A Drive Into Nothing
We continued up the bumpy dirt road and I could see mirages in the distance. Huge lakes appeared and then seemed to evaporate in a matter of seconds. The only life outside our vehicle was the birds who were feasting on some unfortunate animal that had been roasted by the Outback sun. Tucker had to blow the horn to get them to move away from their meal because they undoubtedly knew that if they did not eat now the chance might never come again. We stopped by the world’s longest fence, which stretches from the Gold Coast to way past Adelaide. The Australians built the fence and then shot all the dingoes on one side to protect their sheep. Sabine, a girl from Holland found an emu foot by the fence. All that remained was the claws and dried-up tendons. I joked with her that it was highly unlikely that customs would let her leave with it. We stopped further up the road to get firewood for our camp-out. I figued we would be collected shriveled twigs but Tucker told us about the Old Ghan Railway and then said, “Well, go out and collect a piece of Australian heritage to burn!” William Creek, where we camped for the night was the tiniest town I’ve ever seen. It was surrounded by nothing but dusk, the road was unpaved and seemed more a piece of the desert than an actual road, and they only had the bare necessities: a pub and a campground. They had a golf course, suprisingly. The “green fee” was $5 and the golf club rental was $5 as well. We would have done it but it was dusk. Just as we were bumming about not being able to do it, a big white pickup truck full of three time-and-desert-worn Australians pulled up and one of them asked us if we wanted to join them at the community swimming hole just up the road.
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