Out here nothing changes,Not in a hurry anyway.You feel the endlessness,Running from the light of day… – Goanna, Solid Rock. East of Borroloola the back left tyre of my four-wheel-drive exploded. I was driving fast, too fast, probably, on a hellish stretch… Continue reading THE GATES OF HELL
Tag: Australia
CROCODILE COUNTRY
Out where the river broke,The bloodwood and the desert oak… – Midnight Oil, Beds Are Burning At Roper Bar I was swimming with crocodiles. And not the harmless freshwater variety, either. These were the real deal: big ‘ol, bad-tempered, drag-you-under-and-drown-you saltwater crocs.… Continue reading CROCODILE COUNTRY
IRON AND GOLD
the emu-sextons pay me a last cursory glance… At Menzies, a dead-on-its-feet mining town a hundred kilometres north of Kalgoorlie, I turn off the bitumen highway onto a rutted track bulldozed through the red dirt landscape of Western Australia. My rented car moves about on the loose surface like a schooner under sail on a… Continue reading IRON AND GOLD
UNDER THE SUN
You’re in by Karumba,Where the fishing boats come in;I can’t believe this feeling,But I wish that I was there,Every passing day… – Goanna, Every Passing Day Fifteen nautical miles north-west of Karumba the oppressive air presses down on us with an almost tactile force. Thunderheads massed… Continue reading UNDER THE SUN
NORTHERN LIGHT
I’ll never let you go If you promise not to fade away… – Muse, Starlight Dusk on The Esplanade. As the evening hubbub of Cairns comes alive, I sit at a corner table at the Coast Roast… Continue reading NORTHERN LIGHT
Corner Country
“I thought of all the songs I’d sung About this Outback track, And that is how this vision came to me…” – Slim Dusty, Along the Road of Song. Beyond Bourke, a one-dog-town on the banks of the Darling River in Western New South Wales, the single lane bitumen road gives way to a rutted outback… Continue reading Corner Country
Vanishing Points
Nothing beside remains. Round the decayof that colossal wreck, boundless and barethe lone and level sands stretch far away… – Percy Bysshe Shelly, Ozymandius. At Curdimurka Siding, the windows of an abandoned railway station stare sightlessly out onto a landscape of grey saltbush and red dirt. The roots of a coolibah tree have cracked and… Continue reading Vanishing Points
Walking on the Moon
I no longer feel as though I am walking on the moon; I am back on the good Earth.
Ghosts of Cooper Creek
I live and breathe the silences and dust where no man reigns… – Cold Chisel, Wild Colonial Boy Dawn at Cooper Creek. Day begins early out here in the far north-east corner of South Australia. Long before first light seeps into the sky, the birds are awake: screeching and wailing and… Continue reading Ghosts of Cooper Creek
Wide Awake in Dreamland
Out here nothing changes, not in a hurry anyway. You feel the endlessness, running on the light of day… – Goanna, Solid Rock Before the Dreamtime there was nothing. The Earth was flat and lifeless; no stars glittered in the sky. The universe was dark and silent. … Continue reading Wide Awake in Dreamland
TravelWriterLife 