Snaky Creek and Other Place Names

Snaky Creek, just out of Manna Hill (ironic given the arid country, but then, perhaps not so ironic: I wonder if quails fall from the sky around here?!). Not Snake Creek. Or Big Snake Creek. Or Black Snake Creek even. But an adjectival snaky, suggesting deviousness. A slipperiness. A snakiness. And perhaps a sense of humour on the part of those who named it? Or was it such a pit of vipers that’s perpetual snakiness had to be perpetually commemorated those of us passing through? As I jot some notes wondering all this we roll over Cockscomb Creek then Winnininnie Creek. My musing about naming places dries up - to be replaced by a setting ball of yellow fire which makes driving a chore, and both of us wish the bugs on the windscreen had been removed when we had a chance, such is the now refracting light. But the fire lights up the distant jagged landform, dusting the rock with a yellow halo which reduces us to silence. The art and colour is off a palette none of use could devise.

Oodla Wirra - Where?

A (very sharp) boning knife protruding backwards from hip pocket, mad scramble through thorn bush hunting jittery goats and a forearm inadvertently connecting with aforementioned knife had us do a quick (one hour) run to the hospital at Peterborough (that’s not a real wound - gotta love those country nurses)  through Oodla Wirra. A name that rattles out of your mouth and falls to the ground in a clatter. The sensation is so pleasing you have to try it again. And again. It makes you laugh. Read more

Two Men and a Dog

Cast:

Buzz. Old kelpie dog. 74 years of dust matted into his pelt. Eyes set way too close together. Thinks he runs the farm.

Silver. Mongrel something. 73 years of dust. Forehead as wide as a tanker’s bow - eyes way too far apart. Thinks he runs the farm.

Two kelpie bitches in heat. Know they run the farm.

Two part time, pretend farm hands trying to keep all of the above separated, fed, watered and out of each others way.

Scene 1: Bitches on heat. Dogs crazy. Read more

Cactus is Fractus

Well, it is fractus (there is one for your Scrabble games) out on Miss Betty’s place, even if you do see it flourishing elsewhere in the state. Over the years prickly pear has been managed quite well and the family property is pretty much free of it. But given she is now managing it on her own a few plants have been creeping back. So part of our efforts in SA were directed at knocking these things off. First drive a hole into each pad and into the trunk of the plant. Just as Chris is doing here. Then fill the hole with undiluted Roundup. Then spray a mark on it - it can get pretty confusing out here and you don’t want to cover old ground. (It is a method a whole lot safer than the original treatment methods which involved boiling an arsenic mixture and letting the fumes drift into the weeds!) More than 200 plants were so treated, much to Miss Betty’s relief.

Apart from overrunning vast amounts of land the cactus spines get into the sheep wool making it a problem to handle come shearing time. In fact some shearers refuse to shear sheep known to be farmed in country with cactus. The spines will penetrate clean through a hand and leather boots are no protection. Hence Chris attacking this plant with a specially crafted spear - it allows him to stand off and drill the holes for the Roundup.

( A little bit of Prickly Pear disaster/success story in NSW here)

A Country Finger

Rarely is the gesture of a single finger ever interpreted as anything except someone wishing the worst things to happen to you or your mother. Or both. Regardless of culture, language or age. Except in the country where a single, brief wave of a finger off the steering wheel is understood by rural folk to mean something completely different again. In some respects it is akin a secret handshake.  Read more

Kinked Back Shingleback

The short stick in the dusty distance moves in the heat and you are not sure if it is the shimmering haze off the gravel tricking your eyes. Then it moves again and a little more determinedly albeit awkwardly.  You slow down and get ready to swerve to avoid whatever it is. The stick waddles with a little more purpose as you apply brakes, and as you get closer it moves forward with the appearance of having a stiff back, slipped disk or some other spinal disability. Turns out on closer inspection to be this very determined little fellow who stands up to the Canon poked in his face - gaping his mouth wide and presenting a slightly bizarre blue tongue. Potentially dangerous for him if our curiosity is any guide - we are more inquisitive than deterred.

Bulyninnie, and this part of South Australia in general seems to be full of these lizards, related to the Blue Tongue, one of which alarmed one of my kids once by climbing into bed with her. All she saw was its scaly back and imagined a snake had come on board. She had the good sense to lie still but still managed to convey her alarm through the whole house. Poor lizard.

This guy settled down after a few minutes (put his blue tongue away, stopped hissing and lowered himself down from his aggressive posture) and hunkered down behind his lunch (they are herbivores) and watched the camera. I am not sure if he looks like a little old man or a baby. Either way they are quite endearing in their own way, shuffling about in the desert doing their own thing. The minute you think there  is nothing alive in the desert except 40 squillion flies (half of which are using your back as a layover) one of these guys shuffles onto the track in front of you to remind you it is not quite as desolate a place as you imagined.

Fixing the Back Fence

The boundary fences out here were built in 1898. Or to be more precise, the wire you lean on today was strung out in 1898. The steel posts replaced the wooden posts which are still lying where they were pulled out of the ground more than 110 years ago. We stood in awe of the steel and wire for it stretches as far as the eye can see in a perfectly straight line. More than 110 years old and still straight as a die.

We take some of the original posts, still strung through with original wire and sue them to dam up the trough burrowed under the bottom wire by the goats. The rabbit wire mesh is rehitched, and clipped and in some cases it is replaced or patched. We start this work as early as possible but it is not early enough. The morning is cool and fresh but he oven door opens about 9 am and by 11 we are done. Working with no hat and with minimum water intake catches out some of the team on the first day, a lesson quickly learned. We coach everyone to keep an eye on the colour of their urine as a guide to how hydrated or otherwise they are. It is a novel concept for some of them, but that is what this time away is all about after all.

We get one of the lads hydrated, get him loaded up into the ute and start back to the quarters. It is 17km from the back fence to home - as the crow flies. A bit further as the lizard wanders.

Miss Betty

Mrs Betty. Miss Betty. Or Joy. And sometimes confused as “Betty”.  A legend in our minds. She farms a massive block of arid country in South Australia on her own. A yard with nothing out of place. Stock, which despite drought conditions are in very good condition. Over the years her family kept on top of feral animals and noxious plants. It is property that is all the more productive for that. But we are there to help since she is in her seventies and some things are trying to get away on her. We look at fixing the boundary fences, closing up holes where the goats come through in their hundreds to chop out vegetation and consume vast amounts of hard won and treasured water. Some of us will attack the range of cactus plants which are starting to creep back. The spines catch up in sheep wool and can penetrate a shearers hand. They have been known to strike though the leather sole into the foot, so we will be handling these things with care. If, in the course of our visit we espy a goat it will be culled. The government chopper borne cullers were through here in May so I am not sure if we will see any. And the mechanically minded and skilled will be able to get a range of machinery serviced, repaired or tuned. Or even all three. So in the meantime we get the brief from Miss Betty on what we can do to help. She misses nothing, sees much, sizes us all up in a heart beat, yet despite what she sees is prepared to put up with some of our nonsense for a week. That alone is worth a medal.

Sunrise at Bulyninnie

The hot night does not make for sound sleep and I wake in the dark. Again. It is 0430 but still dark outside, with no hint of light or noise. A little over thirty minutes later I resurface and I can hear the polite chatter of young galahs as they slowly chirrup each other awake. (they get a lot noisier in the evening). I pad out into the early morning and find the outside air fifteen degrees cooler than inside, and crisp and clean. The dust is talcum powder soft and cool under my feet. A pair of Blue Bonnet parrots change branches high up in the gum - I would not have spotted them if they had not moved. The first fly buzzes past, the lone reconnaissance flight preceding the teeming squadrons of them which will appear once the sun jolts them along. It pauses on my naked shoulder and all is quiet and still again. I leave him alone - knocking off one fly is a definition of absolute futility out here. He stands very still, as if anticipating all his busy work later in the day. As the light lifts I start to see the trudging march of sheep coming in single file out of the saltbush, plodding towards the dams and troughs for a drink. They don’t hurry but there is a doggedness of purpose in their step which is not something I usually associate with these dumb animals. But water is everything out here after all.  The sun finally lifts in a flood of silent light and the birds hush, the sheep pause and the fly rotates 180 degrees preparing for launch. The lull is over. In a few hours it will be too hot to stand on this earth and too hot to be doing any work. The signal is up - get on with it or stand down now. We have lots to do out here so I turn to head back to the quarters and find a couple of others standing there in silence too. We grin at each other, recognizing the magic of this time of the day will only fracture if we speak. So we don’t. But get girded for a days work.

3400km later…

A road trip of any length in Australia is never something to be taken lightly. But if you have to treat it with anything approaching the cavalier, then just throw caution to the wind, and you just might get away with it. The trip clock stopped right on 3400 when I finally switched off the engine in the early hours of the morning. Read more

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