Day 4 (Monday 22nd October)- Well, it’s just gone past 5:30am and I’ve been awake now since about 4:00am. I’m out sitting on the front steps listening and watching a flock of galahs numbering well into the hundreds that roost across the road from Paul in what looks to be one of those big trees with the long, brown seed pods. All of the upper branches are stripped bare of leaves but are now alive with manic flapping and squabbling. The shrieks and screeches are constant and blend together into a much amplified version of the calls one might hear from frogs down by a swamp at night, crecendoing into a raucous seizure as any kind of stimulous passes by, such as a road train or hawk. In front of me stands a tall water tower that bares the namesake of the caravan park from which the base sits as it reaches toward the endless skies that stretch toward oblivion in all directions around us. From that loosely stretches a wire towards an electricity pole the main road out of town. At the point of intersection four tightly drawn wires that run east/west along the main road in town converge with the loose one, and collectively they head off towards the substation just east of town along the road as it begins its long, straight passage back towards the coast.
A few more minutes have passed and the sun is bursting over the horizon, as though full of enthusiasm for the upcoming day. If yesterday is anything to go by, the sun in this place certainly enjoys its work more than in many places across the globe as it scorches down across the landscape with vigour and conviction, leaving little doubt as one moves across the land as to when the sun is beating a direct path upon your shoulders and exposed neck, or if some shade is partially cloaking some of the suns zealousness. The skyscape is rich and a fresher, cleaner more environmentally refreshing palette I don’t remember witnessing beckons the new day. I can’t help but wonder if the upcoming day can live up to the almost perfect scene that it has begun with. Mixed in with the screeching galahs, which are subsiding slightly as the birds begin to disperse into the endless habitat between their roost and the horizon circumnavigating us at an unimaginably far off distance.
In the distance a few crows have begun calling for me. I hear their challenge to get up and explore this place. Other calls I can’t identify ring out from a myriad of birds I guiltily can’t identify. It is now just past 6 o’clock, the galahs and their shrieks have all but left the immediate vicinity and now a rich blend of calls are available to me that were previously drowned out. Joining noises is an inviting blend of smells. Although the unmistakable odour of Tara wafts across to me in small, ripply waves, other earthy tints tantilize me. Flowers are in bloom in the median strip of the road and wattles are in bloom out there in the sprawling bushland. More that flowers though is just a smell of the land. The human population just isn’t large enough to drown out the land here. Sure, there are cars and trucks and roads and electricity poles and wires and shops and all the things that people need but it is amidst a sprawling sea of bush. A kind of balance and equilibrium I can’t help but feel is much more environmentally healthy than any other system I know. The impacts of an individual here can be quickly negated by the vastness of everything, providing a true sense of freedom. Where I live I feel the loss of every fish I fillet and ever deer or creature I harvest, here the system appears so strong and vast that anything I could take would be inconsequential. Perhaps that is as it should be.
I feel very disconnected to this place. I don not know the birds, the trees, the soils. The people, even those with whom I share this house are varying degrees of strangers. I do not belong here, or perhaps, here doesn’t belong to me. I am not sure what the upcoming trip will hold. I feel each of us is expecting, or hoping for different things from it, and I fear it may end in disappointment but we'll see I guess.
Paul's situation here is great. I like the town, the house and the people here and even his job seems pretty good. Mate, I even love his dog! There's so much space to get away and explore and a perfect place to raise kids.
Paul standing at the steps for his morning cigarette with Tara
Well, it was an interesting drive, not at all as I imagined it would be. The land got sparser and sparser before somewhat reversing the trend but in a completely different way. The land is vast and appears somewhat unfit for life of any sort but animals are everywhere, especially birds. We’ve seen plenty of emus closer to Paul’s place and camels and more wallabies and kangaroos than you can point a stick at. Birds of all shapes and sizes. Out here there are brolgas everywhere you look and a few jabirus are flying about. Hawks and eagles and all the small parrots and others are calling about from all corners of this place. It is hot, dry and dusty though and those things I can’t emphasize enough. There is a real sense that if you screamed at the top of your lungs nobody or nothing would hear you. It’s hard for me to imagine I’m on the same planet as Plainview, Minnesota.
Getting ready for the Trip to Burketown
We stopped for sandwiches at a place called Burke and Wills. It is little more than a truck stop. We’d just finished passing a whole heap of idiots on mail-man motorbikes that were on a rally from “Brisbane to Cairns, via the Gulf” so as they started to file into the place we knew it was time to leave. The last stretch was dirt but we did stop at a stretch of the Leichardt River, way up in the fresh for a coffee break. Pretty, wide open country.
The Crew just north of Julia Creek for a pitstop
Our first view of the waters we’d be fishing was the bridge over the Albert on the way into town. It looked pretty good to me. As we entered town there was a very greeting sign - Burketown, the barramundi capital of Australia. What could be better than that?
Our first look at the Albert River
Not a bad to sign to encounter when you're hoping to catch a few barramundi
We got all set up at the caravan park in a very flash, and airconditioned, donga and set off for Escott crossing on the Nicholson River. It was a great looking spot and bait was splishing about. We threw lures for an hour or so to no avail, set up yabby pots and headed home. I had such high expectations I was a little disappointed with no fish but there’s still plenty of time.
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