getting his way – I could see Gloria beginning to sway. I think her final trump card came when she agreed to the truck, as long as Harrison gave her eight Jack Russell pups in addition. (Apparently she has been a life time lover of this species and there still exists a respectable monument to their late Jack Russell out back of the pub).

Harrison agreed but laughingly claimed he’d not return to the pub after delivering all goodies – he’s not a stupid man. I guess he anticipated plenty could go wrong with a second hand truck, a bickering retired couple and a cabin full of Jack Russells!

Everyone who dropped in seemed to hear about the ‘W-Model’ Pete was looking at – he was completely sold on the idea.

In fact, one day the Mulga ran out of Fourex Gold so Pete called the Port Of Bourke hotel and asked if they had a spare keg – they confirmed they had one that he could borrow. So the three of us, Myself, Mark and Crazy Dave volunteered to drive the 80kms each way to go and pick it up.

We took the pub ute, an old Toyota Hilux. We were revving away at about a hundred K’s an hour when the UHF radio burst to life, scaring the bejesus out of us all – we didn’t even know it was there!

It was two truckies chatting about Pedro from Byrock buying this blo0dy ‘W-model Kenworth’. We listened in amusement for a while until one of the road-trains appeared on the horizon and mentioned that he could see Pete in the pub ute coming toward him. I grabbed the hand-piece and said we were just heading to Bourke to pick up a keg. The lair truckie reckoned Pete had put on a bit of weight (as he passed us) – I said ‘Yeah – and he’s grown a whole lot more handsome too’.

Both the original truckies laughed and bid us farewell.

When we got to Bourke, I sat in the car as Dave and Mark went to retrieve the keg. They lumbered out and placed it in the back and off we went again (with several takeaways for the trip home). We got back and Dave and I carried it in – Mark being upset by my perceived laziness back at Bourke.

Having finished his takeaways from the car, Mark bought himself and Dave a fresh schooner. We dumped the fresh keg in the cool room behind the bar (Fourex Gold is Pete’s chosen nectar and should never run out). I came out and ordered a beer – Pete said it’s on the house and ensured the barmaids didn’t charge me.

We sat out the back and when I finished my beer, I went to have a shout – all free – thanks Pete.

I had a tweener – Mark being slow again – another freebie, you beaut.

Mark’s shout – that’ll be $13.20 thanks Mark.

Hahaha! Mark spewed, claimed he did all the work and I got all the free stuff – he did all the driving so I guess he was right.

The days tend to become a bit of a blur in retrospect – not sure why?

Mark finally went for his horse ride with Tarni. She was looking good too – and Mark was doing well to return upright and still perched on the old draughtie’s back. He looked the goods in his black Akubra but faltered his reputation a little with a questionable dismount, due to the height of the beasts back. A man’s leg will only step so high and the stirrup remained too far from the ground for a graceful step down.

Tarni confessed to giving Mark a leg-up during the mounting process after I asked if he climbed a ladder. All in all he did well.

In a later show of poor form, we were on our way back from Bourke once more when Detective Ex-Butcher arrived at the Mulga Creek Pub. I like to make a point of putting on a warm greeting and hearty welcome when old mates turn up after a long absence. Poor old Scottie arrived to an empty house due to a couple of habitual gamblers chasing easy money (which is damned hard to come by!).

 

Scottie came equipped with fresh bread and a barbeque chicken, among various other condiments and spices. The boys decided to return to camp and cook up a whole mess of chicken slop for tea. This would involve stripping the chickens of meat and throwing some tomato and pasta combination – add spices and boil till you think it’s edible.

So I stayed at the pub while Scottie, Mark and Crazy Dave returned for the gourmet action.

Incidentally, Crazy Dave is by no means crazy. He is in fact a quiet and reserved married guy with a number of daughters approaching that troublesome age. The only semblance of crazy that Dave displays is following the South Sydney Rabbitohs! Other than that, he is the epitome of the respectable nice guy – I just called him Crazy Dave because I was drunk and it tickled my fancy at the time…that and the reaction he gave when I first said it.

The boys returned to the pub bragging about their lovely meal and questioned why I refused to partake. I hadn’t been hungry at the time but was beginning to feel so.

As luck would have it – and much to Mark’s disgust – the truckies were having a cut-out party for the Bourke Corn Haul, and Pete had put on a quite a spread of assorted hot goodies for the boys. Since I’d been drinking with them for the past few weeks, I was invited to join in. Fancy that – another free meal. This prompted the venomous comment from my good friend that I never pay for anything!

We were playing pool and darts and mixing with the mob and generally having a good old time.

As is often the case upon arrival, Scottie hit the turps with a little too much gusto and left a bit early looking somewhat the worse for wear. Knowing this rooster though, he’ll be back up at sunrise with a cold Fourex Gold in his tremendous mitt and a cocky smile upon his dial. Scottie is the domestic king and is always happy to lend a hand or proffer advice at any time.

Mark too is a good man around camp, though he is consistently sloppy in his ways. The idea and intent are always genuine it’s just the execution that lets him down. Simple things like cooking two steaks and half a dozen sausages all together in a mid-sized pot, stirring intermittently like he was warming up soup. He likes to dabble in the exotics like garlic and dare I say it….. caramel latte’s!

That said, he does a pretty fair job in a proper home kitchen – lasagne comes to mind, it’s as fine as you’re likely to encounter.

My own style is somewhat rough and ready – much in the Malcolm Douglas style, though I don’t insist on throwing sultanas or curry powder into to everything I cook. It’s a straight up, non fancy method and granted, often hygienically compromised but I find if you cook anything long enough, you tend to burn off most of the botulism and ptomaine particulates and hospitalisations are a rare necessity.

I woke up with a start the next day – feeling a presence, I opened my eyes to find Mark and Scottie hovering above me grinning. They’d obviously been up to something, though I wasn’t sure what?

Hours later my phone rang and I answered it only to be greeted by some indeterminable grunting on the other end. Ahh – the funny b@stards had used Scottie’s phone to record me snoring in my swag!

One mystery solved.

Like I said – it’s hard to recall exactly what happened on which day, but thinking back, I’ve worked out that Scottie must have arrived on the Thursday because I definitely recall a conversation on Friday night with Buggsy regarding the possibility of rain overnight. He was offering attractive odds that that any substantial rain would fall he declared precipitation would be minimal and given he was considered the local expert, against my better judgement, I trusted his assessment.

With my swag opened up to the elements on this humid night, I was awoken at 5:20 am with the sound and feel of rain upon my camp and face. I quickly gathered my gear and stuffed it in the back of my car.

I decided to go and check if we’d left anything important out in the rain – besides my camp chair.

I moved a couple of things under cover – but not my camp chair – that was long gone! It seemed some low dog had snuck in overnight and swiped it from our camp. I was filthy – it had been a present from my sister a few years before and I’d treasured both the item and the sentiment. I did a quick round of all the other camps while they all slept but couldn’t find hide nor hair of my beloved big-boys chair.

Scottie was awake when I got back to the shed and I told him what happened – I then declared I was gonna drive into the bush and try to catch a few more hours sleep in the front seat of my car.

This was an easier task than I imagined and I managed to sleep for several more hours.

Upon return to the shed – there she was – in all her glory, my super comfy (wringing wet) big-fella’s camp chair!

Apparently when Scottie told Mark the story of it being stolen, he lost his cool and went on a rampage, in search of it. He found it dumped up behind the pub, no one around on which to vent his anger (thankfully), for he’d have assaulted the guilty party with great venom and absolutely without compunction! Instead he carried it back home. Good job mate.

It turned out that the same yahoos had harassed Sinbin that night in her caravan – banging on the door and windows at all hours asking to be let in. The useless Pinheads ought to be whipped. The poor kid is 19 years old, in a foreign country, sleeping alone in a flimsy caravan with no help at hand and these clowns try to hammer their way in at three in the morning!

Cindy said she just stayed in bed and tried to ignore it – it must have been frigging terrifying for the poor thing. Stupid, out of control w@nkers – you find them everywhere.

The general consensus next day was that they were probably travelling through, already tanked from Bourke, pulled in to top up and found the pub shut, so turned to causing a mischief to the local unwary.

In June Pete has taken to running Ferret races – by all reports an excellent and generally successful weekend. Being quite the jack-of-all-trades, as are many country pub owners, he designed and built his own system of PVC pipes etc to create a racecourse, both fair and entertaining to all. Unfortunately I was not privy to his concept – but he keeps the ferrets as pets all year round in a purpose built trailer out back of the pub. I walked over for a peak one day, after having a working acquaintance with these…..at best, savage, stinking vicious beasts, I was quite curious.

When I neared the lair, they emerged from everywhere! They have boxes made of tin, though similar in appearance to budgerygah breeding boxes – with a small access hole, minus the lookout-perch. They came from all angles to inspect me – with the incorrect expectation that I’d come bearing gifts of food. They scurried over each other and climbed the walls before losing interest.

We used to take ferrets to catch rabbits years ago and I have a very healthy respect for their capabilities, since most of my scars have all but cleared up these days, I maintain the willingness and deftness of hand to pick up the odd escapee. I was keen to witness feeding time with twenty psycho ferrets revved up and ravenous and no apparent feed hole in the trailer’s walls. I joined Pete and Jani for this purpose.

Well they flowed over the trailer floor like a living carpet before Pete opened the rear door, whence-upon they commenced flowing straight out onto the ground! Some stayed back to eat the bickies and milk Pete had dispensed, while others used the opportunity to explore the local terra firma. Jani, sporting a huge pair of leather gloves, chased after them and picked them up with a soft and supporting touch, before returning them to their cage.

One began showing quite an interest in my unprotected toes that protruded beyond the double-pluggers and headed in that direction. Like I said – I’m not scared to handle ferrets, but my technique was a little more respectful of their capabilities and inherent savage nature – I tend to strike like a King Cobra, grasping them round the throat in a grip similar to what you’d give a venomous snake. Now, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t hurt the animal in any way, but it certainly ensures he can’t hurt me, and it possibly looks a little violent and uncomfortable so I wasn’t keen to apply it to a friend’s so called pets – so I just backed up, with great bravery, while Jani gathered up her wayward furry friend.

Scottie and Crazy Dave borrowed a couple of Pete’s yabbie traps and set them in the Rockhole – they were missing from the camp for hours, so I’m still not sure what other strife they managed to get themselves into. Anyhow, the Rockhole was filled to the brim in a vision not often witnessed in the dry outback round Bourke way, and we were hopeful of scoring a feed of the tasty little crustaceans.

The boys checked the pots a few times over a couple of days and reported a decent score, though in the end, we never quite got around to cooking them, what with one thing and another, so they were all happily returned to their watery homes to fight another day!

It must have been Friday when Lloydy came into the mix because he was with me during the weather discussion with Buggsy that night. Lloydy is a long term fan of weather phenomena and a keen study of predicting upcoming conditions. He is also a keen gambler and quite the wiz with odds – yet he was unwilling to risk his cash against Buggsy’s local judgement. Unfortunately (for me) Buggs was unfamiliar with the vagaries of La Nina thousands of miles away and the deluge said Senorita was about to dump upon the countryside.

Buggsy is one funny bloke. He had found himself a young chippie with a couple of kids who were staying with him for a few days. They appeared not to be in any great depth of love at all but pretty close nonetheless – I deduced that they suited each other’s purposes for the time being and that appeared to be most convenient and comforting to both.

At one stage Buggs turned up at the pub with about twenty six of their best mixed-grill plates – all nicely washed and ready for action. It seemed he’s accumulated a small personal stack at his residence through his habit of ordering takeaways on occasion.

 

Saturday was another run up to Bourke – some people were keen to get bets on, so we hit the RSL again. Bets were placed and the odd exotic on the grand final of both footy codes, such as the Norm Smith Medal as well as the Clive Churchill and first point-scorers etc. Astoundingly Mark tipped the best and fairest in the Aussie Rules and Lloydy nailed the League equivalent (arsey bastards!). Mark also backed about six other winners – I had about 3 bets for one win – something to do with ‘Rock’, simply because we were at The Rock. It paid 12 bucks or something – I had to sell the ticket to Mark, as it was through the NSW TAB and I live in QLD. So Mark ended up with about 8 winning tickets in his pocket back at Byrock pub and not enough cash to buy a beer!

We had a slap-up Chinese meal at the RSL – I opted for the Sweet n Sour pork but should have followed Scotties lead with the Singapore Noodles, they were top notch nosh judging by the way he attacked them and the high verbal praise which followed. Yep, definitely the Singapore Noodles for me next time!

A few us played the pokies and had lost a bit – not too much this time and I for one, had had enough. Then Scottie suggested we throw in ten bucks each and put into some machine I’d never seen before. Three us went in and took turns when Scottie struck gold out of the blue – who knows what this thing does? Lights flashed and bells rang and the screen directed us to look up where even more lights flashed and whirled round like the old roulette wheel and it kept paying us money and we stared and laughed and high-fived. I can’t recall what we got that time, but he struck it again and this time when the lights spun around, it stopped on fifteen to one, but we were already getting paid six to one, so now we were getting ninety to one with every winner!

We ended up taking out $370 between three of us for ten bucks in each – superb going for any poker machine – and I still don’t have a clue what was going on! Way to go Scottie.

We played darts when we got back to Byrock and while this is hardly noteworthy, like most of this drivel, a remarkable thing happened. I was up against Mark (who mistakenly fancies himself as the quite the dartman) – as is typical in our battles, I was far ahead of him on the scoreboard and dominating him markedly. On this occasion however, I threw a twelve and then – going for the triple twenty, as is my custom, I scored a single twenty – then in an identical shot, I threw the last dart and it lodged in the tail of the previous dart! A la Robin Hood – I managed to pin one dart right in the rear of the previous! Being astounded, I made all sorts of short girly noises as I tried to draw attention to my extreme skill and ability with all weapons manly and dangerous. Then we took some photos. I won the game, Mark was booted out of the comp – much like South Sydney many years previous and he too continues to whinge and make excuses to this day.

We spent a lot of time drinking and chatting and doing not much else during the rest of the day. I like to sit out the front around one of the fire drums and chat to both the locals and blow-ins alike.

Pete had recently, via Jani, come into ownership of a little red-heeler pup he named something I can’t recall now – Toby? Cody?

Irrespective of the dog’s name, Pete likes to sit him up on a bar stool, front paws stretched up and give him a drink. He claimed it was some type of alcoholic beverage the pup had taken a liking to, but it was actually straight milk. Everyone loved the little dog – especially Pete. It’s funny to see hard blokes go all soft over a baby animal. Next time I visit, the little bugger will probably rip my leg off!

I think most of us called it a night at around midnight, though Lloydy was keen and going strong. Due to the still persistent rain, I decided to sleep in my car that night. So I found my usual spot in the bush, parked and swapped my Akubra for my Jim Beam Beanie and jammed a pillow into the side of the car, shut my eyes and, much to my surprise, slept like a log!

I think they woke me up next morning at around 9 – daylight savings had snuck in overnight, so it was now about 10am.

Though the sleep was good, the body was till wrecked when I hopped out and tried to stretch everything back into place – there were too many clicks and cracks and strains to describe here but after a few weeks in the bush, you just grin and bear it. In fact, you don’t tend to even notice the little niggles etc until you get back to a more homely and comfortable environment.

It had been raining all night and everything was soaked – the bulldust had turned to mud and puddles lie everywhere.

Back at the pub for the last day, I spoke to young Harrison, whose truck was once again parked in the pub car park. He said he had awakened to several SMS messages on his phone requesting he not move his truck as half a dozen of the boys who’d slept in their swags had in fact moved their camps underneath his rig overnight as the rain continued to fall! They were sleeping there still. Had he not got the message and moved on, he could have killed a bunch of mates, no sweat.

Kelly and Erin showed up with the kids, all dressed up and ready to go – the kids went straight to the biggest puddle and splashed and played in it till they were soaked to the bone and freezing cold. A quick change of clothes and all was good. I guess it was quite a novelty for the kids to see big puddles around out that way. Though as it is January in two days time and the entire eastern side of the country has been relentlessly pummelled by La Nina’s wrath since I left Byrock three months ago, I’m guessing the novelty has worn off the rain puddles for even the most curious of outback kids.

Pete and Gloria put on a nice spread of prawns for the grand final watchers – two huge trays full, strategically placed on opposing bars, to cater for all punters. Unfortunately there was one skanky old duck that felt they all belonged to her and unashamedly plonked her ample @rse down on a stool, front and centre, elbows out and commenced to chow down on as many of the little orange suckers as she could jam down her greedy throat! She displayed little consideration for other patrons forced to lean over her back to pinch one or two for their own taste-buds. She was an absolute disgrace and ought to be ashamed of herself – but wasn’t at all, later out front when someone accused her of eating all the prawns. Unashamed low-class, no manners, selfish country scrubber – a daughter who will likely turn out the same but a husband who surprised me by being a stand-up respectable bloke.

Some fellow campers came through in the afternoon and advised us that our shelter was flooded out and everything wet – it seemed someone left the tap turned on full blast and the slow-dribble plug hole couldn’t cope, so the water had flowed all over the bulldust floor for a few hours! They had kindly cleaned up for us as much as they could but thought they’d best let us know.

I went off at the dumb, brainless young smart knobs who do such things to get a bit of cheap fun. I was ropable at the stupidity of such clowns – what a waste, what a stupid and useless thing to do, they ought to be whipped!

Turns out I was wrong again – it wasn’t the kids – any guesses who was ultimately responsible for the water-logged abomination? Yep – that f@cking black crow!

The tap was the mixer type, where you mix hot and cold in the one spout by moving the single handle left and right – however, this was not the usual type which comes on harder as you lift said handle higher from the sink, this was the reverse. The tap sits high and proud in the off position and is turned on by depressing the handle toward the sink. That damned evil crow had simply landed on the mixer handle, cranking it full on and letting the water flow to its peril, into the sink and over the edge onto the ground.

I really should have sent that feathery little mongrel to meet his maker the first day he visited his evil darkness upon us – but much like the yabbies, he too flew off to his watery home to live and fight another day.

The rest of Sunday disappears in a haze of pool tables, dart boards, schooner glasses, cigarettes, hats, boots, burning logs and even a couple of Red Bull and Vodkas to finish the night on. Once again Lloydy was really cooking when the rest of us headed back to camp. He was staying in the pub’s guest accommodation anyway and hung in at the bar drinking till the early morning hours.

I drove back intending to sleep under an alternate shelter but found half a dozen swags already rolled out there.

One more night in the front seat of the Cruiser….

I woke up to more rain, hopped out of the front seat again and stretched once more.

Knowing I was headed home shortly, I began to feel the weariness of the last few weeks of hard living – everything ached, and since I had not laid down, but been upright for three days straight, it seemed all the liquid in my body had gravitated to my feet and lower legs. They were like a couple of water balloons all puffed up and soft – it was bizarre.

We gathered in the car park at around 8am – everyone packed up and ready to head our separate ways once more. All except Lloydy who was still under the influence and unwilling to risk driving so early after a late night on the turps – good thinking Spaz.

We all shook hands and bid each other adios before hitting the road for the long drive home. Most headed south east, down the Mitchell Highway, but I needed to go due East – over about 65ks of mud road to Brewarrina, before heading further north to Queensland.

It was actually good fun but quite a challenge slithering along the mud road, I was forced to pull over one time to save a window from where my camp oven was resting and occasionally banging into it. It was a timely manoeuvre since I’d just saved the congealed chicken fat from plopping out onto my rear carpet! Like I said, hygiene is not necessarily one of my strong suits when it comes to cooking – however, the fat does prevent the oven from rusting, so it’s not all bad.

I swerved over to the right hand side of the road to give the hurry –up to a couple of emus who’d decided to stick to the road instead of the bush. I found this hilariously entertaining as they began to pin their ears back and really turn on the speed, though I backed off when I got too close, allowing them to scarper into the scrub. They have such a funny natural gait when they get going – and like Willo says ‘they can run the pants off a kangaroo….!’.

A monstrous big red buck kangaroo stood his ground, middle of the road to challenge me at one point, so I backed off and pleased with his dominance, the big fella up and hopped into the bush too, no doubt to brag to his harem.

After an hour of slippin and a slidin, I finally made the hard-top road and filled her up at Brewarrina – the car was filthy! Covered, tyre to roof in red mud – a dog to have to clean but the kind of pretty mess that makes a bushman proud.

 

A big ice-cold bottle of chocky milk (just like a bowl of coco-pops, only smooth!), some hot Tucky for dinner and the softest of all beds in my Goondiwindi hotel room, I lay there watching telly and getting up for the occasional p!ss as I began to rid my body of the built up toxins a three week spree tends to leave behind.

Can’t wait for next year………

22.10.2009

I was asked to write a blog about my recent bush trip, so I will. I recognise that the content is not strictly CMC related, so I’ll post what I’ve done so far and if there are no objections regarding the subject matter, I’ll add more as I finish it. Otherwise, I’ll work something else out. Cheers, Whirly.

I did the Harry Holt from the car park at work at about 5:15am, Tuesday 22^nd September 2009. This was a long time coming (and a couple of hours earlier than the roster would have anyone believe). I had completed the first ten of a twelve hour nightshift, fired up the beast and headed West – singing Springsteen as I went. I had two weeks of holidays to go and I was feeling pretty damn good, despite the lack of sleep. My intent was to make it to Goondiwindi before the deadly drowsiness of post-nightshift driving kicked in.

Though my recent tendency has been to listen to country music (and I did mostly), I still associate The Boss’s ‘No Surrender’ with cutting loose the ties and heading for freedom. The’ Born In The USA’ album was released in Australia in 1984, the year I finished High School – and I maintain it is still the greatest rock album of all time! I still LOVE the booming start to that song…..

“Well we busted outta class, had to get away from those fools,

We learned more from a three-minute record Baby, than we ever learned in school.

Tonight I hear the neighbourhood drummer sound, I feel my heart begin to pound,

You say you’re tired and you just wanna close your eyes, and follow your dreams down……..

Well we made a promise, swore we’d always remember,

No retreat Baby, No surrender……………”

I barrelled into Warwick at around seven and was still feeling clear of mind and fine of voice, so I pressed on. At a roadworks stop just outside of town, I noticed an unusual colour in the sky further on – it appeared to be some kind of dust-storm. I took a few happy-snaps, because city folk never get to experience such impressive bush phenomenon – wait till they see my photos!

Twenty K’s up the highway and visibility was down to about fifty metres and I had all lights blazing on the Land Cruiser.

Little did I know, I had stumbled into the worst dust-storm in living memory – and as it turned out, the cities copped their fair share after all. I got on the UHF truckies channel 40 and asked if anyone knew if the dust storm stretched all the way to Gundi? One helpful soul advised me that she stretched all the freakin way to West Wyalong.

Lovely.

I was glad to roll down Gundi’s main street, after much concentrated driving through the dust. I booked into a motel and grabbed a bacon & egg roll and chocky milk from Batesy’s bakery. The cold milk was beautiful going down a dusty throat. I unpacked my guns and Guitar, locking them in the room, had a shower and headed to the pub. The Queensland Hotel. Surprisingly, I was the only patron in there so early in the morning – and in fact, had to holler for the barmaid for some service.

I chatted to Kathy for a while – apparently just after she had evicted a local lad from the accommodations, by gathering his belongings and dumping them on the veranda while he was occupied elsewhere. I had hoped to be around for the ensuing confrontation upon his return but weariness got the better of me. I returned to my room, had a few Southerns , watched the telly and enjoyed a mixed-grill for tea before crashing for about fourteen hours of glorious sleep.

If you’ve never tried it, I recommend staying up all night (sober) and drinking a few the next day – you find yourself in some kind of fantasy land, where the smallest of things is hilariously amusing and you have a unique and fascinating outlook on life. It’s an interesting perspective – I believe it is primarily the tiredness that gives you the sillies. I’m not sure if the drink gives you anything except a reason to stay awake?

Incidentally, I noted a peculiar thing in my travels – that being that I had not laid eyes on an Asian face since I left Brisbane. Perhaps they don’t fancy the area, or maybe find the local populous not especially to their liking? But then the natural beauty of the region may have escaped the Asian eye til this point – who knows? Anyway, in this day of ‘multiculturalism’ they were just conspicuous by their general absence.

By the time I got up the next day, the dust had all but cleared from both the atmosphere and my mind – a nice hot shower, fresh clothes and I was away – ears pinned back and headed for Byrock!

Gundi is only just over the Qld-NSW border and Boggabilla just a good spit on a strong windy day from there. Then Moree, Collarenebri , Walgett and on to Brewarrina, where I filled up with Diesel, bought some ice and gas, had a wiz, mixed a special little Southo in a 600ml coke bottle (as none of my beer was cold yet). I asked the kind lady in the garage how I would find the dirt road to Byrock – she said “Oh – yeah, you just go through Gongolgon and you’ll see a turnoff with a sign”

I said “Beauty. Where is that?”

‘Oh, yeah -it’s just down here and turn left at the second street’.

And with that and a contented grin, I headed off. I began to suspect she’d bum-steered me as I’d expected the dirt to start much closer to town, but no sooner had I expressed my reservations, than I stumbled upon the promised sign and dusty red road. Periodically swigging my (much too strong) Southo (which I’d purchased on special from the Gundi pub – whilst in that delirious condition the day before), I thundered down the final stretch!

After about sixty K’s of dirt track, I burst forth onto the Mitchell Highway and caught sight of the Mulga Creek Hotel, for the first time in a couple of years. Ahhh – she’s a beauty.

I did a bit of audible ‘Yip, Yip, Yippeee!!! Woooohoooo!!! Brrrrrrrr-yip-yip-yip!!!!’ work, as I crossed the extensive car-parking area, and while this is clearly a childish cry of excitement, it’s always seemed an appropriate way to celebrate our arrival after the weeks of anticipation and the long drive – and I didn’t come out here to be a serious grown-up anyway.

I parked the car, grabbed my hat and strode through the doors – only to be greeted by a surprisingly beautiful and welcoming face.

“Hullow”

Wow!

‘G’day – a schooner of New thanks’

The barmaid was quite a stunning vision, with crystal-clear blue eyes, blonde hair and a smile that lit up the room! She turned out to be Jani (pronounced Yarnee) – a strapping young girl of German descent.

Having been in Australia for around 12 months, and knocked round some of the more remote areas, including Territory stations and some down-time in Darwin, Jani had a pretty thorough grasp of Australianisms used in our local speech, though she still had the remnants of her Fatherland accent.

This mainly manifested itself in words with “O”, like hello, smoke or righteo – which Jani pronounces as hullow, smowke and righteow. In the same way you might say “Ow” when you jam a finger (not as in “Our”).

Anyway, I loved listening to her speak (almost as much as I enjoyed admiring her looks).

I wasn’t alone there – I heard Jani turn down several proposals of marriage during the time I spent in the bar. I reckon she would be a pretty good catch in anyone’s books – open, friendly and beautiful.

Jani asked where I was headed and I replied “I’m here”.

“Owkay”

Then Pete the publican entered the fray. I hadn’t seen Pete for two years and he also asked where I was headed – “I’m here”.

He then somehow seemed to fancy that he’d seen my face before and asked if this were the case. I told him that I was the front runner of a bunch of blokes heading up here next week, from down south. He remembered the mob and we had a chat.

Pete is a very savvy businessman – he understands the importance in a small business such as his, of the personal touch. Several times over the next few weeks, he asked me certain people’s names (behind their backs), so he could address them as mates, rather than blow-in customers. He’s a friendly bloke and will always stop for a chat, and though you’d think his job would be pretty limited out there, the bloke is always on the run – with a hammer, a drill, a sign, horse feed, a broom, firewood or a bottle of hydraulic fluid in his hand.

Pete’s wife Gloria is every bit as busy and as friendly – I’m not sure of all the things she does behind the scenes, but I suspect that if she were not there for an extended period, the place may well collapse.

Pete had lost some weight since the last time I saw him – he’d apparently had a disagreement with a horse over some minor issue and come off second best. He’d have mounted right back up again but for the smashed hip and pelvis. He can’t bend right over now and he has a little hitch in his getalong, but it all adds to his character and he’s not one to complain.

The second barmaid drove up in the hotel ute – Wow!

I immediately sent the boys an SMS ‘HOT Barmaids!!!! Ooo Yeah J’.

Andra was a little hottie of nineteen summers, also from Germany. She had longish brown hair, blue eyes, perfect skin, and soft-looking young lips. She exuded innocence, though I suspect a more dangerous side lurked just below the surface. Her grasp of Australianisms was not what it might have been and though she tried hard to understand and please, she still has a bit to learn. Andra was good fun all round, with a terrific sense of humour – often laughing at herself (which I think is a great Australian trait) – maybe there is true hope for Andra-the-Aussie yet. She too had to fight the young bucks (and a few old bulls) off with a stick.

Peter’s old mate Mick is the quintessential Aussie bushman. He is at all times topped by a battered and stained old Woomera style Akubra hat, he sports a standard button-up country shirt and he wears faded jeans, very low on the waist – strung there by the old horse-hobble bushies belt, complete with horizontal pocket knife. (True Aussie bushmen seem to prefer the horizontal belt-knife, as opposed to the vertical gun-slinger style preferred by the Americans). The metal rings and knife make such belts too bulky for the average jeans belt hooks, so Mick simply strung it over his jeans, about halfway up his bony seat. This left the crotch hanging closer to the ground than the fashion designer had probably intended, and also gives the impression that the wearer has an extended torso and shorter legs. A pair of well-worn and dusty boots complete Mick’s authentic bush ensemble.

Funnily enough, Mick’s brand spanking new Akubra had arrived at the Mulga Creek Pub this very day and Pete brought it out of the bag, pristine. He gets a good deal on Akubra’s if anyone is interested.

Mick picked up the hat, examined the milliner’s expert handiwork, and then commenced to rip out the apricot-coloured inner satin lining – “Get rid of that cr@p – it makes your head too sweaty”.

He then retrieved his knife from it’s handy spot on his belt and cut out the inner leather hat band – physically ripped it off and dumped it with the lining on the bar stool – “Ya don’t want that…and p1ss this blo0dy feather thing off too”.

He threw that on the ground.

He re-examined it and said “Yeah – that’s better. I won’t be wearing it to town though, till I take it home and have the dogs p1ss all over it and kick it around a bit”.

Then he put his old one back on.

Mick was an old mate of Stan Coster, who penned many hit songs for Slim Dusty. In fact, Mick has released several CD’s himself, along the same lines and in the bush-ballad style. He laughs easily, jokes continuously (the same way he drinks his rum and milk), and is friendly to all. Mick has a history, as far as I know, of running Leather goods shops, hotels, several stations and now manages a camel station. I suspect he may have been quite the fearsome fighter in his younger day – no one becomes that lippy without offending people every now and then, and laughter and charm only get you so far.

Mick is a born entertainer, it comes as naturally to him as breathing and it was he who ‘compered ‘ the donkey and camel races, as well as the Rooster, pig and goat chases on the Muster Day.

Mick also had a few old mates with him – I’m not sure of there names but I’d say between the two of them, they’d be lucky to own four teeth. So while their smiles may win them no prizes, their scarred and gnarled hands stood testament to a lifetime of hard and skilled work among rugged animals and tough men. It was fascinating to listen to banter and thorough knowledge of all things country among these old boys – three blokes who would likely have less formal education between them than I had in my first twenty years of life. Yet they all strike me as men you’d want on your side should things go bad – I also get the feeling that they’d be as loyal as the day is long.

Bugsy is a local lad born and bred. I remember seeing him riding round on a little red motorbike as a young teenager. Like me, becoming a jockey was never given serious consideration by Bugs – our frames are not naturally conducive to such pursuits. He’s always been a larger lad, with a fondness for small ag-bikes and a penchant for wearing Flanno shirts. The only difference today, is that he now shaves his facial whiskers when the fancy strikes him, which is apparently all too irregular.

Bugs spends great swathes of time at the Mulga Creek Hotel, drinking some concoction involving Green Ginger Wine and softdrink. He appears to be at all times flush with cash, yet I understand he earns a quid by trapping goats on occasion and gambling. He seems to be quite content to continue in this vein but sometimes supplements his entertainment by taking the mickey out of visiting travellers. He’s a harmless young fella and a permanent fixture is old Bugsy.

Sonya is a part time barmaid at the establishment – she’s as Aussie as they come. Straight up and down, though even at her young age she seems to have had enough of the drinkers lip, attempted charm, flirtatious repartee and general banter. Sonya does her job efficiently, with a minimum of fuss – her partner is a lanky young bloke with a tendency of getting himself into strife. At this particular time, he’d done himself some mischief involving a leg – he was unsure as to the cause of the pain, or the actual problem itself but it gave him grief just the same. He had however, decided to determine the root cause in his own time and leave the doctors and other assorted medical professionals to their own devices.

I had a pretty early night that Thursday – headed back about 9:30, past the normal camping ground behind the pub, and went about 500 metres into the bush. I laid out my new ground sheet (to provide me with a few square feet of burr-free, barefoot stomping ground should nature call through the night), and then laid my swag down upon it. The wind was still howling – in fact had barely let up since the dust storm. I climbed into bed, which was surprisingly comfortable and admired the millions of stars, just before I drifted off to a pleasant night’s sleep.

I got up the next morning, sat in the car and listened to the news on ABC radio, then played a few country CD’s as I set up my two-burner gas stove and cooked up some steak and snags in the only pot I brought with me. I had my trusty camp oven but wouldn’t risk the gidgee coals blasting all angles of the territory in the howling wind, should I start a fire.

My generous brother-in-law Johnny had given me his superseded family tent and I’d planned to set myself up a real comfy camp – with soft wide bed, warm blankets, pillows and plenty of room for all the stuff currently filling my car.

So I laid the canvas out on the bulldust – wow, she’s a big one – and commenced joining the poles together and placing them where I deduced they would be best suited (who said that those four years spent studying engineering at Uni were wasted?).

All looked rather promising – until I began the search for the illusive pegs and ropes that are apparently so very crucial in providing stability to these big, comfy family tents!

Okay, I accept partial blame due to my inherent laziness by not erecting the structure in my backyard before I headed for the bush, but I like to pride myself on my self-perceived bush skills and resourceful nature.

There I stood examining my potential haven – no ropes, no pegs, a howling wind and a very frustrated ‘bushman’ finally accepting the obvious fact that this luxurious abode will not be welcoming tenants anytime soon. I re-bagged all the poles, rolled the tent back up, apparently in an unaccustomed fashion, as I struck great difficulty in re-inserting the offending abomination back into it’s protective bag. It resembled a snake swallowing a wild pig at one stage, but with great commitment, persistence and some jumping about, squashing down and squeezing in, I managed to get the thing back into its sack.

Lucky I like my swag, anyway.

I had a quiet day on Friday due to the promise of the Muster madness I’d anticipated the following day.

As I lay in my swag that night, I once again marvelled at the billions of stars twinkling above – however, about twenty minutes later they were all obscured by a second dust storm. The wind dust-blasted my face for a few hours of intermittent sleep, until I decided to lay the big canvas flap right over the top of my head. This ploy worked a treat, except that every now and then the flap would lift up and whip me in the head like a fluttering flag.

I got up Saturday morning, cooked some tucker and played a bit of guitar around my camp.

My mates were not expected until at least Wednesday. Then they would be arriving in dribs and drabs until Friday – but today was the Byrock Mulga Creek Hotel Muster Day!

I had a shower (they are fantastic showers at Byrock!) and donned my good gear – Blundstone boots, Fui Fui jocks (named so after a photo of Fui Fui Moi Moi appeared in the paper as he prepared to dive into the pool – they have a slightly longer leg and are totally unsuitable as a standalone garment in public!), Jeans, new RM Williams blue, pink and white button up shirt, which was a striped affair and of course my trusty Akubra (Colly style originally but altered to suit – named after the town of Collarenebri). I headed to the pub at about 11 and the crowd was already gathering. I explained to several people that I was striving to hangout till at least midday before trying a beer – but what can one do under that kind of pressure? I felt like Michael Corleone from the Godfather ‘Every time I try to get out, they drag me back in…..’

So I had my first beer a tad prior to midday.

Pete, Mick and the boys had built an oval race track at the northern end of the car park, probably about forty by twenty metres, constructed of the same mobile gate structures they use for temporary rodeo arenas etc. The centre of the track had comfy and neat animal accommodations, from where curious and contented camels and dopey-looking long-eared donkeys gazed about nonchalantly. If I’d have built the structure, I’d have left it as a permanent monument to my construction skills such was my admiration for their ability with such things. But they pulled the thing down several days later so’s you’d never have known it had been there at all.

The bar girls were in full swing, including a few imports, the beer flowed, the wind blew, the crowd grew and Mick warmed to the occasion with the microphone and MC duties occupying his attention.

He got all the little kids on the track and let loose a flighty rooster for them to catch. Mick makes great claims as he calls the session to order, things such as “This Rooster here, he’s got spurs like a cut-throat razor – he’s already done in two of my favourite pig dogs – and that was while he covered the hens! He out-ran the ute on the way to the pub today and he’s bitten more fingers than a rusty rabbit-trap. Come on kids – chase him up and let’s see who can catch him!”

The kids take off in a cloud of dust – hardly game to go near the bird, it was left to the smallest kid of all to catch him when he flew into his chest.

“Okay young fella –good one. Now take your rooster over to your mother and put him in the car – you’ve won yourself a lovely rooster there Champ, well done”.

 

They did the same with a few goats and pigs and though the kids appeared keen, I got the feeling that several were afraid of the animals, some not game and then a few others frightened. It was all good clean fun – but none of the parents seemed too enthusiastic about taking home their prizes.

I’m sure the kids would have loved to, but in the end, Mick took them all back in good humour to his property, from which they had originated.

It was great to see Aussie kids having some active country fun, not to mention hilariously entertaining at the same moment. A good time was had by all.

The local Vet, Lochy McLachlan was there to keep a keen eye on the welfare of all animals and raised no concerns about their treatment. Most country folk have a solid and ingrained respect for their stock and animals in general, so you seldom find such folk abusing any beast or causing unwarranted distress.

They auctioned off several small horses and donkeys etc, to be runners in the up-coming races. My new mate Ken, who regularly does odd jobs about the pub, and still sporting battle scars from a sulky-spill the previous day, enthusiastically entered a bid – after mistakenly hearing the call of ‘one hundred and TEN dollars’ for simply ‘TEN dollars’. Nobody would better his large bid, so the beast was now declared the property of Ken.

Unfortunately Ken had to call in a few markers and seek an early payment of yet to be earned wages from the Publican to cover his impulsive purchase. But honour it he did and he won the race too – he received one hundred and twenty dollars for his one hundred and ten put at risk! He’s a nice bloke with a keen sense of humour and I dare say he’ll laugh about his investment for many years to come.

Of course Mick was there yelling encouragement to potential owners “Oh – you can see this man is a keen judge of fine horse-flesh. This horse here, he jumped my twelve foot fence and ran all the way to Bourke before I could catch him in the ute – and then he raced me back. Beat me too. Yep his thoroughbred bloodlines run far and deep this fella”

He was describing a furry backed little Shetland Pony at the time.

I was doing a lot of talking and drinking and generally having a ball. I heard second hand that the ladies had a sack race and one of the local lasses fell over and dropped both her sack and her jeans – revealing what I heard was a toned and shapely G-string clad country derriere. They tell me it was quite the spectacle of the afternoon.

They got a bit serious after that, with donkey races – I believe most of the riders were a gang of fit young bucks from Dubbo, up there for a pig hunting stint. For the most part, the donkeys ran in the right direction – but there were plenty of casualties among the jockeys, leaving skin and bark strewn along the gravelly track, and now sporting deep red, bloody grazes on elbows and hips primarily.

I was chatting to a big bloke throughout the morning – he boasted a remarkable resemblance to Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read, though he appeared to lack that threatening hair-trigger to immediate and violent recourse. He seemed a happy enough fellow, though game as Ned Kelly. He was a big man in stature with a bristling handle-bar type moustache and shaven head (for the most part hidden under a western style hat). He also displayed plenty of tattoos over his body. Now I’m not one to speculate but I think it is safe to assume that the artists who applied his ink-work were not trained at the Royal Australian Academy Of Tattoo Artists – I suspect that they learned their trade at a somewhat different school. Nor am I one to judge a book by it’s cover – and this bloke seemed alright to me – he never referred to himself in the third person, like ‘Go and buy Uncle Chop-Chop a beer’, which I found encouraging as well.

Anyway, my big mate rode one of the donkeys and did a fair job – but his real go was the camels. Somehow they mustered up enough riders from amongst the throng, to cover all starters. My big mate was partnered by the biggest camel of the lot – it seemed a fair match.

Tension was thick in the air as the handlers tried to encourage the camels to kneel down so they could be mounted. Apparently these camels took exception to this plan and mainly stood their ground roaring defiantly. Granted, there were no saddles or other such apparatus to make staying on a little easier, and the camels were thus probably not fully aware of exactly what was expected of them – but roar they did. They were all filthy teeth and bad attitude in my eyes – my big mate was also a little wary of the toothy roaring beast swinging his carnivorous looking head this way and that. He backed off a few times – much to my delight, but eventually he was up there – riding high, perched just behind his hump. One athletic little darkish fella mounted a smallish near-black camel from the standing position – looked like he’d been doing it all his life.

 

In the end they declared the race was on, though confusion still reigned supreme, both upon rider and camel faces alike. Eventually all beasts appeared to be travelling in the Melbourne manner of racing, that is, anti-clockwise. My big mate rounded the near corner in a patch of traffic and dust but managed to lose grip on his ride at a critical point. He came down hard, planting his baldy head into the gravelly track surface. He lay flat out on his back as camels dodged around him (I snapped a timely and amusing picture). It was some time before someone snapped out of their perceived humour and attended to the big-fella’s first aid. They sat him up when he regained consciousness, and examined the cut in his pate. He was alright – he didn’t betray his tattoos either – he was indeed a pretty tough hombre. I saw him later in the night and promised to send him the photos if he gave me an email address. He returned from the bar with a piece of paper with his address and a fresh schooner for me. He told me he had travelled all the way from Melbourne to ride that blo0dy camel and though he ended up in the dust, he had no regrets. I gladly shook his hand and congratulated him on a fine effort of riding but mainly for his spirit of adventure and guts to put himself up in such a vulnerable position in the first place – all for the fun of it.

I believe the bloke on the near-black camel was declared the actual winner of the race – and that was only through someone’s bragging that he had judged the bloke a natural camel jockey before the race commenced.

My mate Mark sent me an SMS advising me that his brother-in-law Robert and his oldman Bear were already at the pub – had turned up several days early. I’d never met these blokes but had been assured they were nice guys, and as they were part of our mob, I went looking for them. I saw two fresh looking blokes sitting at a table in the corner, drinking schooners. I approached and said ‘G’day fellas – would you be Robert and Bear?”

A surprised ‘Yes’ was the answer so I introduced myself and we shook hands all round. We had a chat and I declared that I was heading into the car park for a sausage sandwich. I wasn’t out the door before I was raked over to the Tug-o-war rope – ‘Here yar Bigfella, you’re on our side!’

I’m not sure what happened next – we lost one round, that I thought we’d win, we then won one that I thought we had no chance in and then someone else walked away with the little gold trophy. I wiped my hands, picked up my beer and headed for the sausage stand. Behind me the girls were taking up the slack in the thick rope – heels dug into the gravel of the carpark and laying on the weight – totally barefoot! Too tough for me baby.

I had a nice chat to a pretty young girl in a pink hat, whose boyfriend had been reluctantly thrown onto a donkey with the overwhelming support from those of us milling about the general area. Unfortunately he became the first casualty of that race and emerged for the far end of the track (the first turn) covered in dust and blood and featuring a curious new limp for his troubles. He fel t brave and bragged about the experience soon after the pain wore off though.

Pinky invited me back to her camp for a chat and drink later in the night should I feel the urge.

The band struck up out front of the pub (actually, it was just one woman playing music, singing and encouraging the occasional karaoke star), but it sounded great at the time. I was in and out of the pub, chatting to all and sundry and having myself a thoroughly marvellous time. On one trip out of the doors, destination who-knows-where, my arm was seized by a lady who wanted to dance. My natural reaction of late has been to thank them and shake it off – when this type of thing occasionally happened to me. However, after several recent parties, my seventeen year old niece, (who obviously doesn’t drink) commented to me that I don’t change at all when I get drunk – unlike her mother (my sister) and our brother – who both seem inclined to sing and dance after a few sherbies. I had decided that I had been too serious for far too long (since moving to the Gold Coast from Darwin), and made a conscious plan to get a little crazy.

So I said ‘What the hell – yeah, let’s dance’.

She (I don’t know her name, though we introduced ourselves earlier in the day), encourages me by saying ‘See you can dance’ – I immediately thought of the old Leo Sayer song, ‘Long Tall Glasses’, (You know – ‘I can dance, you know I can dance….’), but I didn’t feel quite steady enough to ‘do a two-step, quick-step and a Bossanova , a little Victor Sylvester and a Rudy Valentino…’, so I just said ‘Yeah – I’ve always been a sh1t-hot dancer’, belying my total uncoordinated lumber that I usually pass off as dancing. Incidentally, I learned my entire dancing repertoire from Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ film clip – though as yet I’ve not come across my Courtney Cox in the crowd.

My dancing queen tells me she likes big blokes such as myself and confides she once had a twenty-nine stone husband. I find out that she lives in a neighbouring town and that I am welcome to visit any time. I’m feeling pretty proud and happy with myself by this stage and dance up a storm – she was a lovely lady and I had a great time but I wasn’t done socialising yet.

Things get a bit hazy after that – I do however recall once again emerging from the pub and watching the entertainment – I think it was karaoke, but the vocalists seemed unfamiliar with the Billy Joel lyrics…..so I stepped up to lend a hand. I think by the end of the song I was flying solo with ‘You may be right, I may be crazy – ohhh, but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for ….!!!!’

I have a vague recollection of being asked to stick around and sing a Bryan Adams song – unfortunately it wasn’t the ‘Summer of Sixty-Nine’, which is the only one I’m familiar with, so I left them wanting more (actually my singing ability comes in a long way behind my non-existent dancing credits – so there was no great loss and it was probably a relief to all when Stevie left the building).

Last thing I remember is emerging from the bar again to discover some dirty grub had stolen the cover off one of my new Lightforce driving lights. I bought the special crystal blue lenses as they disperse the light in my favoured pattern. Though they are only twenty-two bucks each, I was really p1ssed at the thought of some snake simply taking my property as a souvenir of their good time in the bush. At that point I went off my nut and told Pete about it – apparently some dog had also stolen from him – a hand made ashtray his kid gave him and the top off one of his stools. Scum. Unfortunately you find them everywhere.

On that note, I decided to call it a night and I jumped in the cruiser and drove her back (on private property) to my camping spot………

“Ahhh – the burning sun – can someone turn that sun down?…. GOOD GOD – WHERE AM I? Who inflicted this terrible bodily harm upon my person last night?”

I felt like I’d been trampled by a mob of brumbies.

I slowly opened my eyes and sat up in my swag – “Jesus Christ, what have I done?”

I looked around, not believing how bright the sun was – already I couldn’t wait for the sun to go back down, so I could go back to sleep.

Okay, let’s examine the evidence…….ah yes, the pub, camels, beers, dancing, singing….oh god….

Righteo – I did this to myself – now it’s time to face the music.

So I stood up, had a wiz and started looking around.

It seems that I cooked myself a steak sandwich after I got back last night – wow, that’s pretty clear thinking, considering the state I was in. Hmmm – I also washed that down with a camp mug full of bourbon and coke……..whilst listening to Trisha Yearwood’s Greatest Hits (which I’d won from CMC last year).

I’d bought a fishing rod about a month previous and for an extra dollar, you got a head-mounted light – like a miner’s lamp. I thought it might come in handy in an emergency situation in my car – so I stuck in there. For some reason I had the greatest of difficulty trying to insert the batteries last night – couldn’t get it going for love or money. This morning, I dropped the batteries in and clicked the cap back on – good as gold. And some people actually drive the public streets in that condition – insanely dangerous.

I also blew a thong – till this day I know not how – but the inside rear plug was clean broken on my right foot. I don’t even recall wearing thongs that day.

I felt bloated, my head was throbbing, my eyes still blurry and the gravitational pull seemed to have increased tenfold overnight – I felt an unyielding compulsion to lie down and close my eyes. I knew I had to fight it, so I decided to head for the ablutions for some personal business and a reviving shower.

Click, click………”YOU ROTTEN…………”

It seems I left some light on in my car last night, somewhere – the battery was dead.

Now I really did not feel like walking half a kilometre through the hot bush in this condition – so I sat there considering my options. They were very limited. But I sat there just the same – it would be an extra three hundred metres to the pub, where someone might have jumper leads and a helpful disposition…..

Unbelievable……….here comes a little black car, along my camp track! I’ll not let this rooster get past without hitting them up for a hand. (In that savagely hungover state, you tend to get tunnel vision and all I could think of was fixing my battery).

I leapt out of my drivers seat (in actual fact, swung my legs over and slid out), and began to head round to flag this sucker down. My broken thong kept swinging sideways under my foot and added to the already difficult task of walking.

The car saw me coming and stopped. I couldn’t see the driver due to the sun on the windscreen (or the sleepy eye-snot that still fouled my peepers), so I continued my approach. Then I see the door open and a big black hat emerge – the driver had a familiar grin and a video camera in his hand.

“G’day Mate”.

“How ya goin? Have you got any blo0dy jumper leads? My battery is f…………”

It was my mate Mark. He’d turned up three days early. He wanted to get my surprised look on video – all he got was a expletive filled monologue complaining about a flat battery and some mongrel that stole my light-cover the previous night.

It took a while to realise what was going on – then he says “You wanna beer?”

“NO!”

Mark drove to the pub and borrowed some jumper leads – when he picked up the bag, the handles came off – ‘Sorry mate’, when he got to my car, the bags zipper came off in his hand. We jumped my car and he said I had to return the leads in their broken bag to the owner. I cringed.

Mark decided to erect his tent closer to the amenities, so I agreed to move my stuff too (ground sheet, stove, esky and water barrel).

I took off to recharge my battery – headed for the airstrip and did a few runs up and down the runway. I thought it best that I continue to avoid public roads at this stage, even given the limited traffic around these parts. The airstrip is a red dirt affair which is still in pretty good nick considering its limited use over the previous few years.

I collected my gear and headed towards Mark’s chosen spot – my camp was set back up in about four minutes and I wandered over to where Mark was listening to a bit of Chuck Wicks on his car stereo……..and swearing profusely whilst shaking and shuffling his recently unfurled brand spanking new, four-man nylon dome tent.

“Whatcha doing Mate?”

The reply would curl your hair and I doubt I could even spell some of those words, even if I were inclined to write them. Apparently Big W had sold him a tent which requires three special flexi-poles.

The two longer ones criss-cross over the tent’s apex and the shorter one supports a nifty little igloo-style entry passage. Simple.

………Well, it would have been simple had they not decided to retain one of the longer poles in their retail storeroom. This left Mark very frustrated, with one long pole and one short one……and me with a wicked grin on my now recovering phiz. The springy linked flexi poles kept coming apart – it was like a see-saw – you fix one side and the other falls apart, move around and the first side comes to grief.

He tried all manner of ropes and knots and various fixtures to no avail. Ultimately, I pulled out a roll of sportsman Elastoplast sticky tape stuff, used to support injured joints and limbs. Some may wonder why I would carry such stuff, though by now, you’ll probably be starting to understand. If not, you’re welcome to come camping with us one day….

So we wrapped that around the bottom of the poles, tent, peg-hook etc binding it all together and finally got the thing to stand on its own. We agreed that if the wind blew too hard, there was little chance of this thing remaining erect (and that was to be the case a few days later). But for the mean time, Mark threw his swag into the tent, along with his bag and various other personal items.

After a shower Mark convinced me to head to the pub with him. Click….click….. Mark’s battery was flat. I gave him a jump start and handed him back the leads, in their ruined keeper-bag. ‘Here mate – you better return these leads to their owner eh, hehehe’.

I entered the pub feeling pretty sheepish after my antics the night before – to be greeted by a bright and friendly ‘Hullow Steve’…..Jani.

I drank a couple of ice-cold orangey Mirinda/Fanta things, while my mate had beers and caught up with Pete.

I thanked Mark for his early arrival and apologised to him for my poor greeting and lack of animation at his surprise appearance. I shudder to think of how I’ll come across as he introduces me on his video commentary. A stumbling, foul-mouthed, bleary-eyed bear of a man – with a blustering list of complaints and a threatening disposition.

Surprise!

I asked if they sold thongs at the pub and Gloria advised me that they didn’t, however, they were given promotional thongs every now and then and she’d go and check for a size 12 for me.

Beauty. Gloria returned with a pair of VB green size sevens, which I jammed onto my trotters.

My heel hung over the rear by about an inch and a half – which is asking for trouble in this burr infested territory. I ended up pulling the green Y-shaped plug piece out of the smaller thongs and inserting them into the base plate of my larger blue thongs. This saved my heel but made it damned tight across the toes – and while it was bearable, it was really not a long term solution to my footwear problem.

I’ve known Mark since he was about fourteen years old – our initial acquaintance occurred in about 1982 when I opened my parent’s front door, to discover a red-eyed young fella with a bum-fluff moustache, inquiring about my sister. I was very protective of my little sister back then (still am) – so I didn’t much like this bloke. Apparently he didn’t much care.

Somehow, after a few years we were great mates. Back in ’92, I was on the rock’n’roll and Mark quit his job as the Terrigal Hotel’s best barman, to move up to Darwin for a spell. When we left, I believe he had about eighty-five bucks in his wallet and I had a hundred and forty – his Nissan Bluebird ran out of rego in about a week’s time and was packed to the gunwales with camping gear.

Ironically, we spent the first night at Byrock pub………where we proceeded to blow all our cash. We then spent a week bobbing round the pool at Longreach, waiting for my dole check to arrive for petrol. Similar story at Katherine and Tennant Creek. We sold the car at Darwin about three and half weeks after leaving home – eight-hundred and fifty bucks – we had a slap-up Chinese feed and headed straight to the casino for a few cold ales and a bet. We drank as much as we could and then flew home the next day. I’d gained a great suntan and lost about three-stone, having not been able to afford anything to eat. It wasn’t a great success as trips go but it was a truly grand experience.

Mark worked in the TAB when he left school, then a pub, then as Bowling Club manager, then he ran Bateau Bay pub for a while (the pub in Adam Harvey’s clip – ‘God Made Beer”). He used to organise country artists such as Beccy Cole, Adam Brand, Kasey Chambers and Darren Coggan to play out in the beer garden on Sunday afternoons. Now he’s a cop – and a great mate of mine.

I ended up recovering well enough to have a few beers with Mark that night, but we still had an early one.

Monday saw Mark with another flat battery, so we drove to Bourke (80kms) to buy a new one – and for me to buy myself a set of jumper leads. Turned out that there was nothing wrong with the battery and there was not a set of jumper leads for sale in the entire town of Bourke! I also needed a new pair of thongs, which I finally scored at some huge clothing outlet in the main street.

We went to the Bowling club to check things out, had a couple of beers and lost a hundred bucks or so in the pokies, then drove home. Had a few drinks at the Mulga Creek and then went outback to the beer garden to play a little bit of guitar. Mark was showing me a few things – ‘Raining On The Rock’, ‘Heart Of Gold’, a Rob Thomas number and was just running through a couple of Taylor Swift songs when Jani came out collecting glasses.

I shot Mark a quick glance – stop mate, that’ll do! Stop. Stop.

Jani was looking over as Mark was singing to me:

“Hey Stephen, boy you might have me believin’ I don’t always have to be alone

Cause I can’t help it if you look like an angel Can’t help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain so………”

Now, being German, I’m not so sure how familiar Jani is with Taylor Swift lyrics – but I certainly don’t wanna be giving off any misleading signs – and that scene would look g@y in anyone’s eyes!

I feel pretty special when I pretend Taylor is directing her ‘Hey Stephen’ song at me – the thought of Mark directing the same sentiments at me makes me physically ill.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

We retired to the camp and sat around the fire – cooking a chicken and veges in the camp oven.

I usually pride myself on my camp cooking, but we dragged it out of the coals and the chicken was not quite done. Twenty minutes later the whole song and dance act was charcoal. We ate it anyway.

Mark’s mate Scotty was due to arrive on Tuesday afternoon – they met at the Goulburn Academy. We were also expecting another Scotty, so I’ll refer to this first bloke as Detective Ex-Butcher, because he was a butcher before he became a cop. The other bloke, I’ll call The Boxer – ‘cause he’s a boxer.

Det Ex-Butcher is a really funny bloke – not in the sense that tells lots of jokes, but he is a naturally observant chap and witty and he sometimes provides humorous running commentary to real time events. Simple things like the type of ball he’s about to bowl in cricket and the batsman’s reaction and general ramifications. He doesn’t attempt to emulate Richie Benaud and the like – he just does it in his own voice. He gave a great rundown on the confusing data and stats rattled out on Sky channel in regards to winners, places, special dividends, quaddies, margins, sectional times and everything else that goes with it. Very funny but topical and timely and you have to be there.

There’s something about Det Ex-Butcher that makes you wanna be his friend – I can’t put my finger on it – maybe it’s charisma, or maybe it’s his six-foot-four frame and the knowledge that he can lock you up? Whatever it is, I enjoy the bloke’s company.

Mark and I decided to run down to Coolabah (50kms) to meet Det Ex-Butcher on his way up – and also to charge my battery again. So we took off down the Mitchell Highway singing along and generally enjoying the region. The only thing in Coolabah is – you guessed it – a pub.

Apparently the publican was troubled by some uncooperative beer-lines, so we were forced to drink it from the bottle. Three Tooheys Extra Dry’s and a couple of hundred bucks in the three pokies and we were done. We sent Det Ex-Butcher an updated SMS – We’ll see ya at Byrock.

So back we went.

While we were gone, Mark’s brother-in-law Robert and his dad Bear had returned to Byrock – they’d been out shooting. We’d hoped they’d bring back a young goat for the pot, as they did last year (along with a pot full of yabbies). No such luck – they had a single rabbit and a couple of meaty drumsticks from a feathered beast.

Regarding Bear, he’s seventy three years old, I never once saw him sh1t in the woods and he’s not a large burly-shouldered hairy man, so from a personal point of view, modesty forbade me from asking the obvious question. I figured it best to leave the root of his moniker a well kept secret, to avoid embarrassment all round.

We spent a little more time round the camp as more people arrived – kicking the footy, playing cricket and bocce etc, though I am personally more your song and dance man these days, than midday sun sportsman. We sat around the fire, Det Ex-Butcher cooked up a few pretty decent meals in the camp ovens and Mark and Tristan played a few decent tunes on their guitars, with Tristan even throwing in bit of harmonica on Heart of Gold.

Tristan is a work mate of Mark’s and a friendly but quiet sort of bloke. He had a great rig set up in his Prado and seemed to keep things in fine order – which is at odds with his penchant for drinking rum.

The brother of Mark’s girlfriend goes by the name of Adam and he too lobbed among us on the Wednesday, rolling up in a finely turned out Landcruiser ute, complete with a ‘Murdoch-green-canvas canopy’ on the back and satisfied looking dog, Chevy in the passenger’s seat.

Adam is ex-Navy and he’s a nuggetty and interesting bloke to talk to – he’s a very independent hombre and I like his style. He tends to approach things in a very different manner to the way I see them.

We took another trip to Bourke Bowling Club on Wednesday, had a few bets on the horses and played the pokies again. This time Mark, Tristan, Det Ex-Butcher and myself threw in fifty bucks each and dragged out six hundred. We scored a pie each from the bakery and headed home again.

Next to turn up is a bloke I’ll call Beardy, mainly because that’s what I called him then, and I’m not sure that I ever heard his actual name. Beardy was older than the other blokes and a career policeman – but you’d never have picked that, in his Parramatta footy jumper and near constant laughter. Both of which stand testament to a good sense of humour.

Mark kept playing country music in his car while around camp, with great enthusiasm – I loved it but the others were not quite so fond, though Brad Paisley seemed to strike a chord. At one stage, while Mark showered, Det Ex-Butcher seized the opportunity and put on the Kings of Leon, or some such nonsense – Mark came roaring back and ripped the offending CD from his dash – “No! This is not Byrock music. Byrock music is country music, now who’s is this?”

He’s a passionate man if nothing else.

The Friday dawned with great expectations for me – a few of my long time, very good mates were due to arrive.

Remarkably, when they arrived, we were in the pub!

Dean drove up from Sydney with our old mate Dave, who’d flown in from Adelaide for the trip, and they arrived first.

I’ve been mates with Dean since we were both teenagers – he used to date my sister – they broke up but Dean and I didn’t – sure we’ve had our lean times over the years but we’re still the best of friends. Dean grew up directly across the road from Mark and the two have been best mates since they could walk. Dean used to sell toilets and has never liked beer or smoked – he drinks bourbon, gin and Malibu, and doesn’t swear. About ten years ago he married my favourite girl, which inspired me to move to Darwin. They now have two great boys and she looks after him a treat- and we’re still the very best of mates.

Dave was brought up in an adjacent suburb to myself, Dean, Mark and Lloydy (who showed up later that day), and we all went to Busby High School (or Busby Jail, as they called it in those days – now James Busby High, Ha!). Dave lost his father as a young bloke and lost direction for a short while because of it. He left school early and drifted for a while. He remains to this day about the most knowledgeable bloke I know – he is extremely well read with an infinite diversity of interests. In fact, he discussed the German soccer league with Andra (the young barmaid) for an hour or so – naming teams and individual players, as well as great German players of the past and the drafting process of specific third-grade teams. The bloke’s general knowledge is astounding! He was doing some youth work about a decade ago and fell in love with a nice chick from Adelaide, moved there and now they have three kids.

Our old mate Lloydy was the next arrival – he is sometimes known as the Spaz, based upon his individual idiosyncrasies. I had only spoken to Lloydy once in the last three or four years – he lobbed at the pub and we picked up where we’d left off. It’s a great comfort to have mates like that – no bitching about regular calls and visits etc – just good mates who enjoy each other’s company when circumstances permit. He’s a great fun bloke the old Spaz and we have a million laughs – generally taking the micky out of each other, or whoever else happens to be around at the time. He’s a great footy and cricket fan and follows them religiously, yet he has absolutely no idea about either!

Mark’s mate Dave also showed up as a late starter – but he’s a Souths supporter, so the less said about him, the better.

We were sitting out the front of the pub, some drinking, some reading the paper and some smoking – Mark was in a big steel chair with his back to the car park, when a landcruiser ute pulls in, runs right up to us and tips Mark’s chair with the bullbar – The Boxer had arrived!

He’s a cheeky b@stard The Boxer, and is married to Dean’s sister. He leaps out with a fun-filled mischievous grin plastered across his face. ‘How ya goin’ Boys?’

He’s built like a skinned rabbit and is game as Ned Kelly and a sh!t-stirrer from way back. I went away shooting with The Boxer and his dad once, down at Cathcart, where his Nan lives – as we prepared to depart, he noticed that his mum had hard-boiled a few eggs for her salad work-lunch the next day – Boxer swapped them for raw-ones before we left.

The Boxer brought a mate with him – a floppy looking bloke in a silly looking, faded ‘Australia’ bucket hat and shorts.

‘G’day – I’m Puddles’

My initial impression of Puddles was that he was like a large puppy, with too-big paws and gangly legs – barrelling all round the territory, sniffing and p1issing and likely at any time, to come up behind you and cannon into the back of your knees, bringing you both down, then licking your face, with a friendly grin on his snout.

In fact, I don’t think my opinion has changed too much – he’s a fun fella to have around, but I think if you give him too much lead, he’ll have you in playful strife before you know what’s happened.

The last few days tend to run into one another, with different splinter groups heading off and doing their own thing. Ex-Butcher and I played a long round of darts for a while and Andra, the young barmaid joined us, at the encouragement of Pete, her boss. At one early stage, Pete sold me a twenty-five dollar souvenir singlet for ten bucks, he also distributed souvenir pens, stickers and keyrings among the boys totally free of charge. I told you – he’s a savvy guy this bloke. Free advertising for his establishment, far and wide! (But a genuine, dinky di good bloke as well – he gets nothing out of shouting us the odd beer – that’s just his nature)

I spoke to nearly everyone who entered the pub over a week and a half – but a fella can’t remember all the fellas that he meets. So I’m sure the trainer of champion dishlickers from Coolabah, and the freshly groomed ex-long-haired, frill bearded local bloke, as well as the solid fella perched at the bar’s end, would take no offence that I don’t recall the names of all the chaps I chanced to meet during that period, and will not hold this against me when next I visit.

The pub had a four wheel drive ‘bash’ come through on Friday night – all camping at the grounds behind the pub. I got back to find that some knob had parked his truck right up next to my gear. I stopped, then parked right next t o him and proceeded to spread my gear back out in front of his car, as his family in their big tent adjacent all stood and watched. I then took a beer and headed over to our fire, where all the boys were sitting. Someone asked me if I was gonna move my camp – I said ‘Nah – F… ‘em – apparently they don’t mind snoring over there’ (I’m told I snore when I sleep, but I think this is all just foul gossip and slander).

‘But the bloke’s parked right on top of you’

I said again ‘F*** him – I’ll give him something to think about for a while’

Then one of the blokes sitting round our fire said ‘Sorry mate – that was me who parked on top of you. I thought it was abandoned’

I thought it was just us around the fire – I had no idea they were there!

He says jokingly “Don’t worry, I won’t pack up your stuff and take it with me in the morning”

I felt like lecturing him on the subject of things that don’t belong to you. If you didn’t buy it, if you didn’t put it there, then don’t frigging presume somebody left it there for you to take! If it doesn’t strictly belong to you – leave the blo0dy thing alone! I know a bloke who found a crystal-blue driving light cover the same way, just the other day.

I moved my stuff closer to the other boys anyway – like I was gonna do all along.

Some of these young blokes, like Boxer and Puddles (and Det Ex-Butcher on his Fourex Golds) start their drinking at about 7am – way too early for me.

On Saturday we all took another trip to Bourke and the Bowlo – for bets on the Epsom (which half the blokes cleaned up on, simply because the winner had ‘Rock’ in his name, like ByROCK!)

Eight of the guys went out and played lawn bowls, drinking in the sun for four hours, some stayed inside and backed horses and some played the pokies. I got a second, third and then fourth on the horses, then went and gave the pokies a rattle with Ex-Butcher. We threw in fifty each and took out two-hundred a piece.

Dean’s cheap boss insists he drives a gas-only car – for budget reasons – and it was low on fuel, so Dean decided to drive his car to Bourke to fill him up. All that achieved was getting Dean breath-tested by the local cops and we discovered that there was no gas for sale in Bourke on weekends. If there was no gas at Nyngan on Monday (a public holiday) Dean and Dave were in for a tow.

On the way back from Bourke, the sun was setting and Boxer and Puddles were sleeping in the back seat, with Lloydy in between. I was keeping a keen eye out for roos, because Dean is half blind but refuses to wear the glasses he has been prescribed. We’re doing a hundred and ten down the Mitchell, heading south and I ring the warning bell about ten miles from Byrock – ‘Loogout mate, up here on the right’

There was a buck roo standing tall – as we got closer he took off across the road, Dean dived on the stoppers, but not too hard and Roo-Boy looked over his shoulder, turned, did a Jarryd Hayne, a pirouette, stepped the other way, then turned again and ultimately shot off in the direction from whence he came. We’d all but stopped dead by then, and Puddles woke with a start, due to the inertia – Boxer continued to snore. He’s like a camp-dog that bloke, he’ll sleep anywhere!

Things got a bit messy at the Mulga Creek that night – Dave made friends with some bloke in the same state as he – very drunk, not South Australia. They were drinking something called a Cranky Monkey or something, later referred to as Spank-The-Monkey – made from Kaluah, Banana Vok and milk – tastes just like a banana smoothy. They went to the toilet together, deep in conversation and Dave, finishing first and continuing to explain his point, stepped down from the trough, stumbled and reached for the locked cubicle door for support. The door wasn’t locked, it flew open, Dave flew in and smashed his eyebrow on the porcelain receptacle. His eye was swollen and the lid split open and bleeding profusely.

It needed stitching but we were eighty kilometres from the nearest hospital and no one could drive, so Gloria, being an ex-nurse, patched him up the best she could – and it was a fine job too. Dave was more concerned about telling the missus than bearing any long lasting scars. I told him I envied him such a battle scar – and he sheepishly pointed out that there was no heroics in falling off the p!ss-trough and into the sh!tter – he’s a very funny man under all circumstances.

In the end his missus was just glad he was alright and had a good time. After the weekend, he SMS’ed me apologising for acting the fool, said he thought he’d grown out of it (he’d done similar things in his youth). I said ‘Mate – no apologies required – that’s what these weekends are all about – cutting loose, relaxing, doing whatever you want and not caring about the repercussions for a change. You did good’

A week later he messaged ‘Well, it only took one lawn-mowing to fall back off the wagon. Oh well, se la vie’

Late Saturday night Mark had a twinge of loneliness, guilt and missing his missus and kids, whipped up his gear and did a runner – this news spread among the boys with great regret and disappointment but a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. (Of course we all displayed the required amount of sympathy for the poor wretch…)

Sunday was NRL Grand Final day and before he left, apparently Mark had put his brother-in-law Adam in for an early morning trip to Bourke, to pick up a new wide-screen TV to put up in the beer garden. Lucky mongrel got to spend a few hours of quality time, alone with Jani, who tagged along with him.

We all arrived at the pub at about eleven and mainly sat out the back beer garden, playing bocce and chatting, while Pete and Ken proceeded to mount the new widescreen on top of the external hotwater service. There were huge reflection problems until they secured a shade-cloth cover and then a huge umbrella contraption to work in unison.

Eighty people from another car bash turned up as expected, organised by the Dubbo cops, and created a great atmosphere for the GF.

Most of us were disappointed that the Eels eventually went down, but delighted in the rampaging game played by big Fui Fui!

After we retreated to the campfire once more, Tristan and Det Ex-Butcher finally made the most of Mark’s absence and blasted heavy metal music for all to hear. The only song I remember is by some stunted little, mentally challenged lad yelping that ‘You want it all, but you can’t have it…..’

It had been a long couple of weeks and most of us were in bed by about nine thirty that night.

I slept like a log in my swag that last night – except when I woke up – thinking it was five am and I had to get out of bed and go to work – I opened my eyes to see the full moon and stars and realised it was only eleven thirty and I still had two days of holidays left. How great is that?

A little before seven am, Boxer and Puddles pulled up next to my swag, we shook hands and said goodbye – then disappeared in a plume of dust, heading south. I got up, packed my gear and said goodbye to Adam – the other blokes had already left, besides Dean, Dave and Lloydy.

We all shook hands, gave a bit of a muck-around hug and a chuckle (to cover the true emotion of the moment), then I strapped on the seat belt and headed for the dirt track to Bree.

Twenty metres in and I saw a roo heading for the bush – I needed to be vigilant. There were plenty more roos and a myriad of birdlife but only one had a close call. He came spearing out of the gidgee scrub on my right hand side, I applied the anchors but he kept coming, realised his predicament and tried to change directions at the last second. I think he went down on his hip, but those big back thumping legs were still going a hundred to the dozen, trying to get a toe-hold in the dirt. He eventually did, avoided my back wheels and shot off back into the bush. Ahh – you’ve gotta love Australia.

I filled up for the last time at Brewarrina and headed for Goondiwindi. I really enjoyed the experience as I cruised along between Walgett and Moree, listening to Kenny Chesney’s ‘The Road and The Radio’ CD. I had to stop several times due to loss of concentration and fatigue. At one stage, while I was looking for a place to pull over safely, it appeared to me that someone else had their hand on the steering wheel. It was a combination of a fresh suntanned hand, covered in bulldust, with the sunshine directly above shining upon it – as well as being tired. Blo0dy dangerous and scary just the same. I pulled over directly and slept for ten minutes then got out and walked around for a while before resuming the drive.

 

The shower at Goondiwindi was superbly appreciated, I then bought some Red Rooster from the drive through, watched some telly, slept like an angel and drove home the next day.

Not much time to reflect on the weeks before, my oldies were waiting at my place, visiting from Sydney and I had to get up at five the next morning and go to work…..

 

 

Upper Coomera Cabs – (19.3.2009)

Friday night Johnny used the ‘automated cab call system’ to hasten the arrival of my lift home. This was midnight – I called them back on my mobile over an hour later and finally got a lift home (5 minutes away – 2, as the crow flies) – arrived at 1:40am and stupidly watched the rest of ‘The Last Action Hero’, before going to bed.

Saturday was another good barbie day around Kerrie and John’s – however, by midnight I was once again set to go home. I called the cab (on my mobile – since I had lost confidence in the automated cab call system after the previous night’s debacle).

50 minutes later, after standing out the front for 20 minutes waiting, I called them again. “Okay – a priority mark has now been attached to your call – they’ll be there shortly!”

I rang them again in half an hour’s time “Where is my cab?”

“…..sorry – what’s that address again?”

‘MACDONALD AVENUE!     M…..A…..C…..D…….’

‘Sorry – there’s no call for that address…..’

So after a lengthy explanation of the recent events, I was kindly advised that there was now a priority put on my call – though she added – do not wait more than 15 minutes before you call me back, if nothing arrives!

Beauty.

A Taxi van rounds the bottom corner and I begin to head for it – though this turns out to be dropping off the neighbours across the road (at around 1:30) – I head to hijack the b@stard anyway, when another cab-van pulls into our driveway. The ‘all or nothing’ principle at work again.

I leap in with great enthusiasm, for I am now beyond my best and am looking very much forward to collapsing into my king-size comfy bed which awaits only streets away.

The bloke says “WWWW – where are you going mate – cccc cause I don’t know the area?”

I said ‘Just turn left at the end here….’

(The end of MacDonald street is but 30 metres away and is bounded by a park and strategically placed water-overflow dam)

Now, I can’t swear that I heard the tyres squeal, though I do know that the accelerator was hard pressed to the floor, as I tried to clip in my seatbelt.

We roared off and surprisingly made the turn.

I said easy mate, it veers to the left just up here – though my advisement met apparently deaf ears – for he gunned it again, just as we approached the bend.

I chatted to him regarding the poor cab service and he kept muttering something about Surfers Paradise and better fares.

I quickly realised that the dude was taken to involuntary intermittent muscle spasms, such that he spoke staccato style and revved the engine likewise! The affliction seemed to possess him most of all as we approached corners, when the engine would roar and, being forced back in my seat by the sudden acceleration, I would reach for the panic strap. His disposition appeared unperturbed by my concern and he continued to rave about the bountiful streets of Surfers.

For my own amusement, I continued to press my automatic garage opener at regular intervals throughout the trip – in hope that I might happen on a familiar frequency and open someone’s treasure trove to the admiration of some local opportunistic young buck (hopefully without that stupid screwy haircut, which seem to be all the fashion with such whippersnappers these days).

I finally made it home in one piece and my mate shot off like a rocket, headed for the very near corner – and possibly then onto the riches that are Surfers Paradise.

Personally, given the symptoms presented, I would have speculated Creutzfelt-Jacob disease, however I now suspect the bloke most likely suffers from your garden variety Parkinson’s, tourette’s or cerebral palsy. Though as happy as I was to catch his cab, I never felt at ease – even in the back streets at some ungodly hour. Maybe the bloke was just having fun with another late-night drunk – but his driving style scared the bejesus outta me – I think I’ll take to driving or sleeping over from now on.

Some old random interview someone gave me, back when MySpace was a thing……

Whats the full name of the person you last sent an sms to?

Mark Kenneth Waddell

Last thing you ate?

a Barbecue Shape

Are you failing any classes?

Nut

Do you remember who you liked this time three months ago?

The local barmaid

Is there anyone in the room with you?

Nup

What was the last thing you laughed really hard about?

My 4yr old niece telling me that I already know that frogs are green and toads are brown and calling me a funny nut!

Are you someone who worries too often?

Purposefully not

Do you currently hate someone?

Nahh.

Do you currently like anyone?

The beautiful girl on the train today – all girls should look like that!

Could you go out in public looking like you do now?

Absolutely

Will you get married?

I’ll have to run that past the girl on the train

When/ why was the last time you smiled?

Today when sexy-bike-chick on the station blew a tyre (instead of me!)

Does anyone like you?

I really don’t think so – but it’s just a matter of time

Who woke you up this morning?

The bloody alarm – had a job interview – which I got

When was the last time you were sad?

Dunno

When is the next time you’ll hug someone?

Probly tomorrow

Wearing any jewelry?

8 grands worth – ring and necklace – gold & diamonds, which I designed…

Are you happy?

Yes 🙂

Are people annoying?

Don’t blo0dy start me!

Where were you last night?

In bed?

Has anyone ever sang to you?

Taylor Swift – about 2 weeks ago – Dear Stephen…

If someone were to tell you they like you right now, would you care?

I’d be surprised – it’s 10:30 on a Monday night

It’s 4 in the morning, your phone rings:

I realise that at about 9:30 am the next morning

Where did you get the shirt you are wearing?

Darwin

Do you think a lot of people think bad things about you?

Probably – but the question is rather, do I give a F?

How late did you stay up last night?

11

Do you think a lot before you go to bed?

Counting down the days till I win Lotto

Have you ever drove someone else’s car?

Driven? Of course.

When was the last time you cried?

1989

Is your hair up?

Yep – it’s an inch long

Do you think you are an argumentative person?

Do you?!

Have you ever hugged someone named Joe?

No – and if he tried, I’d argue with him!

How did you feel when you woke up today?

Tired as a bastard!

Who was the last person you hugged?

Probably Taliah

What was the last movie you watched in theaters?

Gran Tarino – ya gotta love Clint!

Do you believe every thing you hear?

Shit yeah – why would anybody lie?

What was the last beverage you drank?

Jim Beam Rye and Coke

Have you ever finished taking a shower and realize that there are no dry towels?

What a random and stupid question – heaven forbid, use a damp towel!

Do you ever write/draw on windows that are fogged up?

Only on other people’s cars

If you were married, and your spouse’s parents became ill, would you let them move into your home?

I understand there are many suitable and pleasant facilities out there – it’ll be like living in a resort!

Do you need to feel needed?

No – though it’d be nice

What do you notice more, somebody’s eyes or smile?

Usually the eyes – though a smile also makes a huge impression

Did you actually have a cookie jar?

I don’t even have cookies!

Do you ignore people when you’re mad/upset with them?

At times I try hard to but usually cave in very early.

What’s worse, having someone mad or disappointed in you?

Disappointed.

Have you ever gotten up early the next morning to do homework or study?

Too many times to count

Do you honestly believe that good things come to those who wait?

No – you have to make things happen (unless you are one of the blessed and chosen few)

Do you think that knowing when and how you’re going to die would ruin your life?

Of course

Have you ever seen a dead body?

No, other than tv.

Are you a mama’s child or a daddy’s child?

I’m my own bloke Ever been to a bonfire party?

I’m the king of bonfire parties!

Would you live with someone without marrying them?

Have done many times

Do you like Chinese food?

Best thing they ever did!

Are you mean?

Only to Chinese people

Did you speak to your father today?

Yes I did – he’s not Chinese

What would you do if you found out your 1st love found a new love?

Feel sorry for her current husband!

Have you ever liked someone you knew you shouldn’t?

Indeed Do you always answer your phone?

No!

What is on your bed right now?

Bed stuff, clothes and four pillows

When was the last time you threw up?

A long time ago!

What were you doing at 8 am this morning?

Getting out of bed.

What were you doing 30 minutes ago?

Filling out the first half of this marathon bastard quiz

What is the last thing you said aloud?

See ya

What is the best ice cream flavour?

Chocolate – this shouldn’t even be a question

What are you wearing right now?

Shorts & Tshirt

Have you bought any new clothing items this week?

Yes – today I bought a sexy new white silk tie and a pair of size 13 retardo Ronald Mc Donald clown shoes for my interview!

When was the last time you ran?

1984

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Where ever Train-chick lives

Who is the last person you sent a comment/​​message on myspace ?

Catley

Ever ridden on a roller coaster?

Yes.

Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?

Depends if I’m driving or not

Do you have any friends on myspace that you actually hate?

Haha I don’t think so.

Biggest annoyance in your life right now?

Fkn Telstra!

Are you allergic to anything?

Yep – Fkn Telstra!

Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?

None – maybe soon to be my size 13, square-towed clown shoes?

Are you jealous of anyone?

Probly

Is anyone jealous of you?

Maybe a few long-grassers?

How many kids do you want when you’re older?

A couple would do

How old will you be turning on your next birthday?

42

Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile ?

Not anymore

Have you ever sent a text to the wrong person?

Yes – a confidential text to my old boss regarding my secret resignation, which was meant to go to a mate

Would you rather sleep with someone else or alone ?

If you actually mean ‘Sleep’, then alone, otherwise…

Will next friday be a good one?

All Friday’s are good ones!

Ever tasted your own tears?

No – I’m a Tigers supporter!

Do you know anyone that smokes weed?

No – only ganja

How has the week been?

Not bad – I got a job with a financial institution, in the middle of the greatest global financial crisis the world has ever seen.

Pink or green ?

Straight

Would you like to put any night on repeat, and live it forever?

Like Keith Richards, I did that for nearly 10 years – I’m happy to move on now.

Do you like to take naps?

No – though I wouldn’t be outta place in Mexico

When was the last time you dyed your hair?

As I said before – I’m straight

Do you miss anyone?

My hairdresser

Where is the person you’ve fallen hardest for?

Asleep no doubt

Have you ever regretted kissing someone?

Surprisingly, yes I have (and she wasn’t my hairdresser)

Did you kiss anyone today? No – although I’m sure Train-chickie was hoping I would

Will next Saturday be a good one?

Saturday’s are almost as good as Fridays!

How old do you look?

Apparently a lot younger than I am, which doesn’t really gel with how old I feel!

Do you think you have made anyone happy recently?

I have

What is the first thing you usually do in the morning?

Have a wizz

Name one thing someone thinks about you thats not true?

That I got my nickname Whirly from doing helicopters on a country bar

Do you have any text messages that you don’t want other people to read?

Yes I do – do you wanna know what they are?

Have you ever asked a boy for advice?

Nor am I a paedophile

Where was the last place you went besides your house?

The Station

Did your night suck last night ?

Nah – I just watched telly

Have you ever talked on the phone in the shower/ bathtub?

no

Would you kiss anyone you’ve texted today ?

Yes

Are you dating the person you text last?

No – he’s taken – and I’m straight!

Do you think relationships are hard?

I think it’s becoming increasingly difficult for straight single blokes to pick up sexy blonde chicks in cotton summer dresses riding on trains in Queensland!

My sister and niece Taliah had tickets to see Taylor Swift in her first ever Australian concert, in Brisbane 2009. They surprised me with a ticket to join them as my Chrissy present….

Taylor (15.3.2009)

I went to Taylor’s first Australian concert, at the Tivoli in Brisbane. I’d never been to the venue before and relied on TomTom to get me there. We rounded the corner and there were atleast a thousand people lined up, three abreast down the street, around the corner and around the next corner! I was astounded – there were punters of all ages, though predominantly teenage-early 20’s girls.

The place was a sellout, no alcohol, no smoking and the room was absolutley buzzing with excitement. I mused to myself how Taylor could not mistake where she was, with the repeated chant of “TAYLA, TAYLA, TAYLA!” as opposed to the American accented pronunciation of her name.

For a young girl, she rocked the place very professionally but still showed signs of the teenage girlie when she spoke of her new love of Koalas – it was great to see she hasn’t lost that. She played the crowd like a veteran and it was the loudest crowd I have ever experienced at any venue for any artist! It was truley deafening – much thanks to the chick behind me with the psycho-death squeal which ripped through my skull every minute or so and nearly caused me to pass out where I stood!

Taylor had some interesting tricks and surprises and put on a great performance. Her vocals were sometimes drowned out by the crowd – most of whom knew every lyric to every song and sung them back with great gusto.

I have heard some people suggest that Taylor can’t sing – but if you were game enough to utter such a leaning among the crowd that night, I doubt you’d get out alive. The crowd went absolutely berserk and loved not only every word but every movement and especially some of Taylor’s posed looks of attitude. She’s a remarkably beautiful girl and seems to be in complete command of her powers.

Having said that, I have declared this concert to be the last of the standing room only, mosh-pit concerts for old Stevie. After lining up outside and standing inside for hours on end – I have seldom been so glad to finally sit down as when I made it back to the car that night. But then, I’m prone to laziness and hadn’t worn shoes for four months. 😀

Great show though – I like Taylor even more now than I did before.

ADIOS DARWIN 

A SHIFT FROM DARWIN TO THE GOLD COAST (15.12.2008)

The less said, the better – about packing a five-bedroom house full of furniture into a twenty foot shipping container, during the Top End’s prime, roaring Build-up!

Suffice it to say that Satan has few surprises left for me when I eventually reach Hades. But for my dear old Dad, I’d be sipping tequila with The Horned Beast as we speak, for it surely would have killed me without his help (and bourbon is too nice a drink to have down there).

So after five solid days of hard yakka, it was midday and we were in the driveway, about to reverse and for me to say goodbye to nine years of good friends and great times. As I set up the cabin of the Cruiser – CD’s in place, phone, camera, wallet etc within easy reach….

Dad says ‘For f*ck sake, just get moving! Circulate some air – it’s a-friggin-million degrees in here! Jesus.’

The old ’84 Cruiser has no aircon – just one of her many endearing qualities which my usually placid and reserved father was yet to fully appreciate.

I fired the old girl up and off we went. Surprisingly, I was glad to finally get going, and never looked back. I was all but wrecked from the previous five days of packing.

First stop the Caltex garage a few kilometres out of town – to fill her up and check the tyres. Since I used all my rope in the container, I had none left to tie the second spare tyre to the roof-rack. Instead, it was jammed into the back, with all my other gear. So Dad checks all the tyres – (I had a torn pec-muscle from an earlier tune-up incident) – but he couldn’t get to the spare in the back, and the spare underneath the car was upside-down, with the asphalt ninety eight degrees and too hot to lie on for too long.

‘She’ll be right Dad – don’t worry about it’.

So we filled her up, grabbed a couple of ice-cold Gatorades and headed south.

We reached Knott’s Crossing Resort in Katherine in the afternoon. Though the water was luke-warm, I struggle to recall a more rewarding surge than went through me as I plunged into the resort pool that day! Finally a chance to relax and unwind – the weightless feeling of floating around, a gift to weary limbs. We drank cold beer and dined at the restaurant that night – Dad had the Barra and I went the seafood/Balmain Bug creamy pasta. They were both superb – (as you’d expect of seafood three hundred kilometres from the nearest coastline!).

If you’ve ever used an electric turbo hair-dryer on full blast, you’ll have some idea of the buffeting sensation of tearing down the Stuart Highway, mid-December, windows at full scoop, doing a hundred and twenty clicks! The roaring crosswind howling in your ears and circulating the cabin like a fan-forced oven.

We had Tennant in our sights when I heard an unnerving ‘PSSSHHHH!!!’

‘What the f@ck was that?!’

‘Kill the music. Have we got a flat?’

Then the wheel starts shuddering “Yep”.

‘Find a flat spot to pull up’.

So I pull over and it’s the front passenger’s shot to sh!t, a hundred and fifty K’s from TC.

I drag out the hydraulic jack from under the seat, tearing my finger in the process, only to find that it won’t fit safely under the car. So I dragged out two cold beers ‘Well, we may as well have these while we fix it”.

Into the back and out with the Hi-Lift jack and I crank her up. Dad changes the tyre with the one from the back of the car (which had been sitting on my garage floor for some five years after a previous repair job). It’s got about 2 pounds in it and sits flat under the weight of the truck.

‘You got a pump?’

‘Indeed I do! Henry gave me this little compressor for my birthday a few years ago – I’ve never tried it’.

I dragged him out from the plastic wrapper and plugged him onto the cigarette lighter.

Nothing.

Wriggled him all around. Nothing.

‘Don’t worry – I’ve got this old manual foot pump as well’

So we hooked that up and it pumps down a beaut, but takes two minutes to suck back up to the top for another pump. While the Oldman persists with this thing, I hop into the cabin and stuff around with my old ciggie lighter – then the compressor kicks into gear. Woohoo! So we hook him back up again.

After half an hour, it pumps up to a reasonable looking pressure. Off we go. About ten kilometres to Renner Springs. I take it very slowly.

I pull into the garage – they have no tyre guy, or tyres, for that matter.

‘It’s best ya’s try for Tennant Creek’ (145K’s away!) – this is the educated advice from the local proprietor.

We pump up all tyres to the correct pressure and chance our arm. Eighty to ninety Kph, through beautiful but desolate country, in the setting sun. It looked like a picture in the fading desert light, but no one has ever painted one so beautiful.

We rolled into Three Ways to get some ice for the beer – I said ‘Check the front end ‘cause there’s something drastically wrong here’

A quick look in the dark and she appeared all okay – so we headed off for TC. I held grave reservations about our chances of making the 24ks in the dark, with the steering wheel shuddering violently every metre. 78kph was max speed and seemed to hit a harmonious rhythm with the shuddering.

Silence all the way, driving on a razor’s edge, then with great relief, lights come into view and we rolled into the motel driveway. I booked in at the office and Dad says “Feel this”.

I touched ‘the spare’ and it was scorching hot and had a rounded profile, like a bike tyre, not flat like a car’s is meant to be. I’m surprised we made it to the room on that thing!

We had a swim and a couple of beers – no tea that night, though I ended up finding a tin of tuna in the esky (remnants from my fridge), which I ate with a hotel teaspoon, sitting on my bed. Chunky tuna in brine that is, not one of your ever-popular, modern hom0sexual varieties, complete with all manner of spicy enhancements!

I also brought half a dozen bottles of Red along, in a green Woolies specially partitioned alco-bag, jammed in the back, with the spare tyre – but realised I’d forgotten to bring a cork-screw. Being a man of ingenuity, I thought I might screw in a wood screw that I could extract from my rented room, then grab it with a pair of pliers to extract the cork! However, when I grabbed a bottle to take into the room, I discovered that the heat in the car, had been so intense, that the cork had popped through the top plastic advertising and was three-quarters out already! I just grabbed it with my fingers and plucked it out the rest of the way.

Next morning, with two new Desert Duellers and 460 bucks later, we were once again full of confidence and off again, headed for the border.

(Apparently tyres have a shelf life of about five years, before they start to deteriorate, regardless. Who knew?)

A couple of beers at the Camooweal Hotel, a night at an Isa motel, a few at Hoges’ Walkabout Creek Pub, one at Kynuna’s Blue Heeler and a night spent in Winton after schooies and a punt at the North Gregory. We now found ourselves booking into a fine little motel at Tambo, early in the arvo.

After a swim and a shower, we walked to the pub, where we troubled a very bored (and average looking) pommy back-packer impersonating a barmaid.

We ordered schooners and she gave us middies, I asked her to empty the public phone (as it was inoperable and we were out of mobile range), she grunted several syllables but was largely uninterested in rendering assistance. She stood at the opposite side of the horseshoe bar, watching telly and generally ignoring the patrons (us).

‘Excuse me – do you have any souvenir stubbie holders or T-shirts?’   (I owed a birthday present).

“Nah”

Ten minutes later…

“Two schooners please – oh and do you have a bag of chips or something in the pub at all?’

‘We’ve got one bag of pistachio nuts left, or a Cherry Ripe?’

There’s one dusty old bag of stale looking pistachio nuts hanging there – I’m guessing since 1978, before anyone knew what the f#ck pistachio nuts were! And they’ve remained there since, because no one could read the contents description through the f@cking accumulated dust on the baggage.

‘Nah – don’t worry about it thanks’

Back she headed, for the Bold and Beautiful – we drained our glasses and headed for the door and the next pub up the road, which was welcoming and friendly, with that familiar yet unique bush-pub atmosphere. I ordered a bourbon with my schooner and the barmaid gave me a rum – but that’s okay – everyone in Western Queensland drinks Bundy, and she was a nice chick. On my next shout she even asked me if I wanted another rum? – “Love one Sweetheart, tah”

Hunger got the better of us, so we eventually adjourned back to the motel where the old lady ran a small in-house restaurant, unlicensed and a little pokey, but I had the best 1kg – yes, that’s right – 1kg of rump-steak that a hungry traveller ever wrapped his lips around! This was cattle-country and she had the best in town – and I ate about half-a-cow’s worth of it – in home-made gravy!

We were running on one meal a day because it was too blo0dy hot to eat while on the move. And that steak was so soft, tender, flavoursome and totally unfinishable – even for an experienced knife-and-fork man such as myself, that it will go down in memory as the best of all time! It came with vegies and salad and I recommend everyone visit Tambo at least once in their lives – I love that little town.

Surprisingly, it was about this stage that I began to feel reluctant to end our journey. I suspect it was because that would declare an end to my nine year Top End adventure. The start of a new chapter but underlining the pain of parting with the friends I had now really left behind. Perhaps I’m still in denial, but I believe I will keep in touch with those guys and gals, and see them again in the near future. However, the desire to reach the final destination had very much waned for me by this stage. I love the unforseen challenges and I love the mateship – but in the end, I love my family most and realise that this is probably where I should really be, so I don’t regret my decision to move on down among them.

The next night, we planned to stay at Miles but discovered all motels in town were booked out to workers on some gas pipeline – the same went for Chinchilla, before finally grabbing a vacant room at Dalby for our final night on the road.

It belted down raining that night and all was cool.

We lobbed at my brother’s place at Coombabah the following afternoon – finally dived into a cool pool, and played with the kids. It was great to be surrounded by family once more. (I hadn’t realised that this had been the longest my parents had spent apart in their 46 year marriage – I thanked them both, though not enough).

I ended up renting a four bedroom house at Upper Coomera on about the 15 December, then drove to Sydney for Chrissy with the Olds, then back again with a load of my sister’s gear to Queensland before New Years.

And here I am on January 16, sleeping on a mattress on my floor, no gear in the house. My trusty container, which took so much effort to pack, sits patiently in a transport yard at Darwin – awaiting the floods, which cover much of the NT and western QLD, to subside. The transport master advises me that it’ll be another two or three weeks at best, before it leaves.

Upon his inquiry, I told my mate in Sydney about the current status – he replied via SMS – “That’s a disaster”.

I said in my experienced and relaxed Territory tone “Nah – that’s Darwin”.

At some stage Matt Flynn, a local Darwin fishing writer who publishes The Northern Australia Fish Finder book every couple of years, was trying to get an outdoors magazine up and running. He called for contributors and since I’d just returned from Corroboree – I gave him this….

 

Corroboree Billabong Houseboats 

Of the many billabongs that abound in this great land of ours, I have found but two worthy of special mention. The first one, with which every Australian will be familiar, can be found off the Diamantina River in central Queensland, around Kynuna. It is now known as the Combo Waterhole and when I ventured there, was little but a muddy waterhole, oddly supplying much needed water to Brahman cattle and not sheep! Its notoriety was gained in the 1890’s when a shearer involved in the great strike (which later lead to the formation of the Labor Party at Barcaldine), drowned in the waterhole.

By chance a Sydney solicitor visiting friends at Dagworth Station nearby heard the story and penned a few lines describing the incident. He set the lines to an old Scottish jingle called Craigilee and in 1895 at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton, the song was performed for the first time – the lawyer was Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson and the song “Waltzing Matilda”!

The other notable billabong is one with which all Territorians seem familiar – the legendary Corroboree Billabong, off the famous Mary River. I have read reports and heard tales of Corroboree since I arrived in the Territory and it was always a place I intended to tackle. Though strangely, after nearly eight years living in Darwin, I had never been. I’ve done the Kakadu thing countless times and the Yellow Water Sunrise Cruise on ten occasions, in all sorts of seasons – I dare say I could guide and even provide the lecture by now! “That’s the white-breasted sea-eagle, it’s the second largest bird of prey in the southern hemisphere, behind Australia’s wedgetail eagle….. Over there is the Jabiru, or black-necked stork – it’s the only true stork in Australia – note the difference in eye-colour between male and female…. There is the Greater and Lesser Cattle Egret, the night heron, the cormorant, the whistling duck, the magpie goose, the flying fox and of course the spectacularly coloured Azure kingfisher…..!”

 

So, with my parents coming up from Sydney for a visit in June, I decided to do something different this time – I rang up Mary River Houseboats and booked a six-berth vessel for four days!

The friendly phone-lady explained what I would find on board and what I would need to bring along:

Supplied are two bunks, two double beds (one upstairs, one below), blankets, sheets, pillows, toilet, hot shower, 4-Burner gas stove, griller, oven, barbeque and a gas fridge.

We would need to bring towels, food, esky and ice (for 1^st day), personal insect repellent and fly spray.

Pick it up at 9:30am Tuesday and return by 4pm Friday – all very simple.

 

Corroboree is about a hundred kilometres south-east of Darwin, along the Arnhem highway. I reached Eleven Mile with my ears pinned back and the wind blowing in my face before I began going over our list of ‘Necessaries’.

“Towels! – did we bring towels?”

There was a collective eyebrow raise and an expectant look betwixt us all before we conceded that we could surely make-do with a clean tea-towel each!

Not the best start – at least we didn’t forget the beer!

We called in to the Corroboree Park Tavern to get some ice for the drinks – I sent the Old Boy in for three bags while Mum and I chatted in the car. He took a while but finally returned, loaded up the esky and off we took. Dad bragged that his superior observational skills had just that minute spared us from an ugly experience. It turns out that the lady in the Tavern directed him to the wrong fridge and he almost emerged with three large blocks of frozen pilchards, instead of the three blocks of ice!

Now I love a cold beer but would likely draw the line if they’d been floating in tepid pilchard broth all morning! Good one Dad!

The turn off for the billabong is just past the tavern, on the left hand side and consists of about 22kms of dirt road. On this occasion, it was in good general condition, though there were a few corrugated sections. No problem at all for any type of vehicle.

After a lap of the car park, looking for the office, I noticed the houseboats tied up in what seemed a ramshackle fashion against the bank. This was not really the case. There is a very practical set of steel plated wharves providing full and safe access to the boats and the little floating office. Nobby was the bloke in charge and he gave us a full run down of all the gear, including steering, motors, pumps, petrol, stove etc – this takes 10 minutes. I signed the sheet and he gave us a Next-G emergency phone – standard phones have no coverage at this stage.

Nobby pointed up the ‘river’ and said ‘You can go up there, which runs into a dead end, or you can turn left, which is the major billabong’.

We asked about a map, and they do have one on the wall, but Nobby assured us that you can’t get lost. Considering Corroboree billabong is more than twenty kilometres long, you actually can get lost if you are unobservant and inexperienced, but after a single day trip, you’ll know your way around.

‘Just reverse straight out and away you go. Do you want ice and a paper in the morning?’

We confirmed that and off we went.

 

The boats, though large, are very easy to control – the only tricky parts to remember are to compensate for the wind (there is a considerable area of flat-wall which catches the breeze) and they tend to pull-up a bit like a roadtrain. The motor is a newish four-stroke thirty horsepower outboard which gets the vessel moving at an enjoyable, though relaxed pace. The multi-hulled punt draws very little water but the momentum, together with a lack of any significant current, means that the boat will continue on its path for some time once the engine is cut. Though there is always reverse which is easily engaged, via a deft shunt of the throttle lever.

The hot shower requires an internal combustion pump to be started – this is easily accessible under a broad seat at the stern. It requires turning a switch, adjusting the choke, pulling a rope and re-adjusting the choke – it’s very easy and we found it reliable. This water is pumped from the billabong, though there is 200L? of fresh drinking water on board for other uses.

The toilet and shower are luxuriously full size – unlike those poky little things you sometimes find on boats, where you need to pull your dacks down outside and back-in crouched over!

Though I’m fairly regular, at a couple a day I can’t ever recall a better view perched upon the throne, than that enjoyed through the scenic bathroom window as you cruise the glass-like reflective pond in dawn’s early light!

The piping hot shower works a treat too – though you must then be careful of the wet marine carpet on the combined floor, if you drop your strides for the toilet.

The steering console is a standalone affair, outside on the spacious front deck, where a beautiful barbeque also resides. There is a portable CD player secured to the front of the steering console for your use. The front deck is wide and open, with a solid round plastic table and numerous school-type plastic chairs.

Both the front and rear open decks are surrounded by waist high aluminium cage with solid posts and rails. The front deck features rolled up shade-cloth suspended from the ceiling around all edges – these are unfurled when bedding down for the night. They conceal steel rods in the bottom hem and Velcro sides which are joined up all around to enclose your cosy drinking area from the millions of jealous bugs who’ll be wanting to join you. I found the shade-cloth to be a little too snugly cut in some places, possibly after shrinkage – so, as I’ve heard before, another six inches would have been better!

There is a very sturdy set of industrial type stairs leading to the top bedroom and deck – here you’ll find a comfy double bedroom with a sliding glass door, as well as a flyscreen mesh door, leading to an upper balcony. I would tip people to keep these doors locked when not in use, as after the argument and accusations, we discovered that the door can easily slide open on its own and welcome in ten billion friendly bugs, as you slurp shiraz downstairs, totally oblivious to the upstairs invasion!

We found that after a generous application of ‘Bushman’s’ heavy duty in the morning, that the bugs were no problem at all until sunset. To combat the myriad bitey night-time insects, the boats are equipped with a flouro light on a ten foot extension arm, which is unhooked and swung out away from the sitting deck, just before you drop the shades. In the absence of an internal deck light, all the bugs are attracted away from the deck area – it’s ingenious!

 

Once again comparing Combo to Corroboree – I doubt you could even float a boat in Combo and similarly, I doubt you could ever drown yourself in Corroboree. You wouldn’t have time! There are crocs in this waterhole – not the wimpy little, skinny-faced, blue-tongue-lizard-like freshwater models, these are your hefty, thick-gutted, bull-headed, nasty-natured saltwater demons! They are big and they are plentiful and they are in fine condition – they obviously know how to hunt. I’ve never seen so many crocs in the one place in all my life and certainly never so many big specimens.

The natural landscape and wildlife will blow your mind – in my opinion, better than Kakadu. We saw crocs, snakes, eagles, kites, buffalo, hundreds of thousands of assorted waterbirds, wallabies, Jabiru’s, Brolgas, turtles and of course, the spectacularly coloured azure kingfisher!

When tying up at night, I would recommend a relatively vacant area, with a tree either-side and a steep bank. There is an in-swinging gate on the bow which allows you to scan for danger, hop out and secure the ropes to a sturdy tree, before returning to safety.

The stern sports 3 rod holders set up for comfortable trolling.

Nobby appears every morning in a tinny, hand delivering any requested items from the day before – things such as Ice, newspapers, eggs, bread, fuel etc.

One morning he had two cartons of VB – said the blokes on the other boat had drank half their supply the night before, while planning their trip! Nobby said that to combat such shortfalls, he advises to plan for a carton a day for each person……then double it!

As for the fishing – I threw everything but my blo0dy tacklebox at the fish and scored nada besides a few Powertails!

 

I watched my best chance disappear below the lilies as my much loved and bragged-about green scumfrog parted ways with my leader in some kind of magic trick, not unlike a magician separating those linked silver rings!

I retrieved my line – the loop connecting the lure was still intact – and there’s some lumpy saratoga swimming around with a big rubber-frog stuck in his gob – probably also wondering how the freak that happened!

I’m guessing the light mono leader somehow caught around and slipped out of an incomplete hook-ring – I certainly never noticed any problem when tying it on.

But I’ll leave the Corroboree fishing advice to those more qualified.

I found it a superb holiday and very relaxing for anyone with a slight sense of adventure and an appreciation of our natural wonders. With just the slightest common sense, a houseboat on Corroboree Billabong is a very safe and comfortable experience and will no doubt prove an expedition never forgotten. I’d recommend it to anyone.

For the setup we had, they charged $1280 plus fuel for 4 days – it ended up costing about $1400, which included extra fuel, bread, eggs, ice, papers etc.

Contact: Mary River Houseboats – (08) 8978 8925.

 

1. Though the houseboats hardly seem to rock, I spent the following few days on and off, with a rocking sensation in my brain. We called in to the Humpty Doo pub for refreshments on the way home and the floor seemed far too hard and unforgiving – it’s a weird sensation!