Sandstone, October 2020 - part 5
The Bush Chook Irresistible Force Paradox
Shaking myself out of a high-speed slumber, I turned to Mal who was staring transfixed out the passenger window as we barrelled down the gravel road between Sandstone and Payne’s Find with a contrail of amber reverence in our wake. To get Mal’s attention, I used a tried and trusted method honed in years long past. “Eye-spy with my little eye, something beginning with . . .”
“Kangaroo,” Mal instinctively answered, turning my way.
I grinned at him, “How’d you guess?”
Mal returned a grin and rolled his eyes. My inclination as the youngest sibling was enacted, I’d disturbed the peace.
“We’ll be in Payne’s Find soon,” I said. “This is the spot where old grump’s GPS ‘pinged’.”
“Oh yeah,” said Mal. He scanned the scene, twisting in the shotgun seat as we sped over the gravel. It all looked the same as the last two hundred kilometres. We pulled into a grader track and sat still with the engine running, staring out the windscreen at the violent scrub.
“What do we do now?” I said.
“We keep moving,” said Mal.
Perception of distance and time is relative. An old grey-haired physicist would be better placed to explain that concept further. All I can confirm is that if you start driving in one particular spot and an hour or more goes past with no apparent change in scenery nor conditions, a switch that is normally active in our modern brain reverts to a sequence past—slowly shutting down. It could possibly be misunderstood as a form of meditation, such is the mind-numbing effect. The Payne’s Find to Sandstone Road is one such place that will lump that unwanted peace on you. The distances in our outback are hard to fathom for those raised in cities or closer-knit regions.
On a map, the Payne’s Find to Sandstone Road appears as your standard country shortcut—a diagonal option between two towns, bypassing a third. And it is. And it does just that. If you are travelling to Sandstone and have no inclination to visit Mount Magnet (which just quietly is the smart decision, because . . .why would you) you can shave at least sixty kilometres, or forty minutes in the old money, off your trip. And let’s say you are already camped thirty-odd kilometres south of Sandstone, off that very road that is used as a shortcut. Well then, you’re already well on your way! Why go via Mount Magnet (which just quietly, you shouldn’t) when you can shave a full hour and ninety kilometres from your travel time?
Regardless of your decisions for or against traveling via Mount Magnet, the shortcut makes sense on paper, especially a map. It is a monotonous journey, yet so is the bitumen highway that goes the long route. That route more so, in fact. Which is why everyone takes that shortcut.
Truly the only perceived hindrance is that it is a gravel road, all two hundred-plus kilometres of it. However, I would dare you to have this conversation with any local person in outback Australia: “I went the long route because the shortcut was a gravel road.” The roll of that outbacker’s eyes would be so dramatic they’d be hard pressed to recover twenty-twenty vision thereafter.
And don’t get an outbacker started when discussing our local wildlife, i.e., the humble snakes, kangaroos, and emus who all go out of their way to kill you in the otherwise unpleasant countryside, either. Ask the very next Skippy the bush kangaroo you meet whether they prefer to play chicken with your car on a gravel road or bitumen. “Non-fussed,” they’d inevitably say. “Timing is of the essence, though,” they’d wink at you, offering a hint as to their hidden agenda.
Mal and I are both seasoned experts with regard to gravel roads and wildlife that wish you death. It may be of complete surprise to the average punter that the vast majority of roads in country Australia were gravel until very recently. We hardly saw bitumen in our youth, having both been born not that far south and west of the road we were on this particular day. Before the bitumen roads started snaking out from the city like angry spider webs, gravel roads provided a burgeoning industry for the grader drivers who spent their days and months ensuring a suitably level, pothole-free surface for all manners of outback vehicular transportation.
Mid June 1967, my parents jumped in Keify’s beloved amber X2 Holden and thundered down hundreds of kilometres of gravel highway toward Perth then ultimately King Eddies Hospital. Keify has been known to suggest that during such a drive, “those corners would come up quick in the X2, doing a hundred miles an hour”. No doubt the sudden white noise inside the cab when they finally hit bitumen would have been deafening. They repeated the journey two more times at least, in April ‘71 and February ‘74. Those quite possibly the only times that old amber Holden saw the silver.
Mal and I had our first encounter with the homicidal fauna of our outback as young tackers, too. Keify and Clarabelle decided to visit their respective families in South Australia and New South Wales over the Christmas holidays of ‘82. Ray was away working on a farm over the school break. Mal and I played eye-spy in the back seat of the new blue Holden while Mum and Dad took turns driving the four-day trip to our first stop, in the Adelaide hills. We drove all day then stopped before dusk each evening, sleeping in the car until the sun was up. Were their vampires or werewolves preventing us from driving at night, you might ask. No, there were more murderous fauna to be concerned of. We hadn’t even made it out of WA yet when one morning our beloved blue Holden sedan hit one of the hardest objects on earth and promptly exploded, shattering all dreams, before rolling to a stop off the shoulder of the Nullarbor Highway.
Mal and I both howled from the back seat, “what the bloody hell was that?”
“We hit a kangaroo,” said Clarabelle, the driver that particular morning. Mum started to cry.
Keify rubbed her arm. “It’s not your fault,” said Dad. The kangaroo had merely decided to cross the road a tad later than its allotted time of a quarter-past dawn that day, and an immovable object swiftly met an unstoppable force. We all got out of what was left of the car. I recall noting that the Holden emblem that was previously prominent and centre to the very front of the car was now touching the shattered windscreen. Keify opened the trunk and got the tyre lever out then walked back to where the kangaroo was laying twitching on the road. “I’ll just make sure it’s dead,” he said. Kangaroos have a habit of getting up and shaking off the impact of a two-tonne steel collision, so I guess Keify wanted to ensure the roads were safe for future travellers on that stretch of highway.
A fortnight later, after a week in Bordertown and a two-day journey inside our broken blue Holden perched on the back of a car-carrier, then swift repairs, our car was promptly returned to us in Adelaide. Hard to believe, eh? They don’t make cars nor smash-repairers like they used to…
Mal and I spent the remainder of that journey playing eye-spy with an added hint of our own personal hilarity. One of us would start by whispering, “Eye spy with my little eye, something beginning with . . .”, then the other would shout, “Kangaroo!”. Whoever was driving would panic and swerve, and Mal and I would twist and sway in the back seat, cackling away to ourselves before the well-earned whooping was delivered. Good times. The lesson was forever ingrained in our young minds though: Never drive in the outback when the sun is down, unless it is necessary.
Earlier that October 2020 morning, Mal and I had visited the Sandstone Pub. It was my third visit and third season to that town in those past five years. With Gordo in the Autumn of 2015. With my wife, Sally in the summer. Then with Mal, that 2020 Spring. Yet, I had also visited there once more a winter long ago.
At the dusk of last century, I was a young mining sparkie working in the Midwest Goldfields, living in camp accommodation in Mount Magnet. The proprietors of the Sandstone Pub had called in an emergency to us, their nearest trade contractors. The pub’s power was out, and the coolroom and ice-machines were therefore on the blink. Three of us knew that if we answered the call, our palms would be crossed with our most prized silver, the Bush Chook beer. We hastily assembled tools and supplies. “What vehicle should we take,” someone posed. It was decided that we needed our largest and heaviest artillery, to run the evening gauntlet between there and Sandstone. The seven-tonne truck replete with an array of anti-murder-fauna equipment was chosen.
I told this epic saga to all three Sandstone companions from the seasons of 2015 to 2020, with great reverence. “We took the truck, because of the kangaroos,” I’d said. “It was all gravel between Mount Magnet and Sandstone back then, and the local wildlife were in plague proportions at night. But, they just bounced straight off the truck bullbar. No one got hurt, not even the roos!”
We hit a record seven kangaroos that evening between Mount Magnet and Sandstone. They just bounced off the side of the truck then kept bounding away as we barrelled down that gravel road at a hundred miles an hour. The only thing we encountered that caused real damage was one rogue emu. Emus are like a ninety kilogram cannonball adorned with three slender appendages. When they hit, they explode in a frenzy of feathers, but that solid ball remains lodged inside whatever irresistible force dares impose their immovable object. The chaos that such a genteel prehistoric bird can cause is a sight to behold. We still made it to Sandstone that night though, with appendages dislodged and feathers scraped off. Nothing can stop a bush mechanic on a mission to an outback pub when promised free Bush Chooks.
I concluded the epic saga each time: “That old prehistoric murderball is probably still lodged in the Mitzi frontend!” The three very different reactions to that story from my autumn, summer, and spring travel companions were very telling...
Mal and I arrived outside the Sandstone pub at ten a.m.—opening time. I was surprised to find that we were the only patrons. “Where is everyone?” I asked the barmaid after ordering two Bush Chooks.
“We’re not as busy these days, now that Scruffy has moved on,” she said. “It’s not the same. The owners are too focused on tourists now—the caravaners. None of the locals visit much anymore since the prices have all gone up, and they don’t get local dis—” She stopped polishing a glass mid sentence, perhaps realising she hadn’t established who we were. “What are you fellas in town for?”
“We’re Ray Kehlet’s brothers,” I said pointing at the small shrine of beer coasters and flags on the mantle above the bar. “We thought we’d come up and have a look around.”
“Oh . . .” she said. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came forth. That is a standard reaction noted these last years, and understandable. There are no words. Thankfully the door bell rattled and another patron entered the awkward silence. “Your usual, Frank?” the barmaid asked the lanky, weathered man who ambled inside.
His voice was raspy and breath laboured. “Thanks love,” he wheezed as he sat on a stool diagonal us at the bar.
“These fellas are brothers of that couple who went missing up here. Remember?” said the barmaid, nodding in our direction.
Frank stared at us with cloudy grey eyes. “Where’s that fella that was with them?” he said. “They jail him yet?”
Straight to the point, I thought. Gotta love the honesty of the outback. “Not yet,” I said. I turned to Mal, who rolled his eyes.
“I’ve seen you up here before,” said Frank, pointing at Mal with a gnarled finger.
“Nah mate,” said Mal. “This is my first trip. Dave’s been here before.”
Frank looked me up and down. “Nah, you don’t look familiar,” he croaked.
“I get that a lot,” I said.
Frank took a sip of his beer. “That time changed a lot in town,” he said. “That area they was prospecting has got nothin’ there. Everyone knows that. We couldn’t understand why they was there. It frightened a lot of folks. No one wanted to come prospecting after that. My family wanted me to leave, too. But, we knew . . .it was that fella.”
“Are you a prospector, Frank?” I asked.
Frank took another sip to wet his dry throat. “Nah, I work on the stations out that way. When they were searching for them, we was stuck in town. Those cops didn’t want us out there, didn’t want our help.” Frank started chuckling. “Then, they came into town and asked us if we’s had a strong flashlight, cos they wanted to look down the mineshafts.” Frank nearly fell off his stool chuckling at the memory. “They didn’t even have the right gear!”
“Yeah, the first search was a clusterfuck,” I said.
Frank composed himself back upright. “We all keep an eye out for her,” he said. “When the locals go prospecting, we still keep an eye out in case they find something.” Frank tilted his beer our way. “It’s a big country out there.”
It sure is.
“Cheers, Frank,” we said. “Good meeting you.” Mal and I finished our beers and got up to leave, shaking Frank’s hand and wishing the barmaid luck.
Driving out of town, I noted to Mal how weathered old mate Frank was. “The outback will do that to you,” said Mal. “He’d be tougher than an old kangaroo.”
Frank the human kangaroo, I thought. The paradox that arises when the unstoppable force of man meets the immovable object of the outback. “Wouldn’t want to hit him in the Landie then,” I grinned.
“Haha, yeah nah, we’ll be right; it’s daylight.” Mal concurred as we turned south off the bitumen onto the start of the Sandstone to Payne’s Find road. The start of our shortcut.
To be continued…
Keep on keeping on. It’s a wild country out there. My father used to spend time out there, but he’s long gone now. I’ll keep on hoping for justice for Ray Ana Jennie
Loved this whole bar encounter....the aftermath of their deaths are far and lasting.