Once again we count our blessings for the life we have out here - the Howden family out at Murchison Downs Station held their annual Australia Day Party, to which the whole town is invited, and it was just wonderful. The station homestead is about 50 km southeast of Meeka; they run cattle on a vast acreage full of water holes, cliffs, spooky big rocks and beautiful bush. The old house is an oasis with giant palm trees, a big stone swimming pool, gardens and lawns. It's currently being looked after by caretakers Lindsay and Ben (the Howdens run a couple of stations out here, so they need help).
The lawn was laid out with tables and chairs, and a whole cow was barbecued and served up with home made salads. Lindsay had a little pony cart hitched up to Chutney, the miniature horse, and was giving everyone rides around the shearing sheds - we had a good long ride, talking about our deaf cattle dogs and exchanging sign language signals!
Then "the band" (whoever had turned up with a musical instrument) started up and Gary of course played harmonica. We had a full moon and it was just terrific. To everyone's amazement, SJ, one of the Koreans, hopped on to the drum kit - he's really good! After a couple of hours, everyone started calling to him to sing a song. He was too nervous, but we all started chanting "SJ! SJ!" until he gave in. He kept apologising as he tuned up on one of the guitars, then said "I made this song, I sing it in Korean, sorry". Well. He blew us all away! He's an ace performer and a great musician, and he soon had all of us singing along, clapping and then bursting into a standing ovation. People were crying! It was one of those rare magic moments you get in a group of people and I think it made Australia Day really special - a bunch of redneck crazy drunk Aussies all hooting and shouting and laughing, cheering on a young Korean brave enough to get up and perform his own song in his own language.
So SJ was a big hit from there on in, with everyone egging him on to do a drum solo and the band revving him up, it was really great. Gary as usual had everyone in stitches interspersing his harmonica playing with goofy line-dancing performances, and then he and Tom (both very drunk) did an improvised blues harmonica/singing duet called, "Smoky Train". Here are the lyrics: "Ohhh....smoky train...coming along the line...smoky train....comin' along the liiiiine....whoah! smoky train....it's comin' along the line...smoky train...whoooo oooo smoky train...." This went on for half an hour, and we were all starting to slide out of our chairs with laughter. Finally they finished and as they came back to sit down I called out, "Say, whut kinda train did yer say thet wuz?" which of course got lots of laughs.
Lindsay had made all kinds of home-made Aussie desserts - pavlovas, lamingtons and so on - which us gals helped decorate & put out on the picnic tables. There were some real hard-core bush blokes there in their battered hats and accents so strong I would never have a hope of understanding, and they cheerfully tolerated me harrassing them for hat photos. "It's just me old hat love." "It's a WONDERFUL hat! Now turn more to the right, and smile!" "Yer don't want ter see that darl, got no teeth left ter smile with!"
I'll post photos later, Gaz and I are going out hiking to a swimming hole that Adam told us about. But it was a great day at the station, with all the boisterous rough edges and warmth that a small outback town can offer; magic.
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