On the Way to Coober Pedy.....
It is soon apparent that you are not picked up for the company.

 

Magun's Compass
Learn from the Travel Experiences of Others


Once the formalities of introduction are over,
the two men speak to each other in
Danish.

Outside, the sun is low, there is no-one in the fields, no traffic on the road, and nothing at the roadside.

A freight train cuts across the land to your right, and further on, some sheep stop your progress momentarily.

Occasionally, you'll see a half-eaten,
dead kangaroo at the side of the road
.

When it rains, the water runs off the sealed bitumen, and collects at the edge; encouraging green shrub to grow like sideburns.

The kangaroos come to feed by the side of the road at night, when it is cooler. Oncoming headlights startle them, they freeze, and at the last minute jump in front of the approaching vehicle.

An Australian kangaroo.

They are big, and strong enough to seriously damage a motor-car without protective bars, but the Road Trains flick them to one side like flies. The tired truck driver might only realize that he has struck anything, if he hits a cow.

The road is deserted when the sun finally sets behind the twiggy trees. The day is slipping away....

The sky becomes violet to the west, the earth is dark, and the stark twigs turn silhouette.

To the east, where the last
of the light still paints,

the detail is a green
y
light brown, and the
ground
glows
a fire-red
.

The headlights are on, and you follow the ray of halogen as it licks at the surface ahead, still not dark enough for the beam to bore through the night.

Within minutes the day has gone.

[From Port Augusta]

[The Aborigine in Coober Pedy]

Australia Index.

Nomadic Gatherings - Travels in Asia and Australia

Travel on trains and buses in Asia, then jump into cars with complete strangers in Australia and New Zealand as Michel introduces you to a collection of characters that bring Nomadic Gatherings to life.

If you can't afford to buy a copy of Nomadic Gatherings, the chapters are slowly being made available online - for free.

You may even decide that it really is worth having a hard copy in your hands; a useful read for those long bus journeys being written about, and for endless waits at ferry ports.

Nomadic Gatherings - Online Chapters.

Find out more about Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, The Middle East, and The Americas.
Magun's Compass

Originally Hosted on Geocities - in 1996

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