On the road

  We  Where are all the people at Mascot airport going to? Why are they all up so excruciatingly early? And who are they? Do they all have souls? And why is airport food so expensive and disgusting?

And why was the driver of our airport bus so cheerful and so chatty?

Enough of the soul searching. I was picked up by cheery Dave at 5.30am. Paul and Tina were already in the bus. We got to the airport in record time and then waited and waited for our flight. 

We are flying Rex and will arrive in Dubbo at 9.30am where Peter Dunn will be waiting for us. We will then drive for eight and a bit hours to Broken Hill. 

In preparation for this visit I finally read the scripts for the Tele-series. I have been putting it off for months but as we will shortly be meeting the cast and crew I thought I should know a bit about the plot.

I hadn't wanted to read it because I was worried about how this new rendition was going to deviate from the original book and film. There had been all sorts of talk about casting the ocker town cop Jock as a young Aboriginal woman.

I wasn't happy with that idea. I knew they had to tease out the the story line to make four hours of television. 

Luckily, Jock was still a man who will be played by David Wenham.

Kangaroos have been replaced with feral pigs, there is a lot of nudity and violence but the basics of beer, two up and flies remain as we follow John Grant's descent into hell. Not the same as the original but I can almost hear Dad say "take the money and run".

The forty five minute flight was a breeze. A bit bumpy but they gave us free coffee and rice crackers.

Peter was there to greet us and we set off on our outback adventure. 

Long straight roads slice though the vivid red earth endlessly merging into the blue sky on the horizon.

Eight hours on the road is a long time.

We stopped at Cobar for lunch. Peter had made some gourmet sandwiches and a thermos of hot tea. We turned off the main road and headed to a local lookout. At the top of a very windy hill we peered down into a huge open cut mine.

 It was a gold mine. We gulped down our tea and sandwiches as we battled a gale force wind. And then it was back into the car.

Some hours later we arrived in Wilcannia. The last time I was here was with Paul and Dad. We camped on the banks of the Darling River and nearly froze in the night. Today we strolled around the lovely old buildings and down to the river. Apparently Wilcannia was the third largest port in NSW after Sydney and Morpeth near Newcastle. This information comes courtesy of a nice old bloke who thrust tourist information pamphlets at us. The sun was shining and we saw flocks of red tailed black cockatoos swooping and swirling in the clear sky. Alas, the two coffee shops were closed. As were all the shops in Wilcannia. The only place that was open for business was the police station.

And then it was back on the road. We have seen a lot of wild life on this trip. Lots of dead kangaroos, a few live ones, emus, sheep, goats,cows and lots of birds. More hours elapsed before we arrived at our cheerful accommodation. We unpacked and headed into town for dinner.

We found some good cheer in one of the many pubs in Broken Hill.

There was a special tribute room to Priscilla Queen of the Desert. A bit disconcerting but less so than if it had been a tribute room to that other great Australian film Wake in Fright. And then a well deserved steak.

And then back to bed. And so ends day one of our road trip.