by David Mason
At midday I had lunch at York Stud, a mixed property of cattle and wheat on the south side of the road to Dalby. Joe was a plumber who purchased the property when he retired ‘from wages’, as he put it, 15 years before. He filled me with eggs and stories of his native Austria. He told me that Austria was good and Australia better. ‘Austria is a closed place. No space. In Australia there is space all around us and room in our heads to think. Here,’ he went on tapping his head with his right forefinger, ‘a man can do what he wishes. What better thing is it for a man to be able to choose whatever he wants to do with his life? There is nothing better.’ He told me that he loved the land, the woody-nut smell of the black soil and space to watch a sun rise above a horizon. Joe stood at the gate and saw me off with a smile and an Austrian accented ‘Good on ya mate.’
The road to Dalby was flat, the black top merging into the dark scalp of rich soil, the hallmark of the Darling Downs. The country was gold with the stalks of recently harvested wheat, and the sky a dark china blue with a few cumulus clouds like so many lost sheep wandering to the horizon. As so often before, I arrived in town just before sunset. My breath came in short gasps, my lips were caked in dried spittle and my feet had swollen to stretch the lacing of my boots. I lay on the bed in the motel and wondered if every day had to be like this. It was all I could do to order some takeaway Chinese food.
On my way out of town to Aronui in the morning I passed the Dalby Bowls Club. It was competition day. I could hear warm voices congratulating, ‘Oh well done!’ and, ‘Good shot!’ There was also the crack of colliding bowls, ripples of applause and the occasional cheer. A portly fellow in a too figure-hugging and not altogether flattering competition outfit of bright whites and broadbrimmed hat called out to me. It was Bob Collins, a self-confessed ‘bowls fool’ who welcomed me to Dalby. ‘Glad you could make it mate. You remember me – from Burleigh Heads Bowls Club?’ I did. It was a place where I had slowed for a moment to watch other people, and I had watched him play an end. He had asked me what my T-shirt logo ‘Alone Across Australia’ meant and I explained it to him. I was delighted to see him again and somehow it felt that he had measured the distance I had already come. He wished me luck before he went off to play another shot. I headed off to Aronui and the camels.
3 To the West with Camels
– 8 April 1998
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, and at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
Banjo Patterson, 1889
I sat on my swag at a crossroad where a sign said:
Jandowae – 30 kilometres
Bell – 26 kilometres
Macalister – 18 kilometres
Dalby – 18 kilometres
Behind me was a horse trough, two tanks and a windmill. To my left were three camels. Before me were months and thousands of kilometres to walk.
On my first day alone with the camels again I felt excited, strong and sure of purpose. I was certain my shadow had more substance, that it was darker and more distinct as I began the trek. How different from the day to day when I felt so empty of meaningful purpose that sometimes I wondered if I cast a shadow at all.
I stayed with Gibbo and his family on the feedlot at Aronui. They were gentle and generous. Gibbo even took the time to educate me about marbling in beef. During a quiet moment he took me aside and said that if ever I was in trouble on the road to Roma, all I had to do was give him a call. He would come with a truck to pick up the camels and me. There was to be no shame in calling him. All I had to do was give it my best shot.
Over those few days at Aronui I worked the camels as best I could. They did not seem pleased to see me. Nor did they seem impressed with the idea they would be part of a great adventure. I was sure they would much rather stay and settle down to a life of camel luxury in what Gibbo described as the ‘shit paddock’, a camel heaven mix of grasses, bushes and trees. There were times when I despaired of achieving anything with the camels and hoped that no one was watching the ‘camel man’ from Canberra. Cliff was right; they were very ‘green.’ My only hope was that the camels’ behaviour would improve once we were on the move. After all, I knew that once they get into a routine they are among the easiest animals to work.
In the dark before dawn, on the day I left Aronui, I walked down to the camels. The crunch of my boot on dried ground seemed very loud. The saddlery, blankets, tins and ropes were laid out under plastic tarpaulins to protect them from the dew. All I had to do was load up and we would be on our way. Just before I reached the camel paddock I felt the tightness, the choke in my throat. I was very alone, vulnerable and fearful I would fail on the very first day. Had I taken on too much?
There were no tiles to touch, lime lines to cross or sirens to sound victory. There was no guarantee of a hot shower or even a hot meal at the end of the day. There was no one to watch my small victories or many failures. Just me and the thought that no matter what happened I would have tried to do something I very much wanted to do. So I gritted my teeth, told myself to stop being soft and took the first step.
Late that afternoon, I sat on the swag and watched the camels chewing the cud. As I watched the vegetable mass, a live lumpy-looking thing as it raced up their necks, I wondered what they thought of me. All my hopes and plans rested entirely with these three camels. I was sure that if they could do this trip so could I. I called out their names. Kabul was the dark, quiet, phlegmatic one. A far heavier camel than Chloe or Kashgar, there was little doubt he was descended from the pack animals of Afghanistan. He was sure, not readily spooked and the animal I relied on most. Chloe, the Queen of the Desert, was aloof and distant with a spiteful curling lip. Kashgar, my Little Princess, had long eyelashes and a longer soft coat of red gold.
In forming up the camel train, I tried putting Kashgar at the front of the three, but Kabul pulled back and would have nothing of it. As the dominant camel he had the lead, with Chloe second and Kashgar taking up the rear.
Kabul carried the winged saddle made in Alice Springs. The winged saddle weighed around 30 kilograms, had two pads that sat just below his spine on his shoulders and one large pad that rested behind his hump and in front of his rump. He carried two tins, specially designed, that held mostly food, and four 22 litre jerry cans for water. I calculated that when fully loaded at Birdsville he would be carrying almost 200 kilograms.
Chloe also carried a winged saddle and like Kabul four 22 litre jerry cans of water. Instead of food though, she carried ropes and camel spares. When fully loaded I thought she would be carrying close to 130 kilograms.
As the smallest, Kashgar carried the riding saddle and nothing but the swag and food for the day. My plan was that if there was a problem and I had to make my way to safety, I could ride on Kashgar and make my way to whatever help I needed.
On the evening of our first day on the road we were visited by an Australian Broadcasting Commission film crew. They asked me about my trip, why I was doing it and what I hoped to achieve. They got to record my enthusiasm, inexperience and the embarrassing difficulties I had unloading Kabul. He would not hoosh down, perhaps because I had loaded him too heavily on his first day, so I had to climb a windmill and unload him while he was standing.
The morning after my first day I folded back the flap on my new swag to a sunrise of pastel rose and blue. I tied long ropes on the camels so they had more area to graze. What was it about being here that I loved so much? Was it the country, the responsibility for realising my own dream, the nomadism, or simply the denial of a conventional life?
I decided not to take off my wrist watch as some explorers and adventurers are so keen to do; to make a statement and separate themselves from a society they do not like. For me it was a reminder that I am, and will always be, a part of society. My trip was not a rejection of the world I knew, but a demonstration there was so much more.
In my camp just outside Macalister, about 20 kilometres from Dalby, I woke to a sea of pale rose gold as the sun c
ame up over the long grass. In just two days the camp routine was getting shorter and the preparation of things much more efficient. The evening before I had prepared a meal of spaghetti with corned beef, basil and Tabasco sauce. I supposed this was the first of many times I would prepare this for myself. The other two main meals I planned were pasta with tinned smoked mussels (what I called spaghetti marinara) and rice with tuna (what I called tuna mornay). Every day I had muesli for breakfast along with a very big cup of coffee in my old Foreign Legion steel brew mug and a muesli bar for lunch. I knew that these meals would end up being boring after a while, but I thought that at least there were plenty of fats, carbohydrates and protein.
All my cooking gear was new and I used a gas stove on top of the steel feed tin, not wanting to start a bushfire in the grass and grain country. New too were my clothes. No more shorts that I wore from Byron Bay to Dalby. Instead, I wore moleskin pants and a blue shirt. The Akubra remained on my head. After a hot dinner, I sat on my swag in the dark and watched the traffic heading west along the Warrego Highway, moving bright red and white stitches against the velvet black of the night.
The camels appeared to be doing very well. As expected, they looked a little ‘tucked up’ or skinny in front of their hind legs. The change in routine, and the fact they did not have constant access to water, meant they would take time to adapt to life on the road.
We walked west along the Warrego Stock Route that extended from Dalby to Charleville, a famous route for droving cattle and sheep in Australia. The so-called ‘long paddock’ followed the routes taken by explorers and early pastoralists moving stock to land in the west and later back to market on the coast. In Queensland, as in other states, the routes generally followed the river systems and had water at 10 to 15 kilometre intervals: about the distance stock could move in a day. Since the arrival of road and rail transport though, the movement of stock along the route had dramatically declined. Other than during droughts when stock owners take to the long paddock, there were now relatively few times when the stock routes were used. I wondered who among the early pastoralists would have dreamed of someone with three camels using one as the avenue to head west.
We made it into the weatherboard town of Warra just as the sun began to set. I arrived wet with perspiration, cheeks hot and grass seeds burrowing into my back. The Warra Hotel beckoned with its warm voices, lights, cold beer and sluicing shower. But the camels had to come first. A man in his sixties from a blue house not far from the pub pointed me to the fenced jungle of the railway yards, just right for three camels, though I did have to rig up the gates to keep them from freedom. I tried the water tap in the yards but no water appeared. I supposed it must have been turned off somewhere, so I watered the camels from a jerry can, moving from the blue house garden tap to the yards.
Later, after beer and a meal at the hotel, I rolled out the swag, but as much as I wanted I could not sleep. In a white weatherboard house across from the yards I heard slurred brutal blows raining on a woman’s voice and spraying over the town. She begged and pleaded and cried. His roars were loud hollow things and, like the other people in the town, I lay no more than a stone’s throw from the crying. I wondered if this had happened before and how many times people lay in their beds listening to the cries. Though her sobs grew fainter as the dark was driven away by the sun, the hate and fear hung heavy in the dewy brilliance of the morning. As I saddled the camels I felt diminished for having done nothing and compromised for the same reason. I wondered how many thousands of couples lived their lives the same way and what the other people in the town knew. That morning in Warra no one came to look at the camels, ask what we were doing or even say goodbye. It was as if an entire town was ashamed to be seen in the light of day.
As we moved along beside the road west out of town, people stopped us and wanted to take our photograph. Even though it was a fairly short walk to Brigalow, it took time from walking, as I had to pull the camels up, wait for the driver, talk about what we were doing and answer some questions. I did not mind, as it was so much better to look at smiles, listen to laughter and feel the warmth of interested travellers than the darkness of the night before. I was sure the camels agreed.
Chinchilla Council had not been so kind as to slash the road verge and clear a track for those who wanted to move along parallel to the road. So we walked on a ploughed track next to the fences of cotton growers. On the broken, soft ground I found the going very tiring though the camels seemed untroubled. They were silent except for an occasional sigh and the creak of saddle leather. I had never liked snakes and as we moved through the country I was very aware that this was most favourable snake country. For this reason I wore leather gaiters in the hope they protected my lower legs from snakebite and the inside of boots from grass seeds. The season had been a very good one for the people on the land, reflected in the enormous amount of grass that bent in the breeze around us. Grass was the natural habitat of small creatures like mice and the snakes that prey on them. I heard a couple of telltale rustles but I was yet to see a snake and the camels were yet to take fright at anything except large trucks.
Brigalow was a little town of white clean gloss paint on horizontal weatherboard, dominated by a concrete grey grain silo visible well before we reached town. A well-kept Country Women’s Association Park had green gloss lattice ironwork around a closely cut lawn. The sky opened just before we arrived in town and the evening wet chill made me clench my teeth and my jaw muscles ached. There did not seem to be any railway yards or even a pub, so we walked to the north side of the town looking for somewhere to tie up for the night. In the end I tied the camels to old fence posts at the back of Keith Rummenie’s paddocks on Cuddihy’s Road, only a few hundred metres from the Warrego Highway.
After I unsaddled the camels, brushed them down and covered the gear with waterproof tarps, I went to the local takeaway shop on the main road and asked who owned where we had camped. I was cold and wet. Mud formed thick clods of rich black soil that stuck to my boots and I wondered what sort of impression I made. It cannot have been too bad as they referred me to Keith as the bloke ‘born and bred here’ and reckoned he was, ‘a fair sort of fella’. A singsong voice from a back room reached across a chequered linoleum floor and invited me to dinner.
I walked down the Warrego Highway to Keith’s place. I met his family and the little terrier that sniffed his interest in my legs and boots. Grey haired, tall and lean, Keith said in a sure voice that it would be fine to leave the camels in the back paddock ‘Mate, you and your camels are welcome to it.’
We discussed directions for the next day and later he took me in his Toyota to a place down the track where the camels could be watered. Keith also organised with his son Daniel, ‘Just call me Dan,’ for a bale of lucerne hay to be dropped off at the sale yards on the eastern side of Chinchilla. He would not take any money for his time or the lucerne, ‘If a bloke is real keen on doing something why shouldn’t another bloke help him out?’
Back at the takeaway store, dinner was a seafood basket followed by a long chat with Amber on the public phone, her voice over the line tinny, brittle and too far away. She told me I had already travelled one tenth of the way. It did not seem possible and I dared not think of how far I had yet to walk.
The swag was warm and I slept well, at least until midnight when I woke to find myself covered with ants. I fumbled for my headlamp and found the small black points all over my body. They were in my hair, in my face and in the corners of my eyes. Branded by their bites, and marked by their crushed scent, I slipped on my boots and dragged the swag about 20 metres from where I had set up camp. I stood in the starry night, naked apart from my boots, and picked the moving black dots from my body. I shivered and stamped my feet.
For some reason the camels did not seem the least bit bothered by ants. I am sure I heard a sigh as I danced about picking off the biting creatures. When I felt they were gone from my body I went back to the swag where I kept imagining there were a
nts in my face, in my eyes and in my ears.
I met Daniel the next morning on the track that ran parallel the railway, just out of Brigalow. Like his father, Dan had a gaze that was open, direct and friendly. Over the next day or so he looked through his 20-year-old bright dark eyes on camels and me with mild amusement, only evident in the telltale curve in the corners of his mouth. He promised to drop off a lucerne bale at the cattle saleyards in Chinchilla later in the day. He was true to his word. After I unsaddled the camels at the yards he took me for a drive to do a reconnaissance of the route through and out of town. There were two major problems; the bridges on the western side of town. The problem with bridges was that they were no places for camels and cars. Cars could not leave a bridge and camels wanted to when cars came up behind them. Given that the following day was Easter Monday, I hoped there would not be too much traffic.
That night I set my camp of swag and washing gear on the stock seller’s platform in the Chinchilla saleyards. There was a large diameter hose close by, so I took off my clothes and washed myself down in the sluicing water. The camels appeared to be having a wonderful time in the bale supplied by Dan. They had water, plenty of food and I checked them for small hurts and burrs, then gave them a rub and a brush.
A sign on the fence at the saleyards had me worried. It said:
The use of the saleyard complex and paddocks for grazing of stock is prohibited and unauthorised stock in the saleyards will be impounded. Feeding stock in any part of the saleyards complex is prohibited without prior approval of the Council.
Signed: Chinchilla Shire Council
