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 The road less travelled: heading for Birdsville

For days we have been out of mobile and broadband range. It’s been so 20^th century.

But now we have a brief window of reception.

So, if you are interested in towns that disappeared, the road less travelled, a bit of boxing biffo, or a day at the races, I’ve included the proceeding few posts.

But that’s 83 down and just 10 more places to go.

Don't box me in: Fred Brophy's boxing tent

I’ve been to Birdsville (verse 1, place 9). Distance travelled (over a few days) 978 kms.

When I asked songwriter Geoff Mack if he’d been to all the places in the song, he replied, “I haven’t made it to Birdsville yet.”

Well, that’s one to me.

We arrived in Birdsville during races week. The town of just 120 people on the edge of the Simpson Desert has made a name for itself through its annual race meeting.

Other towns in the region also have race meetings but only locals and serious horseracing folk have ever heard of the Bedourie Races.

But the Birdsville races have worked their way into modern folklore. The town swells to 6000 people. Up to 150 light planes fly in and park on the runway apron with their owners camping under the wings. And a serious amount of drink is consumed.

It also brings the sideshows. T-shirt stalls, food vendors, rodeo machines … and Fred Brophy’s boxing tent.

Fred claims it is the last boxing tent in the world pitting would-be pugilists off the street with his troupe of professionals.

And Fred puts on a show. “The greatest show in the world,” John, from Tumut, who said he motorbiked 2000 kilometres to Birdsville just to see Fred Brophy’s show.

As we waited as a crowd gathered outside the boxing tent, John became my next best mate. “I’m going to every session,” he said, tapping me on the arm. “There’s nothing like it. It really is the greatest show on earth,” he told me again.

And we waited and waited as the crowd grew. Ten deep, 20 deep. “Come on, Fred,” shouted John.

“I could do it,” said John. “I know what he says off by heart, He’s brilliant, is Fred. It’s the greatest …”. Well, you know.

Eventually a bass drum was placed on a ledge above the entrance. “That’s Fred’s drum. You wait till he plays it. He just stares somewhere into the distance and boom-boom-boom,” my new best mate said.

And the crowd grew. And the calls for Fred grew louder. Until the great man finally appeared in his shiny red shirt.

He climbed on the ledge beside the drum. He introduced himself. He said how pleased he was to be in Birdsville. He said he was the fourth generation of boxing show operators. He said he went everywhere in Australia.

And he picked up the drum, rested it on one leg and beat out boom-diddee-boom-diddee-boom. “Isn’t he great?” said John.

“Is there anyone here from New South Wales?” shouted Fred. A cheer went up.

“We went to New South Wales. We don’t go to New South Wales anymore,” said Fred.

“Is there anyone here from Victoria?” he asked. Another cheer.

“We went to Victoria. We don’t go to Victoria anymore. We don’t go to New South Wales or Victoria because of the bureaucrats,” he shouted. The crowd booed.

“But we do come to Queensland.” The crowd cheered. The drum went boom-diddee-boom-diddee-boom.

Time to get the show moving along. One by one Fred’s troupe of seven fighters was introduced to the crowd. The Barracuda Kid, The Italian Stallion, the Birdsville Mauler. Each one accompanied by the beating of the drum and the ringing of a bell by one of the fighters.

Then the call for opponents. First up, a well-built Canadian who looked as though he could log fir trees with his bare hands. A wiry lad from New South Wales who, one imagines, could handle himself on the streets. An overweight 40-something-year-old who had probably had too much to drunk.

Up they all came, accompanied by Fred’s drum beat.

“Everyone gets something,” said Fred. “If you’re still standing after three rounds you get $20. If you’re knocked out …” “You get the experience,” said Fred and my best mate John in tandem. “See, I know all the lines,” John added.

“Come on in,” said Fred. “Just $25, the same as last year.”

“The same as last year, but five dollars more,” said John who deserted me to rush to the front of the crowd to grab the best vantage point. Our friendship was over.

And the boxing? The Canadian muscleman tried his hardest but seldom saw a punch until after it hit him. The wiry New South Welshman gave a good account of himself and never went down. And the overweight 40-year-old? He couldn’t throw a punch. And his opponent the Mauler made a point of only landing a few powder puff punches.

And why did I attend such a politically incorrect event. I blame the woman-we-are-calling-Gilly. Her blood lust was up. I had to go along to protect her.

Some people enjoy a good fight, for others it’s an experience.

Winton 170 kms, Boulia 190 kms: The Middleton Hotel

This was always intended to be a road trip. So I shouldn’t be surprised at how far apart some of the places are.

But it’s a bloody long way to Birdsville.

North from Morella, left after Winton and then not a sight of another human being for 170 kms.

Over flat-topped red hills padded with spiky cushions of spinofex. Past increasingly arid plains struggling to support even the hardiest Mitchell grass.

And after that 170 kms what do we find? A pub. The Middleton Hotel. No township, no other houses. Just the hotel.

It’s 190 more kms to the next township, Boulia, population about 300.

And, as so often has been the case on this trip, we brought the rain.

I didn’t dare complain, however, as I slid in the deep red mud around the town. I was told they had been waiting seven years for rain.

We were also advised to delay the next stage of our journey (another 190 kms, of course) to Bedourie, population all of 140. Rain could make a mess of the gravel roads and most of them to the south of Birdsville were already closed.

But for once I decided not to wimp out. The sign declared the Boulia-Bedourie road open. On we went.

It turned out that most of the road was sealed. The only hold-up was caused by a herd of cattle drinking from a pool of water that had gathered in a depression in the road.

The fearsome sight of the People Eater’s bullbars failed to move them. But the-woman-we-are-calling-Gilly was standing no nonsense. She sent them on their way while we tooted feebly inside the Kombi.

The final leg – you guessed it, another 190 kms – from Bedourie to Birdsville threw up the longest stretches of gravel to date.

On either side desert flowers had been persuaded by the recent rains to burst into flower. But the water could do nothing for the vast fields of deep purple and brown stones, known as the gibber plains, except make them shine even more

All this way to go to the races. And we’ve still got to come back.

Nothing but the CWA hall: Morella

I’ve been to Morella (verse 2, place 21). Distance travelled (over two days) 779 kms.

About 300 kms south-east of Cloncurry it seemed as though a miracle had happened.

For horizon after horizon nothing much had changed. For the first time this epic trip was becoming monotonous. The same Mitchell grass, the same termite mounds, the occasional flock of budgerigars, an emu or two and a kangaroo, and a few camels.

Apart from that, more road – though now it was the Landsborough Highway.

106 kms to McKinlay (population 20), where they’ve rebuilt the Outback Hotel from the Crocodile Dundee movie. 76 more kms to Kynuna (population again 20), where the pub claims to be the true inspiration for Banjo Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda.

And on and on towards Winton, which also claims a major stake in the Waltzing Matilda legend.

But 50 kms short of Winton came colour. Not a lot. Just a few roadside weeds flowering in yellow and purple.

It was only then that we realised that for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres the conditions had been too harsh for even the smallest roadside flowers. Their reappearance meant more than a bouquet of roses on Valentines Day (if I’d ever given or received roses on Valentines Day).

Morella, or what once was Morella, appeared on the left about 110 kms south of Winton.

Like Kumbarilla in the Western Downs, it no longer exists.

The street lights are still there. The watertanks for the homes are still there. The CWA hall, named in honour of an Eileen Davidson, is still there. But the houses have gone.

Morella featured in a recent Outback horror movie, Lost Not Found. The movie failed to break any box office records and was widely considered a bit of a dud or, if you are so inclined, a slasher-movie art house gem. But it certainly failed to save Morella.

The town’s existence depended on its rail link. When the Morella siding closed, the houses were loaded on trucks and carried away. Or maybe it just died of embarrassment.

Next stop Birdsville – 842 kilometres away on a predominantly sealed road with fuel stops every 200 kms or so, or 772 kms including 400 kms on gravel without a roadhouse.

Oh, and the dirt road has been closed for the past two days because of rain.

It’s time to take the long road.

Some people go a waltzing Matilda, others just get lost not found.

Keep right on to the end of the road: somewhere in the Flinders Highway.

I’ve been to Cloncurry (verse 4, place 9). Distance travelled (over two days): 561 kms.

Somewhere along the way we found ourselves in the outback. I don’t know exactly where it started but suddenly it could be nowhere else.

The trees began to thin, to be replaced by bleached ochre Mitchell grass and scrub as far as the eye could see. Eventually even the grass began to struggle, leaving spaces of bare earth between its tufts. Yep, we’d left the bush. This was the outback.

But the Purple People Eater purred along for kilometre after straight kilometre. It could be more than 20 kms before the slightest of bends awakened the concentration.

 Her only problem was a black eye caused by a stone from a passing caravanner that left a 10 centimetre craze in her windscreen. But she’s trying to hold it together.

Staring ahead became hypnotic. It had to be relieved by glances to the side to give the road perspective.

Through Pentland, population 250, then nothing for 50 kms until Torrens Creek, population 18. Through Hughendon and a shower of locusts pinging like hailstones against the Kombi, then nothing for 112 kms until Richmond. Then nothing for 120kms until Julia Creek. Get the picture?

Oh yes, and emus in the scrub, hawks circling, termite mound cities.

And finally, 870 kms after leaving Bambaroo, the last-visited place name in the song, we cruised into Cloncurry.

The sign at the entrance to town pointed out that it was here that the hottest temperature in Australia was recorded. That was 53.1 degrees centigrade in 1889.

It fails to mention the fact that the reading has since been discredited as the thermometer was housed in a grill made from an old beer crate. The true temperature is believed to have been a refreshing 49 degrees.

We arrived on the last day of winter. Temperature in the shade in the mid-30s. In the sun it was a whole lot hotter. People were already adopting that slow-motion hot climate shuffle where one leg is expected to fall as economically as possible in front of the other as they walked.

You can probably tell how impressed I am that the Purple People Eater has brought our epic journey to such an invigoratingly interesting outpost.

But then we start meeting couples who have just breezed in from the Bungle Bungles and old ladies in fifties-style cotton frocks who have just skirted the Simpson Desert. Cloncurry could be downtown Melbourne compared to where they’d been.

And to think I’m apprehensive about travelling to Birdsville and positively timid about the journey to Tibooburra.

Some people visit the remotest places, but I haven’t got the remotest idea what it’s like.

Hot town, cold beers: Cloncurry.