Now I’ve left out how I ended up chatting to that hiding woman all night in
Birdsville. How I ended up being told to leave town by her friends; who didn’t know what a chat was. The bloke in the showers who brought a bus up from
Adelaide with only reverse gear remaining. Trying to get
water from the school after dark, only to find that it was full of sleeping visitors. The traffic chaos out towards the racetrack, all the planes at the airport (grass strip)with campers under the wings.
Come to think of it I’ve left out a lot, as all stories must.
I was back in
Birdsville this last year. I had a friend from NZ with me, and we rented the cabins with en suits. Dined at the pub, filled up with fuel at bowsers with stickers asking, “have you conquered Big Red yet?”
It wasn’t race day, but the town was still full of people. The guy in the museum remembered a friend of
mine. The new servo is a huge improvement, as is the
camping ground, but the character of the town has changed. For a start, it’s around 30% bigger. Tourists everywhere. Traffic jams on both Big Reds. But the
bakery is a welcome sight in the mornings.
My money wasn’t hidden in the glove box, because we had credit cards. We didn’t have to wait in a queue to ring home on a radiophone line with Chinese singing in the background.
The local cop didn’t take his side arm into breakfast, and was as friendly as the old one had been years ago.
There are no old cars on blocks; their owners camped by the river until they can be made whole again. The streets never seem deserted these days.
The roads were as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Few wild animals on the track. Instead of
camping on Coopers we rented cabins and dined at the pub.
Yes,
Birdsville is still a long way away. But somehow it’s only a holiday these days, not an expedition.