A piece of fan Mail to Mr Steve Toltz

Dear Mr Toltz,

I am Australia's most well-read amateur boxer. I am writing to you due to an unfulfilled obligation to a dear friend whose name I cannot remember. I met this person during a particularly adventurous evening which involved lederhosen, many high calibre hallucinogenics and a German-themed restaurant in the Dandenong's called Cuckoos. Please bear with me and my fruity tale, as it may get a little ripe.

In December 2014 I bumped into the aforementioned, unnamed associate at the tail end of music festival bender. I at once recalled a vague promise I made to him on an event-filled bus ride from Cuckoos to Chapel Street. You must forgive my rather sketchy memory - it's hard to know whether it's the boxing, the benders or the hallucinogenics, but my recall is less than perfect these days. It may be a combination of all of those factors -I'd be interested in your opinion?  I am not sure if there are any remedies but my doctor mentioned something about calamari supplements? Or was that my monger? I digress.

This particular man, who was dressed at the time as an alluring nematode in a sheer silver onesie, hailed me from the fetid slopes of the Supernatural Amphitheatre. It was dawning Day Three of the Meredith Music Festival, a rather precarious time when most sensible people have turned in. I noticed his glistening costume and we reconnected on several dimensions. He immediately queried me about the pact we'd made on that bus trip, back in the day/night.

On that magical mystery bus tour, we had a moment. We both professed to a startlingly savage love of literature; I use that adverb and phrasing accurately, for due to the cocktail of stimulants we'd ingested at the time, the lack of safe seating on the bus, the speed it seemed to be travelling and the curvaceous, mountainous road we were descending, we proclaimed our love of books with the fervour of those who are convinced they will soon be killed.

As we screeched and leered at each other, our sweaty hands gripped the leather bus straps with grim intent while our bodies careened around the cabin like multi-balls in a pinball machine. I had just finished reading A fraction of the whole and he had read something less memorable, as I don't recall. Fortunately, he too had read your remarkable book. As we swung sickeningly around corners, shouting at each other above the music, our bodies veered away, then drew dangerously close, then suddenly far away again, we somehow scrapped out a meaningful conversation.

It was hard to hear each other over the extremely loud and incredible pumping disco music on the party bus, but we both acknowledged the tremendous joy that was transferred from your mind, to the page and into our existential experience. This appreciation was at the time, a powerful, shared realisation. As his pallid sweaty face lurched toward mine, our lips curled into the grimacing smile of those suffering an epiphany, of sorts. We made our pact right there, on the bus, white socks pulled knee-high and ridiculously small hats cocked at rakish angles, that I would write a letter to you, stating that your book was a masterpiece and professing our unceasing admiration. It was to be my heroes quest.

So it was with a particular feeling of dread I contemplated my response to this shimmering worm of a man on the foothills of that 2014 festival. My sinking feeling was compounded by an onset of vertigo resulting from the depleted supply of pharmaceuticals that were no longer in my bloodstream, or on my person. It was a moment of truth; in which I knew I had to lie. "Of course I wrote that letter to Steve! NO! He never wrote back, the prick. Probably too busy". His look of well-founded disbelief met my twitching refusal to let an inconvenient truth poison my proudest achievement. "No shit? Amazing you did that, man."

Were you too busy Steve? I'd like to think so. In your defence you were producing Quicksand at that time, leaving less yourself less time to respond to those unsent letters clogging the imaginative letterbox. Regardless, this untruth I uttered haunted me for several metres after I left that worm on the hill and slumped into an unwashed coma in a freezing tent. But the pledge was not fulfilled, and it lodged somewhere inside me like a roundworm in my lower intestine.

Jump around in time with me again Steve, like an episode of Sliders, and the temporal lurch finds me in a musty bookshop in North Fitzroy, hungover, over-caffeinated and spouting literary opinions to an unimpressed book clerk.  I was wearing a Moonboot and fresh haircut, and I was rammed full of codeine. The boot and painkillers were due to the ankle injury sustained the two nights previously after throwing myself from a balcony at an LCD Sound System Concert. I should mention I am forty years old, and not one of your younger, immature readers.

My brother had just arrived home after several years in Dhaka and was looking forward to his new girlfriend arriving from Bangladesh. She is from Boston. He asked me, Australia's most well-read amateur boxer, what Australian fiction he should give her. I immediately compiled a shortlist of appropriate tiles: Monkey Grip, This Fortunate Life, Death of a River Guide, All that I am. etc. But before I could utter Shadowboxing, the clerk chimed in with 'Hannah Kent'. Well Steve, I turned on her like you would turn on someone who had stepped on the back of your thong.

"Hannah Kent? There has never been a more overrated, monotonous account of an overworked Finnish serf penned by an Australian exchange student-cum-literary darling written in the last five years! If you want a period drama with more juice, I'd recommend His bloody project. For we madam, are seeking Australian books by Australian authors, set in Australia ". Spinning back toward my harrowed and embarrassed younger sibling, my eyes caught the starry spine of your singular creation.

"Here is the greatest work of Australian fiction ever produced" I announced, handing him your book, and glaring at the clerk, daring her counter argument (I think she scribbled a note). "I once wrote a letter to the author" I announced. Steve, I know now how Judas Iscariot felt, as the cock crowed.

We bought the copy and scurried out of the bookstore, to the relief of the clerk, and I distanced myself once more from that horrid lie. But the beautiful truth I could not escape from is, was and forever will be, that your book is an inspiration. Many know it; I wish the whole world could read it. In fact, it is so great I’ve considered reading it again, an honour I’ve bestowed only two other books – Catch 22 & The Old Man and the Sea. Time and books are precious - so many contenders, with new up and comers, always on the make. Like Floyd Mayweather, I don’t do rematches, no backward steps – unless there is a significant prize purse Steve, which for an amateur boxer like me is, by definition, not so good. But I think for A Fraction of the Whole, I just maybe could make an exception.

Jump with me once more Steve, Sliders style, in the penultimate slide in this journey, to nearer to now. I received a text from my brothers' girlfriend 's friend saying she read your book (my brother's girlfriend had given it to her) and that they had passed it on to others - everybody loves it Steve! I guess it was published over seven years ago, but many new Australians and older ones, and non-Australians, including Americans, are discovering your work. They too have found the joy and inspiration that weird worm guy and I did. It is a ripping yarn, packed tight with witticisms, wisdom and fat bastards in Thailand. Did you know that it lends itself so well to being read aloud? The pace of the human voice allows the sentiments to land more deeply.

Now I feel much better, Steve. I even remember the worm guy’s name - It's Nick! Well, Nick loved your book too. Mission Accomplished. I woke at 4am this morning and wrote this out in my head, then typed it out, as you can tell by now. I'm probably still a bit drunk and I have a yoga class soon, but I had to squeeze this letter off. I can't live with that lie anymore -it's been itching at my anus. I'll send a copy of this letter to what's-his-name Nick, or maybe I'll print it off and keep a folded copy stuffed into my pants while I dance around at Rainbow Serpent Festival. I'll have it on me, then, when I spy that man once more. This time I'll have the truth to tell, and the proof in my pocket.

Yours in ferocity,

Andrew Costello

151 Headland Road

North Curl Cur 2099

Coron, Palawan, the Philippines

So good to be back in Asia. The smell is so repulsively wonderful and familiar, like inhaling your own fart.  The Philippines is different to other places I’ve been in SE Asia, but vibrant and verdant in that fecund SE Asian way. Manila is just another Asian megalopolis but its demography is astoundingly prodigious.  The population in the Philippines is enormous: even the smaller islands we are to visit teem with tens of millions, and these are backwaters unheard of outside the archipelago.

Coron has a different vibe. A bustling seaside town with slums towns transcending their dilapidation by proximity to azure seas. The decaying shanties and shacks take on a graceful magnificence by their juxtaposition to the magnificent bay. Views which would be reserved for select few if transposed to a place where people who move and shake in the wider world wished to reside are seen from the doorstep of wooden shacks.

The sea is life here, for fisherman, washerwomen, divers, cooks and tour guides.  There is the faint redolence of fishiness pervading every narrow street and alley, choked with bikes and trikes and rickshaws and tuk-tuks and taxis, surging and chaotic and paradoxically efficient, as only Asian spaces can be.

I waited while Theo went into a 7-11 and a truck thundered through a dense crowd, suddenly jettisoning a crate of coke bottles from its cargo. Without fuss or prompt a woman appeared and began sweeping up in the centre of the busy intersection. Another two men appeared: one directed traffic while another picked up the crate and gathered the unbroken bottles and larger shards.  In a few minutes the intersection was clear. I offered the street sweeper some pesos, which she demurely declined. She was waving at me as out taxi sped away.

It was our final day in Coron. Stoically hangover, we lurched toward breakfast and then staggered about in the humidity, artlessly accomplishing insignificant tasks; buying t-shirts, picking up dive gear, getting massaged. It was only when Theo and I realised the days main attraction was going to be a cock fight later in the afternoon did the fetid haziness lift and our ramblings attained a purposefulness that allowed us to enjoy the languidly our accommodations afforded.

In the characteristically frustrating manner befitting all Asian men, but more so in the Pines, our inquisitions as to the time and place the cock fight resulted in several vastly different answers: “fight started at 9am”; “fight start at 3”; not on Saturday, no!” “Only on Sunday!” “Never on Sunday!” “Sunday always cock fight day!” “Cock fight not far”; “cock fight too far!” It was all on or all off, near or far, nothing was true unless observed for oneself.

Eventually, perforce suffering the misguided politeness, we prepared for a reconnaissance to discover the scene for ourselves. According to local custom, it is better to give woefully inaccurate information than to confess ignorance. Accordingly, our rickshaw driver nodded as we issued instructions to take us to the cockfight, then gave is every reassurance our destination was his easiest fare.  Theo seemed naively trusting of his misplaced confidence, while I had some doubts. After a short distance and a brief survey of his vehicle,, I began to doubt his fitness as taxi driver and interpreter. Somewhere out of town his initial confidence spluttered alongside his engine, prompting a renegotiation of our directions with gratuitous repetition of the words 'cock' 'fight' and 'chicken', which drew a lot of knowing nods and “Ahhhhs!” and a frighteningly abrupt U-turn. A few more repetitions of chicken sounds and we were on our way.

Again I could measure our driver’s confidence in the RPMs and as we were rattling back into town I felt the vehicle slow and had a vaguely unsettling premonition. 

“Theo, I reckon we’re going back to town to get a roast chook”.

Alas, my hunch was correct, proved by a predictably confusing hand to mouth pantomime. It took some skilful hand puppetry and vociferous rooster impressions by Theo to finally intimate, beyond a doubt, that we wanted to go to a cockfight. Another swift, near fatal U-turn, a thumb squeeze on the throttle and a vigour hitherto unseen by our man behind the wheel, and we were on our way. We arrived at the deserted block and were given a brief but believable explanation that the cockfight was to take place later that afternoon. At this point, all we could definitively know was that the cockfights were no currently taking place.

We waited around until the cock cages staring filling up and some very shady characters began to arrive. It was suddenly very apparent we were the only non-locals who were attending the cockfight and some of the reluctance to divulge the details of the cockfight may have been premeditated for our own good. Nonetheless, we were here. Unfortunately there was no rush to start the fight. Our bus was due and the first cocks were well off the rumble.

We amused ourselves with every imaginable pun and as more conniving eyes began to lust after my camera and our general presence, we waited on the highway for our airport transfer bus. As the first cocks bustled about on the arena our bus arrived and we left without witnessing one bloodied feather. The cock fight action was to be another day.

Love Hurts - A noir vignette

The day was bleeding out into the dusty front bar of the Tattersall Hotel. It had been a big day in the small town. The annual goat races were a big draw card in Barcaldine and the rest of the hoopla hung about the main event snapping up punters like a fly zapper on a veranda. There was more of a scene going on down the road at the Shakespeare, but I preferred the crowd here. They were as lively as a jar of pickles with livers just as well preserved, but they mostly left me alone.

Besides, I was waiting for Tamara and I didn’t wanna have to jostle at the bar while I was with her. I wanted to enjoy every minute of her company with the privacy of people well-mannered enough to mind not stare too much. Because Tamara got stares. A lot of stares. It didn’t bother me too much. Mostly. Besides, a guy my size could usually stare at pretty much anyone and they wouldn’t stare back for too long.

I had been waiting a while, keeping one eye on the window while the sun set and I sipped my through my fourth Jammy and soda and suddenly there she was. Like a left jab to the breadbasket she took my breath away. She wore her long black hair down and dressed in the short blue dress bought special for the goat races she was too good for this scene and a washed up boxer like me.

Tamara practically floated up the footpath to the hotel and was headed right to me. Then I saw the look in her eye. My stomach did a little readjustment as I watched the pack of three big apes in shiny suits tailing her, and calling something out from behind her back. They wore grins on their monkey faces and their catcalls were as cheap as their white shoes. I pulled a pineapple and left it on the bar. It was a big tip, but I knew I might need a friend with tight lips in a short while.

As Tamara stepped up to the door I stepped out and into the path of the goons. A small grin curled up the side of my mouth as I saw Tamara’s mock disapproving look. Three of them, one of me. Love hurts, but not for me. Not tonight. 

Birdsville - a draft

Once a year, in a dusty town about as far south and as far west as you can get and still be in Queensland, a man comes to town looking for a fight.  Fred aint pretty but his fighters are tough and almost fair and the whole crowd cheers if you get knocked down, but they’ll cheer you more if you can get back up.

 

If sand and horses and beer and fighting and rum and a lot of driving sound like a perfect holiday to you, you have probably been hit in the head too many times in Fred Brophy’s boxing ring.  On the last weekend in August, the Birdsville Races are the place to be in western Queensland, and once the action on the track has finished, it moves inside, ringside and woe betide the man who faces the Birdsville Mauler and doesn’t keep his guard up.

Friday is the first day of racing. There are horses in the day and the usual song and dance, but its the Boxing Tent that I have come to see. I have squashed my nerves and hit the pads, skipping and sweating back in Bondi, waiting for my chance to mix it with a professional fighter in front of an intoxicated crowd.  I have been told that when hear there is a Victorian in the crowd who has travelled all the way from Bondi, they will be confused.  Then they will want to see me get punched.

Years ago the boxing tent was an essential feature of any travelling show.  It was a place where a man could learn his measure, and crossing the ropes was a rite of passage.  Fred’s old sparring partner in the business, Jim Sharman, shut down a few years back with hefty insurance premiums and crafty litigants among the vanquished taking a toll. Now it’s just Fred’s troupe who set up at the Races, the Mt Isa Rodeo and a couple of stops around Queensland and in the Territory. Fred was a fixture at the Longreach and Barcaldine shows only a few years ago, but the trade has been dropping off, or they're not making them as tough as they used to

When boxing was the sport of kings, fighters held a place in society that captured the imagination and inspired the masses.  The smack of gloves on flesh was watched and analysed and understood.  There was a time when the dangerous dance between two men, in a set square, accepting the consequence of the challenge and using strategy and technique to win points or knock the their opponent out, was a metaphor for the masses who faced the daily grind and wished their problems would appear in front of them to be knocked down.

Boxing rang its own bell a long time ago, becoming a parady of itself with harlequin promoters in bed with organised crime and the champions of the sweet science were cretins and thugs in real life.  MMA and cage fights pull enormous crowds and television audiences with their guarentee of blood: submission or knockout.

I was heading to Birdsville to face the bell and the glove.  An inexorable force pulled me toward Fred Brophy and my pugilistic destiny.  At times it felt as though I had been headed for this moment since my hormones started pumping out testosterone, but most of the time I felt like running away.

I had chosen this particular adventure but was having a hard time remembering what had seemed so appealing about getting into a ring with a professional boxer and trying to dodge punches for 3 rounds.  I must have been drunk when I formulated the idea.  That was the usual explanation.  When the boozed washed away I awoke with a strong sapling of an idea and a foggy memory concerning the rationale, to be left unexamined amongst the empty stubbies.

I knew that the pull toward the boxing tent was more than a mere intoxicated idea. I had trained hard, punched pads and skipped and sweated and occasionally sparred.  This was a chance to test myself, in an arena that did not forgive, with baying maniacs as witnesses and my pride to force my hand.

So here I was at Fred Brophy’s sweaty anachronism, celebrating the toughness of the outback bloke and the measures man will go to have some fun while surrounded by the desert and filled with rum. Kind of like Sovereign Hill but instead of a nugget of gold to take away you get a knuckle in the face. 

Bondi Bang Gang Book Club - A Manifesto

Manifesto for the Bondi Book Bang Gang

Translated from the Greek, Itis Dire, 97AD

The raison d’etre of the Bondi Book Bang Gang is to bring together like minds and unlikely types to consume food, imbibe drink and ingest ideas from artists of the written word to see what collective wisdom can be brought forth.

The BBBG monthly book will be the foundation from which discussions of life, love, loss and other profundities will be launched. Each meeting must have a recognised Chairperson and note‐taker whose role will be to produce minutes from the meeting and to keep conversations relevant to the book, the author and any other criticism, observation or appropriate impulse. Above all the BBBG will be a forum for discussions centred on the joy of reading, the art of writing and the capacity to imbibe, argue and converse with levity, wisdom and consideration.

The BBBG will compile a list of books from which the monthly novel is selected. Each member of the BBBG will, as a rule, provide a list of their Top Five Books on the first night of attendance and may be asked to justify their selection. Mockery or celebration may ensue.

The BBBG will not condone: mediocrity, misogyny, misandry. The BBBG will condone: honesty, controversy, irreverence. The BBBG accepts that nothing is sacred and all will be well.

 

ROLE OF THE CHAIRPERSON: the Chairperson for each meeting will be chosen at the previous meeting and will receive the full anointment ceremony, which will usually involve the mixing of alcohol and other libations to prepare the selected being for their task ahead. This task involves leading the discussion of their chosen book which they must not have read previously. It is the Chairperson’s express purpose to:

Keep the frivolities moving in a timely manner Make the carving up of the novel as interesting and provocative as possible Provide an opening speech, brief or elongated, about what they gained from the novel and any books it reminds them of

A summary of likes/ dislikes A reading of their favourite passage for the book (it cannot exceed 5 lines or they will be punished with lines)

Any monologue not to exceed 5 minutes Provide a list of ideas, objects, topics or questions that should guide the discussion

 

The Chairperson must commence proceedings by reciting their favourite quote that they feel embodies the novel followed by the imbibing of their favourite shot, others may choose to partake in imbibitions or pour scorn upon the consumption of that shot in good measure. Bang Gangers who become too boisterous will be shouted down at will by the Chairperson and even banned from further mouth‐opening if too much squealing is observed, unless it for further imbibitions.

Role of the Bang Gang members: All members should add some Bang to the discussion or they face the humiliation of being told to ‘neck up you parrot’ and forced to slug a shot of something terrible which assists the vocal chords in correct motion. Or they can be asked to recite their own favourite quote from the book and justify their predilection for such irrelevant drivel if that in fact was what they chose.

Attendance: Members must make every effort to read the monthly book and attend the monthly meeting. If a member fails in his or her endeavours they must come equipped with a quote and a concept with which to base their conversational input upon, or, if absent provide a verisimilitudinous excuse for their non‐attendance for the humour of the BBG. Mockery, punishment or mirth may ensue.

Role of the note‐taker: this important role will be assumed by the chairperson from the previous month and will be responsible for recording all funny, witty, rude, awkward and memorable moments so that people unable to attend can bathe in the joyful wisdom and flamboyant gregariousness of the attendant Bang Gangers, and those who did attend can remember how wonderful or creepy they were.

Bang Gang Journal: Used to keep track of the books read, plot summaries, discussion highlights, and member’s opinions, critiques and failures. It is the Chairperson’s responsibility to print out relevant pieces for inclusion in the notebook prior to the meeting, during which it will be given to the note taker to update and passed onto the upcoming chairperson at the end of the meeting.

 

Venue: The Rum Diaries, 288 Bondi Road (note the Hunter S Thompson reference: BBBG uphold the ideals and values of the Gonzo journalist, and the general behaviour that it celebrates).

Timing: Book club meetings will run from 6:30 to 9:00pm

•                    6:30 – 7:00: Social time (consume, imbibe, be mirthful) •                    7:00: Official beginning of discussions •                    9:00 Next book and Chair decided

Regularity of Meetings: To be held on the first Tuesday of each month.

Rules will be added as they become necessary upon election by a majority of the Bang Gangers. The organisation shall not be an anarchic state but a liberal democracy with a clear separation of powers, checks and balances on the amount of alcohol consumed by a central institution with only a small number of bean counters, and all attempts to impose a President or monarchy will be fought by a Unified Creative Front for the People of Bondi.

BBBG Monthly Mascot: Herman Hesse is the first literary mascot and if so inclined members can provide an anecdote that they have discovered about the Bondi Book Bang Gang monthly mascot. The more lascivious the better.

“Haven’t you heard? A life of carnal riot is one of the surest paths to sanctity”

I stole a Dingo's Baby!

As we were kicking through the scrub near Packsaddle Creek, Robert disturbed an injured feral cat.  Its back right leg had been snapped and the break formed an artificial elbow.  It limped away silently, whereupon Robert grabbed a heavy branch from the ground and gave chase. I watched with apprehension as he hurtled through the scrub. The cat could not run far and soon he was above it, stepping on its tail to hold it still while it let out a pathetic mewl.

He lifted the club above his head, poised to strike a death blow.  Suddenly looked up at me and asked, "should I kill it, or just leave it?"

His face had an expression of such earnestness that I knew he would not bring the club down on the creature if I didn't give permission. I was taken aback.  I had been listening to his stories of pig shooting and bush life for days and thought that summary executions were a part of his daily life.  To see the anguish he was going through over such a pitiful and moribund creature felt raw and poignant.

It was as though he was seeking approval for euthanizing this poor creature, or to make me complicit in his actions. I thought for awhile, and despite being uncomfortable about the situation, I knew we were not going to carry it back and look after it, or take it to a vet - it was a feral cat.
"Better than letting it starve out here I reckon". I was glad I was not the one who had to do the killing,  but I knew I would if I had to.  The club broke on the first blow and he was forced to use his boot.

The sun burned high as we dragged our feet through dusty beds of ephemeral creeks, nudging at the the bleached bones of the channel country's lifeless inhabitants.  The wind from the south brought with it the sickly sweet scent of the gidgee trees and chilled the sweaty streaks pooling under my backpack.  Occasionally I would dig out an ancient fossil with the toe of my boot, or find what was the ostensible purpose of our survey: Aboriginal artefacts.

We were climbing high into the mesas, looking for ancient playgrounds, places were the old people set up stone arrangements for rituals and purposes of the spirit. I never felt comfortable being around them, I always felt as though I was trespassing. 





Robert and I explored the caves that had been etched in to the caps of the mesas and buttes. I heard him call out so I rushed over to find he had pulled out a dingo cub from a shallow cave - there were three in total, squashed against the back wall, but this one had been the most curious.

It was the cutest little dingo pup!  We named him stinkarse.  We took him back to the car and drove on, we were heading home though it was a few hours back to Windorah.  After a few stops to let the dingo shit, it was beginning to stink, and Robert was having second thoughts about keeping it as he had a 1 year old daughter and 3 other dogs at his house.  

We arrived at Betoota and got out to stretch our legs.  There is not much at Betoota, a pub and a population of zero.  The annual races had just been on and we spoke with a bloke collecting rubish, and grabbed an empty XXXX slab box to put Stinkarse in. He offered us $10 for the pup - said he could get $30 for it's scalp and that they only way to tame them was to drain the blood out of them. We drove on, but after awhile we pulled over at a creek and let stinkarse go.

I hope he makes it in the outback on his own.

RIP STINKARSE

Windorah

Back on the road to wonderful Windorah, where the women are tough and the men aren't pretty. Each day we clock up another 6 or 700 km.  There is no mobile reception and the Internet is a dial up affair. The country is dry and the traffic is building, with hordes of people heading to the Birdsville Races.  I waited in Windorah all week for the Annual International Yabbi Races, and when it happened it was a whole lotta fun.  You can read some of the race results here! 

Isn't the point that interesting things don't need sign posting. What's the point of interest if they don't?

Fair warning. Good pub too.

The bloke who lived in this place was sitting out front when we left
each morning and still there when we returned each afternoon.

A station called Retreat

The landscape out here reminds me of the the U.S.  Perhaps it feels so foreign, even in my own country, that it is easier to identify with images seen in films and descriptions read in Cormac McCarthy novels, than it is to feel part of this country. There are mesas and buttes and calderas and long open sky. Its haunting and vast and beautiful.

People heading into Windorah have been coming from Betoota, a town with a population of zero, a part time pub and a fully functioning racecourse which hosts the gallops once a year. From what I saw of the crowds the race meet was a fairly geriatric affair, with 300 or so camping out Betoota way for the weekend.  Skipped it.

I began to doubt that I would enjoy the Yabbi races, which from initial assessment was like the ultra country super bogan tryouts.  There were masses of blokes in wife beaters and tiny shorts, the younger ones in over sized sunnies, and the women gripped their stubby coolers and leered out from under tattered hats. The threat of gambling was encouraging, although it has never been a worthwhile pursuit in its own right for me, just a very good excuse to assemble friends to indulge in drinking and spending.  The novelty of betting on Yabbis probably just meant I would lose money in ways I didn't understand.

Some of the purty folks rolling in for Yabbi fun

Wandering around the usually deserted streets of Windorah I overheard some ridiculous accents and conversations between rednecks, each trying to proclaim more loudly than the other how sympathetic, understanding or environmental  they really were, before launching an attack on whatever greeny, lefty, labour proposition they had borrowed an opinion on.

But I was being overly sensitive and besides, I sat writing this wearing a singlet and sipping XXXX outside the Western Star hotel, waiting for my spare tyre to be fixed, listening in and judging people in a most hypocritical fashion.  This town was pretty great, especially Merv the blind garage owner who felt his way around the eftpos machine with his careful fingers and fixed the blown tyres himself, with a hammer and crow bar. He liked to make jokes about his blindness, while his foul mouthed side kick Bub would flat out insult them.  They were an odd pair, in a curious town.

Merv with his cat. He had a nice smile and hairless legs.

I took a few shots of the folks around the place before and during the Yabbi races. Here are some of them.



                       

Your man Andy, the fighting Irishman, was a sound lad with some fine stickers.

The crowd were right into it - one Yabbi went for $900

 With the sundown and the punting about to commence, my new buddies, 5 ringers from Corrowa, studied the form.  Pooh Bawl leaped from the page immediately and he was our pick from early on.  The Yabbi descriptions were a ribald affair: who knew Pooh Bawl would become our catch cry for the days to follow?

 



Pooh Bawl in action, shooting to the front! Old mate celebrating the huge win $1400 back from a syndicate outlay of $450 - sweeeeet!



 

With the Thomson Trot Trophy

Well Windorah - One Shovel only, in the cultural attraction category.  There was no where I could find vinyl, fairly terrible food, a distinct lack of cultural diversity and, the biggest disappointment - no gym!  Still it was a great Yabbi festival, so its a bloody big shovel.



On the outskirts of Windorah stand a row of five huge dishes lined with mirrors reflecting light onto a single point and harnessing the sun to power the town.  These divisive hunks of technology were reviled by many, despite helping keep power costs down.  I heard many criticisms and few compliments; they were the product of greenies in Brisbane, or worse, Anna Bligh, and so could do no good.  I thought it was a progressive develpoment.  Perhaps, like any new technology it takes some getting used to.  Then what was once novelty soon becomes necessity.

 A little further out along the highway toward Betoota, this stone circle lies, outlining a native well.  These Aborignal survival tools were crucial for travelling across the arid landscape in the dry season.  The effort to carve the holes through bedrock, and ensure they remain free enough from contamination to remain potable shows a profound understanding and manipulation of the landscape. Once the location of these wells were known to European settlers they were able to survive the treacherous journey from station to station.

 

Dusk. The sun is setting fiercely over the horizon, blazing the red sand of the lunette on which I sit. I am perched on the most westerly escarpment where the sand plunges down into a natural bowl. The stillness is sublime.  Clouds crouch in geometric shapes and lines, propounding strata. It is an isolation to be savoured and a scene best imbibed alone.

It was dawn when we left town, and the land swept out before us like an ocean. We crossed the plains from Bedourie to Birdsville to Betoota to get here. The car crested grassy waves on slow undulating hills that stretched and surged up out of the flatness, and then we surfed down their sandy faces onto floodplains awash with ironstone.  The stones sit squat and waxy, their baked volcanic tumescence spread out like a swamp. By mid morning clouds were strewn across the sky like dirty fingerprints on the windscreen and the juicy silhouettes of insects festooned the front of the car, attesting our journeys length.

I open the last of my XXXX as the sun drops heavily the horizon like a tired man slumping into an armchair. Birds flit urgently from shrub to scrub. Their flighty presence reminds me of the carnage we inflicted this morning at sunrise, as suicidal bush chooks flummoxed fatally across the highway.  The indecision they showed as they darted three quarters of the length of the bitumen, then back again in time to be rendered under the tyres of the Hilux reminded me of something pathetically human.  I was glad not to be driving so I could look away.