In the Outback Now

Red earth and rough tracks

In the Outback Now

Red earth and rough tracks

I have closed in on the Outback. Trees are becoming sparser. There’s fewer eucalypts and more acacias and casuarinas. The earth is red. I’ve had my fill of highways after two weeks. I see a short cut, a gravel road between the Kidman and Cobb Highways. The Troopie need to feel the dust.

Initially the road is gravelled. The verges are scattered with white detritus, not paper, but cotton. Huge swathes of land that was once unarable, dry and bare, is being irrigated, by huge corporations, from the muddy rivers to grow a cotton crop, where no crop should be grown. And, it looks like almond orchards between the cotton crops. Almonds, another water guzzling crop. These water hungry crops make a mockery of arid Australia, but drain the life-giving rivers. I pass a huge cotton gin, with rows of cotton bales swathed in plastic.

I stop on three diverging roads, no signs. The land is now desolate. Only one will take me to Ivanhoe and the Cobb. A Cockie (sheep farmer/worker) in a ute fortuitously pulls over and shows me the way. Not the right way unfortunately. For the next 100 kilometres or so I experience track after track that is rutted, or washed out or slick with wet clay. These roads are actually only bulldozed clay, no gravel cover, and are impassable in the wet. At least it is not raining. I may have been a little cocky (over-optimistic) for a quick drive .

The endless plains now have sparse low growth but support a healthy population of kangaroos and emus. They scatter indiscriminately as I pass. One emu veers a little late and I feel his body scrape the side of the Troopie. Luckily it gallops on its way unharmed.

Eventually I pass a sign that points me to Wilandra National Park. I must investigate. It has been an unviable sheep station, established in the 1800s, and when the owners eventually walked away National Parks purchased and are restoring it to its natural diversity. There’s still some work to do. I passed three foxes by the road on the way in. The old homestead and shearing quarters are an art piece – straight out of a Tom Roberts painting.

Onward through to Ivanhoe, basically a main road passing through some desolate buildings. I need to stop for the night, dusk comes early here. I see an old rusty sign for a caravan park but it is obviously closed, yet a couple of caravans are parked there by a dilapidated ‘amenities’ block. I’m told to inquire at the shop, easy to find, there is only one. The proprietor is straight out of a Dickens novel, pinched face (I’ve never had to use that description before but it is the only appropriate description.). She is unfriendly, aggressive, and spoiling for a fight. “$35 a night”, she snaps. “Unpowered, for one person?”, I query incredulously. I don’t mention it’s a gravel block right beside the highway, not fenced and more like a road workers dump. “Take it or leave it.” I turn away, and leave it. Now’s the dilemma, finding a safe space to pull up for the night.

It appears I’m not over unsealed short-cuts, the roads less travelled. I veer off the highway on surely a short cut, Ivanhoe to Menindee Lakes. About 5 kilometres out of town I find a spot to pull across the high verges and tuck myself into a stand of acacias, hopefully hidden from the road.

As a woman travelling solo there is always a little wariness when parked near an unknow town, especially on a Saturday night. Will there be yobbos ( drunken revellers) driving by with intent to frighten a traveller. I know I shouldn’t have watched ‘Wake in Fright’ (A 1970s Australian outback horror film.) before I left Tasmania. The Ivanhoe woman has rattled me. I always assume everyone has good intentions so it is unnerving when I meet unexpected aggression.

It is now pitch dark. I don’t light a camp fire. I put two camp chairs out to cause confusion. I retreat to my van. I pull the curtains, make sure my van keys and pepper spray are handy, use my head torch rather than my main light, hunker down and read a good book. As it transpires, the road is rarely used and I sleep soundly. In the morning when I cast my eye around it is obvious that I have reached the Outback. Red dirt, light scrub, kangaroos – comforting and reassuring.

It’s a couple of hundred kilometres on this new short cut. Still bulldozed clay, but fine for a 4-wheel drive. The clay has baked, so that effectively I’m driving on primitive pottery. It’s been good to have this re-introduction to rough roads, a taster at the beginning of the trip, preparing me for any calamities I might meet further down the tracks. Then 5 kilometres before the end, a grader – Murphy’s Law.

And then the reward, Menindee Lakes. I am at peace!