Across the red sand, dotted with small green bushes, a tree line marking a likely riverbed on the western edge of the view, the horizon seems to go on forever. There is just a hint of blue hills in the far distance – our destination. It seems as if we have been driving for hours along dusty, gravel roads, with the bitumen far behind us. There have been innumerable creek crossings, fortunately all dry, but still requiring care to negotiate. Less numerous, side roads to stations along the way, buildings far enough back from the road to not be enveloped by the dust raised by passing traffic.
In contrast to the red of the desert and the green of the vegetation, the sky is a superb blue. It is a glorious day. For the middle of winter, it is warm. When we make camp tonight it will be a different story. We can expect the temperature to drop into single digits after the sun sets.
We’re heading for a bush camp near, but well above, any creek or riverbed. Flash flooding in the Australian outback is a regular occurrence. While the sand of a creek bed is soft, being woken in the middle of the night with a raging torrent flowing through the campsite is not recommended. The detritus carried by such torrents can be extremely dangerous to life and limb.
Once I witnessed a teenager, the son of one of my co-workers, being rescued from the Todd River in Alice Springs. He was caught by a flood which rose without warning. He had scrambled into a tree, close to the now flooded causeway and not far from dry land. Fortunately for him, a tray-top truck was carefully backed into the water’s edge, and he was rescued. Otherwise, he would have endured a wet, cold, cheerless night.
After driving for another hour or so we reached the line of hills that had previously been a blue smudge on the horizon. The bush camp overlooked a deep gorge. As the sun set the cliffs on the eastern edge of the gorge first turned a deep red, then purple, before they darkened completely, as the day turned to evening.
After a feed of stew and damper, followed by an ale or two, we settled in to indulge in long meandering conversations, of little import to the world, but essential to our mental health and wellbeing. The only light source was the gentle glow of the campfire, mainly hot coals with some small, flickering flames. In the absence of the light pollution that normally pervades the night in suburbia, the beauty of the night sky was resplendent above us. The great swathe of the Milky Way stretching overhead, the Southern Cross, various planets, the odd meteorite streaking across our view, entrancing us, stopping the conversation.
A breathtakingly ordinary day? No – magnificent, outstanding, superlative, uplifting, heart-warming!
Burnside Writers Group 