In Bill Bryson’s Australian book ‘Down Under’ he writes, “It’s not even possible to say quite where the outback is. To Australians anything vaguely rural is ‘the bush.’ At some indeterminate point ‘the bush’ becomes ‘the outback’.”
Being from Victoria and having grown up spending many happy holidays and weekends in Airey’s Inlet down the Great Ocean Road, I am very familiar with ‘the bush’. I’d very nearly stepped on my fair share of snakes as a child and like every other kid who sees them almost daily, I thought kangaroos were super boring. Don’t get me wrong, I am under no misguided impressions that I’ve ever really been in ‘the outback’. Currently travelling through Far North Queensland, NT and down the centre, I felt Bill Bryson’s question is not really a hard one to answer. The outback hit me like a hot, dusty slap in the face.
For me, the outback is the real Australia, the harshest of this country. Where remote is the norm and the lines from my 4 year old’s favourite song and Qantas ad campaign ‘I’m a Bushy, I’m a Battler, I am Australian’ really start to resonate. You know you’re in the outback when the dust starts to slightly ruin your trip, phone reception becomes a luxury not a given, you start being thankful for bore water and petrol stations are called Roadhouses which double as a motel, restaurant, post office, campground, pub, mini-mart and (if you’re lucky) live music venue (have you been to Daly Water’s pub in NT?! It rivals the best live music venues in Fitzroy and you can camp right out the front!).
In the outback, the highlight of your day becomes the roadhouse because there’s simply nothing else around. And the roadhouses have their own paraphernalia like mugs with their name on them, because if you need to buy something this is the only place to do it. And for the first couple of days, remote is a novelty so I buy a mug to remind myself of the time I road tripped through the middle of nowhere.
In the outback you can tell the locals from the tourists by the amount of clothes they wear. I feel like a spoilt city slicker that sticks out like a sore thumb. The passers through are like me – dripping sweat, sharing travel plans and eating ice creams in as little clothes as possible. But the locals, the real cowboys of the world are dressed for purpose in boots, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and wide brimmed hat. And they don’t seem to be sweating at all (although that don’t mean they ain’t ‘hot’!)
In Cooktown, we get into a long conversation that turns into a drink with a local who tells us he has sea views from his porch and the sunset each night is probably worth the move alone. I can’t help my curiosity and suspicion, “THERE IS NO REAL SUPERMARKET HERE” I want to scream at him. But he says it’s fine, he makes the four hour drive to Cairns every so often and does everything he has to in one go – new shoes, new clothes, big grocery shop. He loves Cooktown because it’s “a place for misfits like himself. It’s like living in a time from his childhood, where the kids all walk to school and there are no traffic lights, and certainly no traffic. Everyone you run into has time for a very long chat.” There are grand old buildings, beautiful sunsets and of course the weather (although we were there in 35 degree ‘winter’). We were charmed, although it might have been a little to do with my personal propensity for long chats and people a little off centre. We drink iced coffees and eat home-made sausage rolls in a lovely little café called Driftwood, where I am impressed by the array of home-made baked goods on offer. Then I realise, when you get this far away from everything else, they can’t just nip off to Woolies for a pack of muffins when stock’s running low. Maybe the outback isn’t that bad after all.
I’m not sure if people in the outback are friendlier, or how the cowboys get home from drinking in the pub at night. I don’t know how or why people would choose to live in such harsh conditions, so remote from everything and everyone else.
We stay in Mount Isa for a few days and fall in love with a buzzing café doing everything right called The Xtra Mile. We eat breakfast there, and then lunch too. Unfortunately, there isn’t much more to hang around for in Mount Isa. As we’d done many times before on this trip, we sat and marvelled at how far away Mount Isa is from, well, everything else. Want to go to Myers for some new pyjamas or Lipstick boots? Want to buy some new JBL headphones at JB HiFi? Want to buy some organic food? You’ll need to drive 9 HOURS AND 40 MINUTES to Townsville! And the more we travel, the more we realise, this is a lot of Australia. I do know one thing though, and that is my stock-standard, drive to work every day and don’t really know your neighbours at all suburban life probably isn’t any less isolating and sure isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either. Heck, it isn’t even mine.
Article by Tania from Achtung Camper. Read all the Around Australia We Go columns here.
