( Bulldust Diary columnist/illustrator Peter Burleigh clutches his four leaf clover and prays to Aussie saint, Mother Mary MacKillop, as he jousts with a road train and dodges lead-footed Territory drivers .)
**********************************************************Getting ahead of myself. I can’t keep this diary going at the same pace as the car. It whooshes past places worth noting, so this is an out-of-synch series of flashbacks.
Apres Isa
The hills of Mount Isa are clumsy piles of iron-coloured rock, soon left behind. We’re re-enveloped by the sunbleached grasslands again. The eucalypt scrub changes to a lighter green – probably due to an iron-deficient diet. By Camooweal the land has flattened even more and the grass is a beautiful mummified silver colour. Strangely there are no dead roos on the side of the road. The cost of diesel fuel is $1.93 per litre and rising.
The NT border
The road deteriorates instantly at the border but the landscape resolutely remains the same. There is no other way to measure any difference between Queensland and the NT except the activities of the local councils. Road maintenance moves at sub-glacial speed unlike the locals who have their boots superglued to their accelerators.
Lake Eyre flood plain
This country is desolate, still and empty. Think about it and you get the feeling that when it ‘awakes’ it’ll squash you like a fly...then you notice the frequent ‘dips’ and ‘floodways’ that your car bottoms on because you’re going too fast. Finally you get it: a sign says you’re in the Lake Eyre Basin. Nought metres above sea level. If this land is waiting for anything it’s another rain event like the one we had only a few months go. It may wait another hundred years.
You sense the floods are waiting in ambush for your car to appear so they can sweep you away. It’s all in your head, surely. The evidence of violent floods is covered by grass growth but look closer the water-excavated hazards around the under-road drains. The red soil is damp. Miss-steer and you’re down in the mud and stones for the duration. Grass on the road edge is a brilliant green. There’s water somewhere and it’s watching you.Where the floodways have been washed away and repaired – and this is at least 20% of them – new pipes have been put in, big, about 700mm diameter, and often three at once.
Banka Banka
Camping at Banka Banka Homestead should feel different, because it’s not on my map. I hope I have not ceased to exist. My Camp-O-Matic camping trailer, a kind of folding bivouac tent on wheels, is stuffed with items absolutely essential to survival in the outback. I am devastated to discover I have not packed a potato masher, and suffer a serious loss of face.
Road trains roar past, towing four trailers at a time. For a hair-raising twenty minutes I am behind a wagon train which wanders across the road like a waving whip. It looks like it is about to flick off the rear trailer, and I try to work out its probable trajectory of destruction and whether it will include me.
The trees change from dwarf eucalypts to spiky acacia trees. How do they survive? Even your spit evaporates before it hits the ground. The plain looks exactly like parts of southern Africa and if I was the hallucinating kind I would have seen elephants. Fuel: $1.99 per litre and rising.
Apres Isa
The hills of Mount Isa are clumsy piles of iron-coloured rock, soon left behind. We’re re-enveloped by the sunbleached grasslands again. The eucalypt scrub changes to a lighter green – probably due to an iron-deficient diet. By Camooweal the land has flattened even more and the grass is a beautiful mummified silver colour. Strangely there are no dead roos on the side of the road. The cost of diesel fuel is $1.93 per litre and rising.
The NT border
The road deteriorates instantly at the border but the landscape resolutely remains the same. There is no other way to measure any difference between Queensland and the NT except the activities of the local councils. Road maintenance moves at sub-glacial speed unlike the locals who have their boots superglued to their accelerators.
Lake Eyre flood plain
This country is desolate, still and empty. Think about it and you get the feeling that when it ‘awakes’ it’ll squash you like a fly...then you notice the frequent ‘dips’ and ‘floodways’ that your car bottoms on because you’re going too fast. Finally you get it: a sign says you’re in the Lake Eyre Basin. Nought metres above sea level. If this land is waiting for anything it’s another rain event like the one we had only a few months go. It may wait another hundred years.
You sense the floods are waiting in ambush for your car to appear so they can sweep you away. It’s all in your head, surely. The evidence of violent floods is covered by grass growth but look closer the water-excavated hazards around the under-road drains. The red soil is damp. Miss-steer and you’re down in the mud and stones for the duration. Grass on the road edge is a brilliant green. There’s water somewhere and it’s watching you.Where the floodways have been washed away and repaired – and this is at least 20% of them – new pipes have been put in, big, about 700mm diameter, and often three at once.
Banka Banka
Camping at Banka Banka Homestead should feel different, because it’s not on my map. I hope I have not ceased to exist. My Camp-O-Matic camping trailer, a kind of folding bivouac tent on wheels, is stuffed with items absolutely essential to survival in the outback. I am devastated to discover I have not packed a potato masher, and suffer a serious loss of face.
Road trains roar past, towing four trailers at a time. For a hair-raising twenty minutes I am behind a wagon train which wanders across the road like a waving whip. It looks like it is about to flick off the rear trailer, and I try to work out its probable trajectory of destruction and whether it will include me.
The trees change from dwarf eucalypts to spiky acacia trees. How do they survive? Even your spit evaporates before it hits the ground. The plain looks exactly like parts of southern Africa and if I was the hallucinating kind I would have seen elephants. Fuel: $1.99 per litre and rising.
