There aren’t quite suitable words in the English language to describe what I’ve seen and done so far, but I’ll do my best with a little Aussie slang thrown in.
Last Tuesday I rolled out of Brisbane on The Westerner, a train that runs from Brizzy to Charleville. We left at 7:15 pm and arrived in Charleville the next day at 12:30 pm. Word to the wise: when travelling on an overnight train, best to book a sleeping car. In my enthusiasm to book my ticket I completely blanked on details and accepted an econ
omy car; it wasn’t until they turned the lights out at 10:00 that it dawned on me that this was to be my bed for the night – a regular old bus seat. I’m not too fussed, I’ve slept in worse, however I did not bring a blanket or pillow (except Teddy of course) and their heater was broken. Around 1:00 AM I shivered my way into the service car to ask the crew member for a blanket; he gave me the “I’m sorry I can’t, if I give you one then I have to give everyone a blanket…” but when I asked him for at least some of his newspaper to cover up with through loudly chattering teeth, he took pity on me. I wrapped that thing around me like a cocoon.
omy car; it wasn’t until they turned the lights out at 10:00 that it dawned on me that this was to be my bed for the night – a regular old bus seat. I’m not too fussed, I’ve slept in worse, however I did not bring a blanket or pillow (except Teddy of course) and their heater was broken. Around 1:00 AM I shivered my way into the service car to ask the crew member for a blanket; he gave me the “I’m sorry I can’t, if I give you one then I have to give everyone a blanket…” but when I asked him for at least some of his newspaper to cover up with through loudly chattering teeth, he took pity on me. I wrapped that thing around me like a cocoon.Once warmed up I still struggled to get situated, and wrestling with positioning I finally sat up chuckling – the whole situation was quite funny – but when I looked out the window, I literally choked on my laugh. I lost my breath – the sight outside startled it right out of me. Thousands, I mean THOUSANDS of stars were shining in the sky. Some even as big as my pinky finger tip from where I was sitting. I’ve never seen so many stars stuck together in all my life – not in the remotest parts of the states, not in Switzerland, Austria…and they are so close to the horizon! It seems as though right where the ground ends the first star is planted. This is the first time I have ever experienced the feeling and sensation that the earth is actually round, from a flat surface on the ground. It’s like a blanket of crystals draped over a bubble holding you. Am I going on too much? It doesn’t do it justice. I kinda sat in this awed stupor staring for about an hour before falling back asleep.
You would think I would be groggy the next morning, but as soon as I removed my sleeping mask the bright blue of the sky chased that right away. Bright red dirt, the carpet of the Outback, flashed by the train – as well as plenty of green trees, bush, grass. I’m told that this is quite rare – they’ve had an unseasonal amount of rain this year after years of drought, which has made everything lush and green. There were occasional rolling hills, and large vast areas of flatlands. Here and there we would see kangaroos running away from us – sometimes in pairs, sometimes in packs of ten or twelve. Saw a few emus, and one mama with 8 baby emus…also some cows, sheep, and something that looked like a giant wild boar. They are quite popular for hunting around these parts. There were also plenty of streams and large pools of water. One gentleman in the dining car was saying that the north coast gets torrential rains and floods during Christmas time, and then it flows down Australia for the rest of the year towards Southern Australia. So it’s just now reaching Queensland in the middle; should give you an idea of how vast this country is.We also saw a kid on a bike with his mom waving, in the middle of nowhere; you could see their home in the distance. Perhaps he was on his way to school?
The people on the train were familiar to me. There were some Aussie tourists, but many were from the area and heading home. They were older, weather beaten, wrinkled, and answered questions about the Outback with a slow deep Aussie drawl and a twinkle in their eye. They reminded me so much of my family and heritage on my dad’s side – East Texas farmers who lived off the land and worked hard all their life just to feed their family. I really admire and respect them. In truth so far a lot of the landscape even looks like parts of Texas. So, you could say that part of me feels like I’m coming home. Once in Charleville, I caught a 2 hour bus to Quilpie, and stayed there for the night. I took a walk around the town (which only took 5 minutes) and then went to the pub to order dinner. A lot of the locals were eyeing me, though they were friendly enough. The pub started getting busy for dinner, and as I was almost done with my meal I offered my table to a family who had just come in – to which they immediately replied “Join us, we’re good folk!” I happily accepted. There was grandma, mom, dad, uncle, two older sons graduated who work for the hospital (still not sure where said hospital is) and their little 3 year old brother, Marcus. They were so nice – bought me wine, asked me about Texas, gave me their contact info and told me to call if I needed anything at all. Some of them are coming down for a rodeo in a few weeks so I should see them there. After dinner they took a football and Marcus’s tricycle and went into the abandoned streets to play football by the moonlight. Such a great feel out here. I turned in early, as I had to catch a ride to Windorah the next morning at 4:45 AM…
This ride to Windorah, with Ray the delivery man, is quite possibly the highlight of my entire Aussie trip thus far. He is called the “mail man” (so I literally came in with the mail) but he actually delivers any and everything to all farms/homesteads in between Quilpie and Windorah. We dropped off food, supplies, tires, mail, anything anyone could need. It was so much fun to see each farm, ranch, house…everyone wants you to stay for tea, and though we stayed for a chat with a few of them, we had to keep moving. At one house a helicopter flew close over our heads – Ray asked the lady of the house who that was and she said “oh, that’s dad, checking to make sure we didn’t miss any bulls during the muster yesterday.” Now, let me tell you something – perhaps the big ranches do this in Texas and I’m just unaware – but the ranches are so large here that they use helicopters, planes, motorbikes, and horses to muster their cattle. This sounded like a bit much to me so I asked one lady, Maureen, why they needed it – “Oh well, we’ve got 20,000 acres, just makes it easier.” As I balked at this, she said “Well we’ve just got a small property – you’ll see more helicopters and planes this morning for the property next to us, they’ve got 1,000,000 acres…” A MILLION ACRES? Yep, the Outback.
Ray and I continued on our route to Windorah, sometimes detouring for an hour off the road to make mail or supplies drops…(and by the way, the road was not paved, or sealed as they say, for most of the trip…just red dirt road) one drop was just hysterical. Even though we drove an hour off the main road, when he started slowing down with absolutely nothing in site but some small sand dunes and plains, I was curious as to what was going on…then I saw an old icebox, from about 1952, in the middle of nowhere. He pulled right up to it, hopped out, and threw some mail in there. “Aw yeah, that’s just old Rick’s drop, he just comes to pick it up from there, he’s too far out for us.” A lone vintage ice box in the middle of the Outback. Love it.
On a solemn note, at the beginning of our drive, we saw many kangaroos…when I commented on this Ray said “oh yeah, we’ll probably hit four or five by the end of the day”…I thought surely he was joking, but nope – we definitely hit five kangaroos.
That truck was loaded down with too much weight to stop fast – we would have wrecked – and though he tries to honk and get them out of the way, like our Texas deer, they get confused. I definitely had some tears from the first one, but I didn’t want to seem like a sook in the Outback so tried to take it in stride.
This ride to Windorah, with Ray the delivery man, is quite possibly the highlight of my entire Aussie trip thus far. He is called the “mail man” (so I literally came in with the mail) but he actually delivers any and everything to all farms/homesteads in between Quilpie and Windorah. We dropped off food, supplies, tires, mail, anything anyone could need. It was so much fun to see each farm, ranch, house…everyone wants you to stay for tea, and though we stayed for a chat with a few of them, we had to keep moving. At one house a helicopter flew close over our heads – Ray asked the lady of the house who that was and she said “oh, that’s dad, checking to make sure we didn’t miss any bulls during the muster yesterday.” Now, let me tell you something – perhaps the big ranches do this in Texas and I’m just unaware – but the ranches are so large here that they use helicopters, planes, motorbikes, and horses to muster their cattle. This sounded like a bit much to me so I asked one lady, Maureen, why they needed it – “Oh well, we’ve got 20,000 acres, just makes it easier.” As I balked at this, she said “Well we’ve just got a small property – you’ll see more helicopters and planes this morning for the property next to us, they’ve got 1,000,000 acres…” A MILLION ACRES? Yep, the Outback.
Ray and I continued on our route to Windorah, sometimes detouring for an hour off the road to make mail or supplies drops…(and by the way, the road was not paved, or sealed as they say, for most of the trip…just red dirt road) one drop was just hysterical. Even though we drove an hour off the main road, when he started slowing down with absolutely nothing in site but some small sand dunes and plains, I was curious as to what was going on…then I saw an old icebox, from about 1952, in the middle of nowhere. He pulled right up to it, hopped out, and threw some mail in there. “Aw yeah, that’s just old Rick’s drop, he just comes to pick it up from there, he’s too far out for us.” A lone vintage ice box in the middle of the Outback. Love it.On a solemn note, at the beginning of our drive, we saw many kangaroos…when I commented on this Ray said “oh yeah, we’ll probably hit four or five by the end of the day”…I thought surely he was joking, but nope – we definitely hit five kangaroos.
That truck was loaded down with too much weight to stop fast – we would have wrecked – and though he tries to honk and get them out of the way, like our Texas deer, they get confused. I definitely had some tears from the first one, but I didn’t want to seem like a sook in the Outback so tried to take it in stride. So, here I am in Windorah, working at the pub. The dynamics are interesting – but keeping with my usual mentality I just don't engage with anything that isn’t real or doesn’t involve relishing this experience. Though it can be stressful and sometimes lonely, I’m telling you I’m still having the time of my life. My first day of work was Thursday, the night before the annual Windorah rodeo – what a night to start! Ringers (pronounced “Rangas”) and co
wboys travelled in from everywhere for the rodeo – we were a packed house. A ringer is a cowboy who works on a cattle station, whereas an actual cowboy is someone who competes in the rodeos. There are about 40 cattle stations around here – around here meaning within a 500 km radius, which is quite close. So they poured in, and I was definitely thrown in to the mix with no training at all, having a hard time with the accents, and shoot have never worked in a proper bar before! But I did it, and had SO MUCH FUN. Everyone immediately asks where I’m from, and by now my name is “Texas”. Once again, everyone is quite thrilled with the fact that I’m from the lone star state. There were a few foreigners there as well, one Irish and one German girl who both work as jillaroos on local stations, and a really nice Kiwi guy who is a pilot and musters the cattle with his plane on one of the stations.
wboys travelled in from everywhere for the rodeo – we were a packed house. A ringer is a cowboy who works on a cattle station, whereas an actual cowboy is someone who competes in the rodeos. There are about 40 cattle stations around here – around here meaning within a 500 km radius, which is quite close. So they poured in, and I was definitely thrown in to the mix with no training at all, having a hard time with the accents, and shoot have never worked in a proper bar before! But I did it, and had SO MUCH FUN. Everyone immediately asks where I’m from, and by now my name is “Texas”. Once again, everyone is quite thrilled with the fact that I’m from the lone star state. There were a few foreigners there as well, one Irish and one German girl who both work as jillaroos on local stations, and a really nice Kiwi guy who is a pilot and musters the cattle with his plane on one of the stations. 
The next day the pub closed at 12:00 (the entire town closed down, which consists of us, the Post Office, and the servo across the street run by Merv the blind man) so that we could head to the rodeo. Sitting at that rodeo all day, in the middle of red dirt, horses, cowboys and ringers that looked straight out of a book, I kept having to pinch myself. The people are so nice, in a truly genuine way. (I mean, in the bar you definitely get the drunk ones who are yelling at you about anything, but that’s to be expected.) Later in the day I took part in some relay race, running down a race track w
ith a toga on, and spoon and egg in my mouth (yeah, I dunno) and then later the party started. Picture yourself under the insane beauty of the Outback stars, untouched by smog or city lights, in the middle of nowhere, with Lady Gaga blaring, disco lights flashing, and drunk ringers bumpin’ and grinding. Surreal much? (Ladies, a word: the guy – girl ratio here is pretty damn good, I would say about 10:1, so if you’re lookin for love, come visit…although I have to say these guys are pretty wild, so be prepared.) I had a great time. The rodeo grounds are about 6K away from town, and by 12:30 AM I was over the party scene, having stayed up late the night before. So, I started to head home. I had many offers to walk me home, even some piggy back (no one was driving drunk) and though I accepted an escort to the main road, I insisted on walking back to town by myself….family, friends, please don’t be worried! I cannot really express what an incredible experience this was. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of – this time of year, their winter, there are no crazy critters about, except for kangaroos and emus…there are no dangerous characters – everyone alive in that area was either at the rodeo or already in town, and everyone knows literally everyone – and well, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to walk, by myself, under the blanket of the stars, in the Australian Outback. It was something I will never forget, as long as I live. I would describe it as something like God and I, alone, just hanging out together. And of course I stared half dumb at the stars the whole way home. I will cherish that memory forever…all up until the cattle guard, which I thought I had under control until it claimed both of my feet and I went tumbling over. Ah well, bruised pride and a busted hand are small prices to pay for that experience.
ith a toga on, and spoon and egg in my mouth (yeah, I dunno) and then later the party started. Picture yourself under the insane beauty of the Outback stars, untouched by smog or city lights, in the middle of nowhere, with Lady Gaga blaring, disco lights flashing, and drunk ringers bumpin’ and grinding. Surreal much? (Ladies, a word: the guy – girl ratio here is pretty damn good, I would say about 10:1, so if you’re lookin for love, come visit…although I have to say these guys are pretty wild, so be prepared.) I had a great time. The rodeo grounds are about 6K away from town, and by 12:30 AM I was over the party scene, having stayed up late the night before. So, I started to head home. I had many offers to walk me home, even some piggy back (no one was driving drunk) and though I accepted an escort to the main road, I insisted on walking back to town by myself….family, friends, please don’t be worried! I cannot really express what an incredible experience this was. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of – this time of year, their winter, there are no crazy critters about, except for kangaroos and emus…there are no dangerous characters – everyone alive in that area was either at the rodeo or already in town, and everyone knows literally everyone – and well, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to walk, by myself, under the blanket of the stars, in the Australian Outback. It was something I will never forget, as long as I live. I would describe it as something like God and I, alone, just hanging out together. And of course I stared half dumb at the stars the whole way home. I will cherish that memory forever…all up until the cattle guard, which I thought I had under control until it claimed both of my feet and I went tumbling over. Ah well, bruised pride and a busted hand are small prices to pay for that experience. 
The next day brought bronco and bull riding…just great fun. After the rodeo ended around 3:00 we opened the pub back up, and those who didn’t have to head straight home for work the next day hung around trying to prolong the holiday…we didn’t close up until 12:00 that night. I was exhausted yesterday, to say the least.So, that’s it for now! The pub and hotel is hard work…I won’t lie. But I didn’t come out here to sit on my bum, and even though it can be stressful I’m really enjoying it. It’s a lot of outdoor work, which I love, and I’m meeting so many great people. Tomorrow is my day off, a neighbor said he would take me riding, let’s hope he remembers. I’m also looking into working on a cattle station after this, so please keep your fingers crossed that that works out.
Also, just so you know - there is absolutely no cell phone service, our phone line is dicey, and the internet is something like an old gramophone - not always working, and you have to crank it up really hard and just pray that it lasts as long as you need it. So if I'm slow to respond or unable to write enough, I'm sorry...just know that I'm thinking about you all and miss you loads.
Love you all so much!
Nancy
