by David Mason
But Dan pursed his lips and blew. He said, ‘Mate, stop being a lawyer. They can be a bunch of self-important fools. Don’t worry about it.’ Deferring to his local knowledge, I put that concern to the back of my mind. Dan invited me to a wedding that night.
Debbie, Dan’s cousin, and Kerry were both on their second marriage and did not seem unhappy meeting a blow-in like me. We sat in the backyard of their home in Chinchilla with many of their friends and family, Slim Dusty songs and sausages on the barbeque.
I met ‘Old Billy’, according to Dan an uncle once or twice removed, who talked about the importance of superannuation and said I was mad spending my ‘nest egg’. He counselled me to ‘settle down and get a wife’. It seemed to me that other people had a very different idea of how I should be living my life. Dan reckoned that ‘Billy is a miserable old bastard.’
On return to the yards I found the camels had not eaten the entire bale and were looking very happy chewing the cud. I dozed to the sound of masticating camels, like a footfall on wet gravel, and the low gurgle of sweet lucerne brought up from stomachs to be savoured again. I slept well on a belly full of beef, beer and apart from Old Billy, good wishes.
That night I dreamed of bridges and next day I walked them. From the saleyards to the other side of town was around three kilometres, past the brickbuilt hospital on the right and then to the first bridge. I asked people who pulled over to take our photograph to help us by waiting beyond the bridge, to let me know if anything was coming and warn oncoming traffic to slow down.
The first bridge crossing was not a problem, the camels following me without concern. As usual Kabul was the rock. He followed when I asked, even though Chloe and Kashgar were clearly unsettled. They knew little about bridges and like horses they were very nervous when it was clear they were suspended over a drop, or water, and there was no escape except to go forward or back.
The second bridge proved more challenging. I looked to the west and then behind to the east. I could not see any vehicles so I thought we would try the 50 or so metres across the bridge. As we were about halfway across I looked back to the east to see a blue car moving very fast toward us. I tried to hurry the camels by injecting a sense of urgency into my voice, but as was so often the case it only made them more nervous. The car was getting closer. It seemed to be accelerating.
Metres before we were across the bridge the car arrived. It did not slow down and it terrified Kashgar and Chloe. They panicked and ran up behind Kabul. Kabul leapt up, his chest against mine, and we all crossed over the edge of the bridge. Fortunately for us at that point the drop was only 30 centimetres or so. The fool in the sedan indicated his disdain for us with a rigid middle finger.
Just 200 metres up the road he pulled into the driveway of the Chinchilla golf course clubhouse. I watched the flaccid-bellied blue singlet and shorts step from the vehicle and walk around the front till he got to the passenger side window. He leaned down, and even from where I stood I could hear his abuse to the blonde bob sitting in the front seat.
I was at once furious and saddened. The camels and I would only have to suffer him once. The blonde bob would have to bear him a lot longer. I turned to wave at her, but her face was in her hands and she did not see us pass by. A part of me ached to follow him into the clubhouse and remind him that there are other people in the world. But what would have been the point; other than making me feel better? Would it have helped her? I gave Kabul’s neck a pat and told him I was not so sure. Whatever the discomfort I endured it was nothing to the day-to-day life of some women in Warra and Chinchilla. We headed west.
Not long out of town we found the rabbit fence that we followed for much of the day. At an open gate along the fence another sign told me:
Darling Downs – Moreton Rabbit Board
Maximum Penalty for leaving gate open $400
I wondered how the Moreton Rabbit Board calculated the $400 and how anyone would know, apart from the telltale camel tracks, who had left the gate open. I had visions of a full-scale inquiry around the open gate while the rabbits sat and watched from either side of the fence.
Ever since the rabbit plague of the 1930s the rabbit had exercised many Australian minds. We tried fences, foxes, myxomatosis and the calicivirus – to varying degrees of success. Despite all the attempts to eradicate the rabbits, in the course of eight months I often saw little brown furry forms hopping across the landscape.
Further west, Rambrae was marked as a black dot, a locality on the map. A training centre for Aboriginal men, it included horses, cattle and a small market garden, some way short of Miles on the Warrego Highway. Camels and I camped in the railway reserve across from the small shop where the young trainees sold fruit and vegetables and kept a .22 rifle with magazine under the counter near the till. I wondered if the young men knew how to use it.
Later that night, with the sticky sweet juice of paw paw dripping from my chin, I rolled out the swag and, as I did so often, checked the ropes of the camels to make sure they were secure. In the railway reserve, only 10 metres from the tracks, I did not want them to panic, break their ropes and be hit by a train.
Before midnight, shortly after I had fallen asleep, I woke to a sensation near my face. I turned to it and in my half sleep I thought it was a huge snake’s head silhouetted in the night sky. The muscles in my belly tightened and I felt adrenaline flow through my body. I was not sure if I should run or if I would have to wrestle the thing. I waited a moment and it hopped on to my chest. Even after I brushed the toad from me it took a long time to get back to sleep.
Along with rabbits and foxes, the cane toad was introduced into Australia by Europeans. The cane toad was brought to Australia to deal with insects that attacked sugar cane – hence the name. Trouble was that the cane toad enjoys an enormous diversity of Australian insect food – far more than just particular sugar cane insects – and has spread across eastern and northern Australia. They are tough, resilient and can weigh up to 2.5 kilograms. A single female can spawn thousands of eggs that can float across floodplains and spread across the country. Even worse, the cane toad has poison glands and even its tadpoles are toxic to many animals – including Australian native predators like snakes, dingos and goannas.
The next day was frustrating as we only made it to a point on the map labelled Glengarry Stables, still 20 kilometres short of Miles. We crossed back and forth between the rabbit fence, road, rail reserve and private property. Barbed-wiretopped fences hemmed us in and our way was blocked by deep gullies. It was doubly frustrating for no doubt we walked a considerable distance but at most 15 kilometres directly toward our goal. We would not get far at this rate, and I was frustrated.
Probably due to my lack of experience there were other problems. I allowed the camels to water at tree-shaded creeks and billabongs along the way. Not long after the second drink, progress became very slow. I fell into deep depressions hidden by the long golden grass. With my hand on Kabul’s lead rope my arm was jerked, my back twisted and jarred. My temper became short and perhaps because of this or for reasons only known to camels, Kabul refused to move forward. It was only 4 p.m. but for Kabul the day was over. He simply wanted to hoosh down on his knees, chew and think camel thoughts. I was able to move him and the team forward another hundred metres or so until we ended up at a white weatherboard railway stop. I unloaded each camel and tied them up along the fence line so that they could eat or just hoosh down and chew their cud.
When the camels were done I set out the camp. As I sat on my rolled swag, the blood pulsed in my ears and my head was bowed so the perspiration dripped from my forehead to my nose and into the dust between my feet. I blinked the sweat from my eyes and knew it would not matter. I asked myself the question that guided so much of what I had already done. ‘Would I rather be doing something else?’ I knew that towards the end of my five years in the Foreign Legion the answer was an emphatic yes. I came to realise that there is a lot more to life than the smug arrogance that comes from w
ilful ignorance or the power to destroy others. What the Legion did, and what this trip was doing now, was marking me. I had no tattoos or piercings favoured by the people of Byron Bay. The markings were hidden, but more substantial, deep inside.
My cheeks were burning hot. My shirt was wet and greasy on my back. I thought I was starting to get crotch rot. There was a grass seed in the middle of my back annoying the hell out of me. I wanted a beer. But there was no other place in the world I would rather have been than on that swag watching those camels.
Maybe it was because I liked being alone. Nowadays, to be alone and to travel alone is to reach for an experience that has to be actively sought because it is unusual. Perhaps this is because, for many, to travel alone smacks also of self-indulgence and selfishness. But I needed it, craved it, the aloneness, the singularity of experience. I was not one of those for whom the fear of failure meant I was crippled from taking the first step toward risk. In fact, if anything, my journey was a statement that risk is something to be tested, faced and embraced. So I got to my feet and doubledchecked the camels while the billy was on the boil.
As in other camps the ants were dreadful. I moved the swag twice but there seemed to be no escape. I had all my food in either screw-top jars or plastic bags, all kept in sealed blue tins. This precaution meant that I had yet to find the ants in my food. For some reason they preferred me, especially my face, where I could feel them insinuating themselves into the corners of my eyes.
Despite the day before being a near misery, after a sweet coffee, rice and ham with plenty of Tabasco, and the best sleep I had so far, things seemed much better. I woke up just after 6 a.m. and the sun was already up. It rained during the night and I had not covered all my clothes. My trousers were wet, not pleasant to pull on, and would not do my crotch rot any good at all. I wondered if there was something in the camel medical kit, which was far more extensive than mine, that might be of assistance.
At last, that evening we made it into Miles. It rained small drops most of the day and for a large part of the walk we were able to follow the old highway which paralleled the new. Even so, on occasion we had to cut close to the new highway and Kashgar continued to provide a great deal of excitement and kept me on my toes. She still seemed very nervous and liable to move up behind Chloe too quickly and provoke a stampede. But there was no repeat of yesterday’s slowdown. Kabul was as reliable as ever. I loved his noble nose, his patience and his tolerance of me.
As we did not have far to walk, we made it into Miles around 3.30 in the afternoon and headed for the racecourse on the eastern side of town, where I planned to camp the night. Just as we moved inside the course a late model white sedan pulled up to the entrance. Dressed in black and white, and looking like a waiter, Bob Gunning, manager of the Miles and District War Memorial Club and board member of the Miles Racing Club, stepped out of his car and cast his eye over the camels and me.
Hands on generous hips he said, ‘Geez mate, we’ve got a race meeting on this weekend. If any of the horses get a scent of those camels they’ll go right off.’ In a fairly tactful way, Bob suggested we clear off and stop over at the showground. Anyone who had been in the country, or the bush, for any time and had worked with horses knew that camels set horses ‘right off’. In fact, I had read that camels had been used well before the rise of ancient Rome to disrupt and panic the horses of opposing armies. Camels though, never seemed to be troubled by horses. We did as Bob suggested and by late afternoon the camels were brushed and feeding in the main arena surrounded by a low white picket fence.
The evening was cold with drizzle enough to dampen an oilskin but not run off it. While the camels were feeding in the showground, I sat in the most marvellously incongruent Chinese restaurant and wrote up my diary. I could quite conceivably have been sitting in a restaurant in Singapore. The Lin Wah Chinese restaurant was, according the chalked board menu near the entrance, the home of Cantonese cuisine in central Queensland. Since its establishment 12 years before it had become a landmark in Miles and given the number of customers it was clearly very popular.
After a large meal of sweet and sour pork I crossed the highway and made my way back to the showground. By the side of the arena I met Diane. She was in her mid-fifties, ‘I don’t look it do I?’ she asked tossing curling grey hair. A firm handshake and a direct look made me pay attention. She told me she was the secretary of the Miles Show and curator at the showground. Her year-round home was a small caravan not far from the secretary’s office. She stayed in town, in her little van, because she liked knowing the people and places around her. There was no way she would ever want to move to a big city like Brisbane or Sydney. ‘How could you know the people around you?’ she asked, ‘They would all be strangers.’
Diane invited me into her small van, sat me down on a small wooden chair at a blue laminate drop-down table and made us a cup of tea. As we waited for the kettle’s whistle we talked a little about the rain, about camels and then a little about the rumour getting around that I had once been a Legionnaire. Diane leaned forward, took my hands between hers and told me about her ex-husband. ‘I love him, you know. He is a good man and the army can be a good place for some men. But Vietnam, he never got over it.’
I wondered how many women like Diane loved men who had been profoundly affected by their wartime experiences. In Australia until recently, the Vietnam War remained forgotten by most, its facts and memories avoided like discussions of a disabled child or a criminal sibling. I did not ask what drove her from him but the tightness of her lips, the catch in her throat and the glistening in her eyes told me that she would always love him. We sat quiet, with memories around us, and sipped tea together. Later, after the second cup, I made excuses that I needed to check on the camels.
It rained in the morning, which was good for the farmers of the Miles district but bad for us. Apart from the mud and the wet clothes, the blankets that I used between camel backs and saddles also got damp when it rained. These were the very same blankets I used for my bed and I did not like covering myself in the warm woollen moistness. As I looked out from under the flap of my swag I could just make out three camel forms in the mist and drizzle of the arena. It was time to put on some coffee so I scouted around for some dry kindling and boiled the billy. As I poured it I could hear birds in the eucalypts, invisible in the mist of the morning, corralling the start of the day.
By 8 a.m. the gear was packed and I went to check in with the improbably named Sergeant Bruce Law at the local police station. I walked through the door of the station to be greeted by a long deep wooden counter and posters of missing Australians. The grey images ranged from drug-affected lassitude to frank smiles and twinkling eyes.
Brown eyes, splendidly thick and bristly Lord Kitchener moustache and bluepeaked hat peered at me from a corner behind the counter. He put his elbow on the counter to support his chin and tipped back his cap with an index finger. I told the sergeant about my travels to date and what I wanted to do. ‘Bugger me,’ he said, ‘camels eh?’ He gave me a long look that took in whether or not I warranted his attention and continued, ‘We’d better help you on your way then.’
With Sergeant Law’s flashing blue lights to alert oncoming traffic, and thankfully no siren, we crossed the bridge out of town and headed to the stock route. Moving on the stock route was dangerous and very slow. For a few moments I even contemplated stopping. Camels’ feet are just the thing for dry desert sand, but certainly not for slippery mud. Even though the camels were not heavily loaded, one false step or a slip could mean a snapped leg or a broken pelvis. I walked what I thought was the safest way and moved very slowly, my friends trusting to my route selection and following patiently behind.
At last, not long before dusk, we made it to Drillham, a former railway stop now served by a post office and with a couple of empty weatherboard houses. I was able to tie the camels off at the corners of the railway yards. My friends hooshed down and ate a little of the wet green grass, their pads brac
eleted with mud. I slept in one of the abandoned houses.
Next morning, just on dawn as I was loading the camels, the weekly passenger train to Quilpie passed by our camp. People put their faces and cameras to the windows of their compartments just as if they were at home. To them and most of the people who drove by us in their cars, we were entertainment, like a mob of kangaroos. The people in their metal boxes were removed from the country and the road. They did not feel the heat of the sun on their faces in the day or the dew of the night dampening their swags.
The temperature was down and my breath was condensing. I wrapped the scarf around my neck and marvelled at the temperature change in just a few weeks, from the heat of the coast to the finger blueing cold of the interior. Almost all the gear was very, very wet. Fortunately, though, the interior of my swag was dry and it provided refuge against the constant rain. Before continuing for the day I checked the map and decided that the best route for us would be the railway reserve to Dulacca, where I was to meet up with Lee McNicoll, who had offered to put me up for the night. In the course of the day the rabbit fence, which ran parallel for much of our route, ended abruptly. I wondered why it ended there and not further kilometres west. I doubted if it troubled the rabbits at all.
We began out of Drillham on an overgrown track beside the railway line. My route selection was a mistake as the track soon turned into a black soil bog. We made it to the wheat silo out of town and then moved on to the verge at the edge of the road. Kashgar was still very nervous about vehicles closing up behind her and ran up behind Chloe starting mini-stampedes that threatened to trample me.
Then there was an adventure of a different sort. I was tired and still battling camel nerves and mud when a tall man wearing a tall dark hat and oilskins emerged from a vehicle in front of me and stood motionless in the direction I was heading. Lindsay ran what he called the ‘Bushman’s Templars’. He described it as an organisation devoted to ‘the well-being of alienated country children’. The organisation tried to inspire them through activities like bushwalking and taught them what was right and what was wrong. Though whose idea of right and wrong he did not say. Against the wind and the rain Lindsay told me he was keen to recruit me to his organisation. He said he had done research on me. He was prepared to offer me a job in his organisation. Why he thought this was appropriate in the rain and draining light was unclear. It all seemed very odd and the way he put his proposition did not appeal to me. Also, it was as if he thought my cooperation was a done deal, which made his offer even less attractive.