The Call Of The Road

Well despite the truck cab not having air conditioning, it was great to sit up high and see over the bush that normally obscures a lot of the landscape. Coming out of Geraldton and heading north to Meeka, there's about 100 km of godforsaken wheat belt and rolling hills, then you pass a sign that says Shire of Yalgoo - The Outback Starts Here and the land levels out, slowly growing more desert-y and open.

From up high in the cab (I have to climb four steps and cling to two handles to get up into the passenger seat), you can see that the landscape all the way out to Meeka has been dug up over and over for gold mining; I reckon there's not an inch of it that's got many natural features left. Abandoned little mining towns everywhere, ancient railway sidings, open pit mines. When the weather is cooler we are keen to get out and go walking & exploring. I particularly want to go out to Afghan Rock, out of Cue; there are aboriginal paintings out there, and one of them shows a sailing ship.

I have weaseled Gary into teaching me how to drive a heavy rigid! But it's not driving a truck that's hard, it's knowing all the engine, hydraulics & mechanical stuff, as well as the tricks of the road. With all the oversize road trains going by with dongers and monster mining dozers sticking out from the sides of their trailers, sometimes you have only inches to spare on either side, hair raising. But I'll be able to practise out at the cattle yards where I can sing along to "give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig around..."

The aboriginal problems continue. The other night coming home at about 1:00 am from Paddy's, there were about 7 or 8 tiny little children wandering in a group in the road near my place. One of the little girls, who would have been about five, was carrying a BABY. They come from the house behind me, where apparently they don't get enough to eat and go out in the street at night because it's safer than being at the house (I got all the gossip from one of the hostel girls). It's unbelievable, it really is. We also have gangs of boys wandering past at night throwing rocks at the dogs, the rotten little bastards. By the time you call the cops, they've nicked off into the bush. I generally put the dogs in the house at night; I'd rather have a broken window than a hurt dog.

The pavers in the footpath just up by the Royal Hotel are constantly being torn up at night by aboriginal people using them to throw at each other; the shire workers come by in the mornings, pick them up from the road, and put them back. These are the people who think it's OK to burn the national flag and want more and more handouts from the government. Where does it end?