The Outback - Where is it?

Any where you cant get a packet of smokes without getting in your car qualifys as outback to the european tourist .

Look out your back door, thats the "OutBack"

Don't thgink there's any specific boundary.

In South Aus It's recognised as being anywhere north of Coober Pedy I think.

Basically, Central Australia is good enough.

More than 200km from the blacktop.
More than 200km from a shop.
Somewhere where you can hear nothing.
Somewhere where there is no traffic.
There is red dirt everywhere.

You'll find it!!

It's just past the Black Stump.
It's the Never Never.
It's Out in the Sticks.
It's past The Bush.
It's past The Backblocks.
It's Set-o' -Sun.
It's Sunset Country.
It's Death-o' -Day.
It's The Mulga.
It's The Scrub.
It's wherever you are not.
It's the Boonies (Boondocks).
It's the Back of Beyond.
It's a place in my mind but not on your map.
It's the spiritual home of all Aussies.
It's also where most Aussies have never been, yet they know a "lot" about it.

" How is it if a person who leaves the coast to go INland, they say he is going OUTback, and when he reaches the very INterior, he's right OUTside?"

.............and so on.

Actually, Wikipedia has a nice definition.

Cheers

Mate- I can be sitting in my air-conditioned lounge room- and be in the 'Outback'...
I'm sure it's not a geographical position- it's a state of mind !!

It's usually where road funding ends....

Andrew

Davoe
Remember seeing a sign on the Great Northern about the OUTBACK STARTS HERE somewhere North of Wubin I think it is .



#

Above the 26th parallel....thats were the tax department/government departments calls the outback....isn't it? Or has that changed now...?


Debbie < who is heading off across the Eyre highway and the Nullarbor Plain in 11 days and 18 hours....not that we are counting.

To an 'insider' it's 'outside'.
To an 'outsider' it's 'inside'.

Some people should never never go there.
Some who have been never never want to return.
Once there some people never never want to go home.

One thing for sure, everyone should go there at least once in their life time.

Outback is that little house , so anywheres there ain't no sewerage is "outback"

Davoe,

I asked my daughter the same question and she said it starts at the last MacDonald's and I thought when you lose mobile phone service.

Wayne

No No No No. It's a place called the Speewah where the crows fly backwards.

No Hairy, You've been reading too many of Kev & Darkie posts!! LOL & best wishes

You'll know you are there when you see the red soil.
jules

Good post Davoe.

I know where it is - it's where your heart is.

Mike Harding

It reminds me of when I was growing up as a kid in Narrandera, NSW. I was a "townie" and a lot of kids I went to school with were from "the country" (meaning they lived on a farm).

However, as a 5 year old, I started to get confused when city relatives would show up and talk about being "here in the country"...... (I was confused cos WE weren't in "the country"; we were in _town_!!!!). So city-slickers called anywhere out of Sydney "the country", while us townies referred to anybody who lived on farm as being "from the country"......

Then it started to get uglier when the teacher at school started talking about "what country we live in" etc. So then I had to deal with 3 different levels or meanings of "country"!!!!!

For My money its North and west of Broken Hill

Take the word of a Kiwi ( if you can)who has been there done that and is coming back for more.
The outback starts when everybody you meet on the road gives a wave, and when you stop everyone you see says "GIDDAY" .Just like country NZ was before it got over run by Aussie tourists

Where the red dirt lies underneath a big sky filled with a trillion diamonds.

Where the friendly wave from a passing motorist is denoted by his index finger barely raising from the steering wheel.

I can feel alone and lonely in City.

Yet in the outback I feel alive.

The Outback is a Journey not a destination.

Cheers Steve.