Journal: 100

Last weekend I was 1200 km north of Perth in the desolate country north east of Geraldton, sheep stations once but now running cattle at maybe one beast per sq. mile; bounded on the west by the North West Coastal Hwy (and Shark Bay), on the east by the Great Northern Hwy; say 800 km south to north and 400 km west to east; traversed by only the meanest of dirt roads. Home to KSP’s Coonardoo and Neville Schute’s Beyond the Black Stump; the epic buggy journey by Daisy Bates (driven by her husband Jack, though she doesn’t say so) probably following the dry bed of the Gascoyne River, from Jigalong to Carnarvon; the last part of Robyn Davidson’s camel trek (Tracks); and home also to the trucking memoir I reviewed a little while ago, Wheel Tracks.
This is Yamaji country, though the language quoted by KSP in Coonardoo appears to be Martu, whose land is centred on Jigalong, further to the west (past Newman, on the WA map).
I had a load of cement and weldmesh for a new mine 300 km north of Carnarvon and 200 km inland. I would have gone via the little community of Gascoyne Junction but the local council stipulated otherwise. My instructions were to turn off the NWCH 5 km before the bridge and rest area at Barradale, a roadhouse that hasn’t existed these last 30 years, and my landmarks after that were to be various stations at 40-50km intervals.
At which turnoff I arrived 3.00pm Friday, having spent a considerable time persuading Milly and Gee that even in the best of circumstances I would be out of phone range for 24 hours and if they hadn’t heard from me by Sunday here were my contacts and if they couldn’t help, CALL THE POLICE.
For once, the situation on the ground was pretty much as the map said it would be. By sunset I was at a parking bay just past where my road joined the road from Gascoyne Junction and there I spent the night. Unfortunately, the rain storm threatening in that photo arrived almost as soon as I pulled up.
Within an hour of taking off in the morning, and only 16 km from the mine, or from the access road in anyway, I was bogged. Luckily, I could hear traffic on the two way and was able to get someone to come out to me. After maybe 3 hours, that guy returned with a big 4wd loader to tow me out, which he did with some difficulty. I followed him in to the mine, unloaded, and by afternoon the road had dried out enough that I didn’t have any trouble driving out.
Back to the highway – and phone service – about 4.00pm, to 15 missed messages just on the family site (Psyche has been seeing a physio who is successfully ‘rewiring’ the connections between her brain and her legs meaning she’s finding walking a bit easier). I’d phoned Gee on a borrowed satellite phone from the mine, but I was happy to let them know I’d come out ok as well.
Me: Thanks for keeping an eye out.
Gee: It’s nice to have the mild excitement!
Me: It’s fun to BE the mild excitement.
Milly: Hmm…
Dragan had a pickup for me to do in Geraldton which I knocked off on the Sunday and here I am back at home, expecting to hear that I’ll shortly be asked to do it all again [not yet].
At various places along the ‘road’ in there were signs to Mount Augustus, which seems to have come into tourist consciousness only in the last few years. It is apparently a big red rock twice the size of Uluru. At a high point on the mine access road I looked out across the plain to see in the distance a mountain towering over the horizon, and I guess that was it. Wiki says “The local Wadjari people call it Burringurrah”. At this time I am struggling with the distinction between Wadjari and Yamaji. More homework needed.
Over the course of the trip I listened to JM Coetzee’s Boyhood, which made no impression on me at all; to an international thriller by the late Melbourne crime (and MF winning) writer Peter Temple whom I discover was born and raised in South Africa; and an interesting coming of age debut, Electric and Mad and Brave by Tom Pitts, set in Hastings on Melbourne’s outer eastern fringe, and which deserves more attention than I am paying it here.
I see ‘Stuck in the Middle’ is/was a US tv series, but what I had in mind was the early 70s pop song.
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Recent audiobooks
JM Coetzee (M, SAf), Boyhood (1997)
Katie Sise (F, USA), Open House (2020) – Crime
Tom Pitts (M, Aus/Vic), Electric and Mad and Brave (2022)
Peter Temple (M, Aus/Vic), In the Evil Day (2002)
Nick Spalding (M, Eng), Logging Off (2020) – ‘Humour’ DNF What was I thinking!
Lisa Unger (F, USA), Fragile (2010) – Crime
Currently Reading
Samuel Butler (M, Eng), The Way of All Flesh (1903)
Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (M, Rus), One Billion Years to the End of the World (1977)
Stella Gibbons (F, Eng), Cold Comfort Farm (1932) – I’m enjoying it so far. Is the humour a bit forced? Maybe.
AWWC Mar. 2023
Date | Contributor | Title |
Wed 1 | Elizabeth Lhuede | Bella Guerin, From imperialistic butterfly to democratic grub |
Fri 3 | Stories FTA | Bella Lavender, Mrs Pankhurst: sonnet |
Wed 8 | Emma | Catherine Helen Spence, An Autobiography (review) |
Fri 10 | Stories FTA | Catherine Helen Spence, A week in the future (fiction extract) |
Wed 15 | Bill Holloway | Catherine Helen Spence, Clara Morison (review) |
Fri 17 | Stories FTA | Catherine Helen Spence, Clara Morison (extract) |
Wed 22 | Teresa Pitt | Agnes G. Murphy |
Fri 24 | Stories FTA | Agnes Murphy, To Aimee (poetry) |
Wed 29 | Whispering Gums | Louise Mack, The world is round |
Fri 31 | Stories FTA | Louise Mack, My valley (nonfiction) |