Chapter 8 – Simpson Desert and On – Day 19-21
Susan and Mark packed their things quickly after breakfast. Then before they got on the road he checked the two spare tyres, the water and fuel tanks, then the engine oil. “I fuelled up in Yulara so we have enough fuel to go about 1000 kilometres yet. But you still need to check. Doesn’t do to run dry in the middle of nowhere,” explained Mark.
Then they were on their way, turning back onto a main dirt road going east. They did a detour to the Henbury Craters and admired at the way a meteorite had scooped such a large hole out of the dry stony hillside. Mark and Susan walked briskly in the still and chill morning air, doing a circuit of the craters. No one else was in sight.
“Bit early for tourists, if we come back in a couple hours there’ll be plenty,” said Mark.
They drove north onto Stuart Highway, and as they swept down into a valley, with the green line of the Finke River ahead, they turned to the east, following a sandy dirt road heading towards the morning sun. Another hour and a half of driving followed, on a series of back roads, which crossed a succession of sand dunes interspersed with flat areas of open grass and scrub and small clay pans. They came to a solitary rock outcrop called Chambers Pillar for late morning tea. It stood alone, a silent pale yellow and ochre sentinel, surveying its empty desert kingdom of two lonely crows.
It was a tourist site and several visitors arrived as they were drinking their tea, walking around and climbing up to the base to witness the great views into the distance. They waved and called out distant hellos but otherwise remained separate.
Mark and Susan continued east and began to swing south, running alongside ever-bigger dunes that marked the west of the Simpson Desert.
Mark seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all these back roads, turning this way and that, cutting his way across the country, while maintaining a broad direction. He explained that creeks and rivers ran out from the ranges to the western edge of the desert where they ended in a series of swamps which he called flood-outs. These became massive pools of water after rain.
Now, with the heaviest rain of the year a past memory, these flood-outs were drying, but still lush. The roads that a year earlier were well underwater were now becoming trafficable. Mark told her that in remnant swamps lush vegetation grew to the height of a vehicle roof.
The swamps were populated by fat cattle, mostly enormous bullocks. They seemed to do little but eat. Many had grown so fat they waddled. A vast profusion of waterbirds, ducks, pelicans, swans, and waders, lived here too. As they passed these flew off in dense white clouds.
Then the swamps were left behind, and they passed alongside vast sand dunes, bank behind bank. As they drove they saw cattle and the occasional camel, sometimes they glimpsed distant buildings, which Mark told her were cattle station homesteads. They kept heading east and south along a mix of roads and tracks.
Now they were into the desert proper heading to the southeast, running between massive sand hills along a set of faint wheel tracks. All signs of human habitation had dropped away.
Mark told her they were heading for flood-out country at the very end of the Finke River where it ended in the desert at the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory, beyond that was a flowing bore where they would camp for the night. Mark said that it formed an oasis in the desert.
In the afternoon Mark and Susan stopped at a clay-pan, where water had pooled between a two mighty sand dunes. They lit a fire and had a cup of tea along with bread, cheese and cracker biscuits. It was followed by a mug of cool water that Mark poured from a waterbag, which Susan had noticed, hanging just behind the vehicle cabin. It had a slight canvas taste, but was cool and refreshing.
They had seen no one else for hours. Susan had never experienced such a total sense of solitude. She thought she should feel scared and isolated in this remote place, with this man she barely knew. Yet, instead, she felt contentment and elation. It was a place of perfection; the two of them, the desert, endless red hues of sand, splashes of purple, yellow, and white desert flowers and a rich blue sky that stretched away into infinity. It gave rest for her soul. She felt joy to be in the company of someone who drew sustenance from it as she did.
After eating Susan and Mark sat silent and peaceful, absorbing their quiet solitude and the land around them. Here was something beyond words. People had come to deserts for millennia to find this, man lost in vastness, on a scale that exceeded imagination.
Susan must have dozed off, sitting on the sand with her back against the swag, because the movement of Mark packing to go snapped her from her daze. Reluctantly she rose and they drove on.
Susan lost all concept of time, distance, and direction—other than an awareness of the sun and where it sat in the sky. With the glowing disc behind them starting to cast long shadows, the colours of the sand grew bright as it reflected the light.
An unknown time later, having passed yet more sand dunes and flood-outs, they came to their destination, the flowing bore.
Mark explained that, decades earlier, a drilling crew had sunk this bore. As they reached the water a huge blast of pressure had blown out the wellhead. For fifty years it had flowed, inestimable amounts of water, rising from far below the earth in a thing called the Great Artesian Basin, the aquifer that covered half of inland Australia, and which lay under this entire desert and a thousand miles beyond.
Some said the water started its journey in the New Guinea highlands, where hundreds of inches of rain fell each year. Slowly, over hundreds or thousands of years, it oozed through rocks far underground until it filled the ground below this place. It was like the immensity of the desert, unseen, yet at a scale beyond human comprehension.
When the bore water flow first began it had risen thirty feet into the air, a massive geyser. Now it was like a steady bubbling flow, rising to Susan’s chest height as it came out. Trapped between low hills it flowed out into a green space, drinking place of desert animals, place of green grass. After a few hundred yards all sign of water was gone, returned to sky or its underground source, and there was only desert again.
They made their camp on a dry clay-pan within sight of the bore flow. Mark found a pair of binoculars that he passed to Susan, along with a “What Bird Is That” book.
He encouraged her to try and identify some of the innumerable birds that came in to drink. He also suggested that she also keep a lookout for other animals that may come to drink, perhaps a camel or an old bullock.
Mark was seeking a big fat bullock for his larder. He explained that sometimes they came here to drink in the evening dusk or full dark. These were the escapees from stations, way up north, coming from hundreds of miles away. Some found their way into this place after floods or storms broke down fences and lived on years later, out in the farthest reaches of the desert, walking onward between sand dunes running southeast until they emerged here.
Mark pointed to a low succulent bush with bright pink flowers that grew in clumps around their camp. He broke off a piece and crushed it between his fingers, so the juice ran out and dripped to the ground, “This is parakeelya,” he told her, “After rain it grows between the dunes. Where there is parakeelya cattle do not need to drink, this gives both food and water. So they walk hundreds of miles, living on this. When a long dry comes, it dies away. Then they must come here to drink in the summer heat. But for now it is growing across the desert and they do not need to come here to drink.
“But cattle are creatures of habit, so still some come, perhaps there will be one tonight. If there is, I will take its meat, either as it drinks, or by following its tracks in the early morning. Usually, after a big drink, they don’t walk far before they stop to rest. Meat is good for trading with mines and aboriginal communities where we’ll be going.
“What lives out here no one else can lay claim to. So they’re free for the taking; that is, if you are smart enough to find them. But it’s easier said than done, they’re incre
dibly clever animals, they only survive if they can avoid people. I like to try—I enjoy the challenge. Sometimes I succeed.”
It was an hour until dark, so Mark suggested they climb up a nearby sand dune that provided a wide view of the surrounding countryside. The dune was surprisingly high and it was hard to climb. But they worked their way up, puffing as they went. At the summit they gained a panorama of the desert as evening settled. They sat in the lee of the dune, just below the top, where they could look back towards their camp. It was silent in the evening stillness, and they sat in this silence. After a few minutes Mark pointed out a huge eagle, circling above them.
“A wedge-tail, it must have a nest somewhere around. It’s looking for something, perhaps a rabbit, for its dinner.” As he spoke the eagle folded its wings and plummeted down to where the grass grew green on the edge of the soak. As it soared aloft again, Susan saw it was carrying a brown furry object in its talons, an unfortunate rabbit, now dinner.
A little time later they saw movement to the west, perhaps a kilometre away. Susan’s eyes tried to pinpoint where it came from, but it was indistinct in the evening haze. She picked up the binoculars and zoomed to where she had sensed movement. Now it came sharp in her focus, a group of camels were walking through the mixed trees, browsing as they went. There were six large ones and three smaller ones, females with some calves. About a hundred yards behind was an even larger animal, a bull camel tracking along behind the female group. Despite feeding, they moved along rapidly. Before long they reached the edge of the soak. There one raised its nose in the air, tasting the breeze. Without an obvious signal they formed into a file and drifted away, fading into desert at a steady trot.
“They’re like ships of the desert, the way they silently come and go,” noted Susan, “Why did they change direction before they ate or drank, and head away?”
“Out here they see little of people, but on the stations, back towards Alice, people shoot them because they break fences. Others round them up and catch them. So, to survive, camels try to keep away from people. They probably caught our smell, wafting in the evening breeze and decided they would rather be some place else.”
There was a scurrying noise in a clump of spinifex near where they sat. Mark put his finger to his lips. Seconds later a small, mouse-like, furry creature, ran out. With a springy step, it sniffed here and there, making little darting movements as it scurried this way and that. Suddenly it sprung high into the air and caught a large beetle in its paws, almost half the size of the creature. Mark and Susan watched, as it proceeded to eat it with apparent relish, crunching every last morsel then licking its lips. A few seconds later it was joined by a second, identical creature. The sniffed each other warily, then, as if frightened, they sprung back into the spinifex together. The shadow of a hawk passed a few feet above them.
Susan looked to her other side, hearing a faint chirp. In a bush, so close she could almost touch it, was a mother blue wren with a nest of chicks. The mother made little cheeps as she dipped her beak towards each open mouth, transferring food to each in turn. She moved so fast it was like little flashes of light as she darted hither and thither amongst the low branches alongside the nest. Then another of her kind was sitting next to her—a male, the female’s mate, with even more brilliant plumage, returned to contribute his share. He repeated the feeding of the chicks. Then, for a brief second, the two birds sat side by side on a small twig, making a ritual of re-acquaintance before flitting away.
Now a chill was falling in the still evening; Susan gave a shiver.
Mark noticed, “Time to return for dinner. It gets really cold out here at night, so you will want warm clothes.”
“I expect you to keep me warm tonight, that’s what you are here for.” Susan answered cheekily.
As they reached the bottom of the dune, coming alongside the soak, there was a whirring sound in the sky above. They both looked up. Framed in the last rays of the sun was a vast cloud of iridescent budgerigars, tens on tens of thousands, a number far beyond counting. They circled in a tight spiral whorl then settled en mass to drink. With another whir they were away, gone into the sky.
A wealth of wildlife lives here in this remote desert place. Far beyond what I ever imagined, Susan thought.
She and Mark settled into the evening, next to a fire, with sizzling sausages and another pannikin of rum. Of old bullocks there were no signs; like phantoms of the ocean, coming only when not expected or looking another way.
They were both tired and slept soundly, cuddled together for warmth. Lovemaking was forgotten until the call of a bird brought them awake in early dawn light. Then, well refreshed, they pleasured each other and slept again.
Mark got up to stoke the fire. While, Susan thought about joining him, she decided it was too cold out of the swag, and burrowed back, deep under the covers.
Later, hidden in her cocoon of comfort, she heard a noise above her. She poked her nose out. Mark was holding out a steaming mug of tea and a plate of toast, bacon and eggs.
“Something for her ladyship, made while she slumbered. It’s cold out, there is ice at the edge of the soak and the cabin thermometer reads minus six degrees. So I thought you needed breakfast in bed before you emerge to face the day.”
Susan put down the plate and cup and took his hand. “I hope you are coming to have it with me. The breakfast looks and smells fantastic, but what I most want is for you to come in here, sheltered from the desert cold, and warm me against your body.”
Mark began to climb in, food forgotten, maleness aroused. Susan put up her hand, “First we must eat. We’re going to need the energy.”
She made space beside her. Mark laid his body there as she climbed astride. She placed pillows under his head and, taking the plate, fed him alternating mouthfuls.
She could feel his maleness, hard against her belly. Still feeding him, Susan aligned her body and pushed him within her. Sex merged with breakfast. They devoured food; they devoured each other, alternating steps, increasing gusto, until controlled no longer.
After, lying in his arms, she said, “You are the sexiest, most precious man I have met. I am crazed with desire and don’t want this to end. Could we stay in the desert, forever?”
She felt Mark’s arms tighten around her and he pushed his face into her hair. No words were said, but it felt like an emotion that mirrored hers. His body shook slightly; it was almost like he was crying inside but his face was hidden.
She ran her fingers through his hair, and whispered inside her mind, I love you.
Later, Susan would remember this moment as their most perfect place of existence, the place before any shadow had come into their sky.
After breakfast Mark scouted the water edges. “Well, we missed nothing in our sleep; nothing came last night, no tracks. Still, I am glad you came here, very few do.”
Susan nodded, “Amen to that.”
After breakfast they walked for another hour along the soak and amongst the dunes. Sometimes she skipped, her joy outpouring into physical exuberance. Sometimes they held hands, or she hugged herself to him as he walked along. Once she climbed a dune to above his head, and rushing down, flung herself into his arms with total abandon. He caught her and swung her through the air with effortless strength. It was an aimless rambling walk, more about each other and the delight of togetherness than about a place in the desert. But the desert was their playground and the warming sun gave a sense of immortal delight. For a short time she could believe that their life could go on together, forever, just like this.
It was mid-morning when they packed up. They returned the way they had come for the first couple hours, following yesterday’s tracks. Then they took a different road, which travelled further north along the desert edge. The trip rolled along, not unlike yesterday, but with a sense of kinship between them that Susan had not experienced with anyone else. She sensed that Mark was feeling something similar. A couple times they stopped their car on a high des
ert ridge and gazed away into the endless space. They made occasional aimless conversation, but it was like punctuation marks between empty spaces, spaces without need of filling, as befitted this land of emptiness.
As they drove between two large sand dunes, in the mid-afternoon, Mark sighted a big bullock trotting east towards the ridge of sand a couple hundred metres away.
He pulled the car to a halt. “I have been looking for a big fat one, just like this.” He opened a long steel box with a heavy lock. He removed a heavy hunting rifle, with a gleaming polished scope. Mark cracked the bolt open and fed a round into the breach from the magazine, then clicked on the safety. Susan could see from his confident handling that he had often used guns before.
He walked away from the car to where a bent tree formed a natural rest at shoulder height. The bullock had stopped in a patch of scrub, at the foot of a big dune, now a good 300 metres away. It was barely visible and its head little more than a black dot as it ate some succulent foliage. She watched Mark ease off the safety catch and steady himself, a pause for maybe two seconds, then crack. The bullock fell down as if pole-axed.
Mark returned to the car and they drove over to near where it lay, picking a way across the bits of broken ground with care. Susan walked across to the body.
She looked at this massive animal, at least a ton, with rolls of fat flesh bulging around its hips and tail. She tried to see where bullet had hit it; it must have been a head or spine shot to fall like that. She finally located a small red dot in the brown skin, just below and behind the ear. Under this mark she could feel smashed bone. She was a fair shot and her father was good, but Mark had real skill to pull off a shot like that, accurate to the inch over 300 yards.
In half an hour Mark had boned out the carcass, loading the meat into clear plastic bags, which went in to the cooler on the large blocks of ice. She helped carry the smaller cuts and then with cleaning up. The large pieces were very heavy, completely beyond her to lift. Mark carried them with apparent ease. They packed up and headed on again.
It felt like “Out of Africa” or “English Patient” with panorama after panorama opening before their eyes. Over each ridge new rows of dunes emerged. Gradually to the north, blue in the distance, mountains ranges grew out of the horizon, the East MacDonnell’s, with Arltunga, their evening destination.
Finally, in the late evening, the hillsides glowing intense blue, they arrived at the Arltunga Bush Hotel. A pre-booked cabin with a hot shower awaited them.
Mark carried a large slab of meat to the hotel manager, a good friend. He was back in a minute. “We’re expected for dinner and drinks on them, in return for the meat.”
They showered, dressed and went into the bar. Dinner was homemade bush tomato-flavoured sausages, along with a large piece of roast meat, said to be camel, and vegetables. Their glasses were endlessly full and the cheer flowed.
This was the first place she had been where Mark seemed among friends, these people greeted him as someone they knew. He greeted them back and they all laughed and joked together. They all made Susan feel included and welcome.
After dinner a guitar was found and country songs were sung: mining songs, stockman songs, songs about the country and its people. Songs by people called Slim: Slim Whitman, Slim Dusty. ‘A pub with no beer’, ‘Leave him in the long yard – the baldy bay’. Susan sang along with gusto. This was the Australian bush of legend. It pleased her a lot to see Mark in his element, amongst friends.
Finally, sometime after midnight, last drinks then stumps were called. She and Mark walked, arm in arm, back to their cabin. Their lovemaking was perfunctory, both full of drink and soon asleep. She lay cuddled into him and felt even closer than before.
In the morning a cooked breakfast was served in the pub. Then, with backslapping farewells, they were on their way, heading towards the north-west across some of the biggest mountains she had seen so far.
They stopped for a cup of tea at a little mine that eked out a living from the rocky hills and their minerals. Mark passed another great slab of beef to the grateful miners.
They hung it in a scrawny mulga tree. Mark explained it would hang and dry over several days, up to a week. With a dry outside crust it would keep and not spoil. The flavour and tenderness would improve, day after day, until it would just melt in your mouth.
Mark suggested that a miner take Susan for a tour into the workings, a shaft cut into the side of the hill. A grizzled bull of a man, with calloused hands and little English, accompanied her. He showed her how they propped the walls and chipped into the shiny seams. He brought her to a seam that held possible gemstones. Pointing his torch, to capture glints and reflections, he showed her how to look for the colour.
Mark remained behind, deep in conversation with the mine manager. Glancing back, when almost gone from sight, Susan saw this man open a case and show Mark something. It appeared to interest him greatly. They were both absorbed and unaware, but her companion noted and said. “Maybe they trade.”
Susan found the tour interesting, but she realised what backbreaking work it must be. They had some mechanical equipment. But a lot of it seemed to require a pick and shovel in a dark dusty hole, with strange shadows from the electric bulbs. Still, she could sense the excitement in her tour guide, as he told her how, just sometimes, they found fantastic stones hidden amongst all the muck.
When they returned the two men were drinking another cup of tea, having concluded whatever their business transactions were.
They drove on. The roads were rough and stony and the mountains were steep. There were places where the road was little more than wheel tracks over the rocks creeping around the sides of huge hills. The side slope made Susan nervous, knowing where they would end up if they lost control, but Mark was concentrating hard and seemed in his element, fully confident. So she relaxed, trusting him as she left herself in his care.
Sometimes he drove in low gear creeping over broken ground as the engine chugged, other times they would come across flat valley floors, where he accelerated and went up through the gears. Other times they traversed broken-up sections of washed-out creek crossings, picking their way around rocks, holes and obstacles. It seemed very few people ever came this way.
Mark was knowledgeable about the country and its geology, giving her a running commentary, explaining as they went. She realised she was gaining a unique view of this country of childhood stories and imagination; it was becoming ever more real and fascinating as they drove.
They saw huge bullocks aplenty, along with scrub bulls. Mark explained that these were owned by the station Mark and Susan were driving through. These cattle were like a piggy bank full of thousand dollar notes. It could be opened when money was needed. Now, when times and seasons were good, these backcountry cattle were left alone to grow big and fat. When the dry times came again this four footed gold would be turned into cash.
There were also lots of brumbies, proud stallions with their necks arched, that herded and harassed their broods of mares, ears laid back. Once they spied two brumby groups meet near a waterhole. The stallions reared up and bared their teeth in threat. One backed away, herding his mares, while the victor galloped behind him for a few seconds biting at his rump. He quickly returned to his own harem, perhaps fearful that another would steal them away.
Around lunchtime they stopped at a place where a soak ran out of the side of a hill. Hoof marks indicated recent cattle and horse use, but now it was theirs, joined by multitudes of the little zebra finches and an occasional iridescent parrot.
Mark lit another fire of dried mulga, which burned fiercely. As it burned down he took a black heavy metal plate, about a foot long, from beside a spare wheel—“My mobile barbeque.” And from yesterday’s bullock meat, he sliced off two, inch thick, slabs and put them on the grill, along with half a kidney.
The scent of the meat was delicious, served on a slice of bread with pickles. The meat was rich flavoured and tender, best restaurant
quality. Mark said it would improve more if hung for at least three more days.
In the mid-afternoon they finally emerged from the mountains onto a wide, open grass plain to the west.
“Yambah Station, one of the best blocks in the Alice,” Mark said.
Now they were heading for Barrow Creek pub where, that night, a bush band was supposed to be playing. It was over 200 kilometres north. They had a quick drink from the waterbag then went on.
Two and a half hours later, with late afternoon drifting towards dusk, they came round a bend. Alongside low rocky hills was a sign pointing to Barrow Creek Hotel. Rooms were booked out, but many people were camped out on the flat ground nearby, come in from the stations and camps to enjoy the night. Mark and Susan drove to one side and rolled out their swag. Half the population was aboriginal. This was Susan’s first introduction to these people who all seemed to know Mark well.
Mark explained he had done a lot of work around here, mining work, station work, work in these aboriginal communities; sinking bores, putting up windmills, fixing houses and anything else needed. These people had become his friends. He called to one older man named Johnnie, a tribal elder. Lifting out a piece of meat he offered it to him.
“This one good bullock, Johnnie. Found him eating parakeelya, on the edge of that desert country. You know, other side Artlunga. How about you take this one for your dinner. Pay back for that kangaroo you gave me last year.”
With a broad smile and some gesticulating thanks Johnnie carried it away.
Over near the pub the band was warming up, playing reels and jigs. A few bare-footed aboriginal girls were dancing in the dust. To the side were several cut down 44-gallon drums, with roaring fires burning inside them, to ward off the evening chill. Most people were drinking beer, though a few old-timers could be seen with their rum bottles and pannikins. A barbeque, with steak, sausages and onions, along with piles of buttered bread, coleslaw and tomato sauce, was on offer. The price was a donation to the Flying Doctor.
Groups were mingling, coming and going, warming up for the evening dancing. All at once the band struck up a full jig and the caller told everyone to put down their drinks and come and join in for the first dance. He led them slowly through their moves at first. Then they were on their own. The music got faster and faster and most people joined in and kept up, after a fashion. When the song was over there were cheers and calls of, “More! More!”
Sometimes Susan danced with Mark; sometimes other men sought her out. Eventually a supper break was called, and weary legs rested, before the band resumed for their final bracket. It was a great night, carried along by the music, dancing in the dust.
In the late-late night only a few remained, hunched around the fires; Mark, deep in tales with a couple old-timers, over a bottle of rum, sat with them around a fire.
Susan stayed on a while, but finally she signalled to Mark that she was off to bed. She yawned as she walked to their campsite and crawled into the rolled out swag. This was the first time she had gone to bed alone. While part of her missed Mark’s strong, warm body she was content lying out in an incredible star filled night, as the fires slowly guttered and died away. The only noise was a distant hum of a diesel generator and the mutter of soft conversation. A bright shooting star flashed across her vision. Susan felt happy in this remote but amazing place.
When she woke in the early dawn, Mark was lying beside her, fully dressed and snoring quietly. As the dawn lit the eastern sky she made her way to the temporary shower block, and washed herself, shivering in the cold. She returned, gazing at the sky. It was just another desert sunrise, ordinary in its extraordinariness. The light was what captivated her, golden lance shafts spearing from the horizon. Far above, at the outer edges of the world, they lit fine filaments of clouds in endless hues of shifting pastel pinks, extraordinary light, extraordinary colour, everyday desert ordinariness, she thought.
Mark slept on; she could smell the rum now she was washed. She cuddled into him again in their bed, content to be with him and enjoy their small window together. The sun was just a hand width above the horizon when Mark stirred. As he opened bleary eyes he became aware of her.
“You look so fresh and pretty,” he said sleepily, as he admired her freshly washed face. “Now time to give a man his pleasure.”
“But Mark, I’m all dressed. Plus it’s daylight and all these people will see us.”
He reached out and pulled the canvas swag flap over their heads. “Not now, they won’t.” He directed her hand to his hard maleness.
This lovemaking had an illicit thrill, in a hidden place of pleasure, with the noises of other people waking up and moving around them. They pushed it away, absorbed in each other. This was their cave of delight, under the shelter of the canvass. She knew this strange man was taking over and consuming her life. It was beyond any power she had to stop it.