Mile after mile of big fat nothing
 

From today's Sydney Morning Herald -

http://tinyurl.com/neqku4

With Elizabeth Farrelly's skills as a writer she is able to keep one reading on while she says very little; locum tenens for the land as she sees it.

<In fact, in Australia, ‘‘creek’’ really means ‘‘good dry camping spot’’.>

Love it.

She seems something of a dill finding out about Australia for first time.

I don't think she is a dill but there seems to be no point to this piece of writing unless she is paid by the column inch.

Do we need another word then to describe someone with some level of intelligence or ability who is prepared to stoop to whatever for whatever?

I learnt today that some solicitors could be in that club.

I think there may be quite a few words and will start the list with 'inane'.

There is more to this article than meets the eye, just like the landscape - for example, scats (more interesting than roadkill IMO, but each to his or her own) and the Lake Eyre bum show (also mentioned elsewhere I'm sure). Also might explain why a sense of humour doesn't go astray in a country like this and why nearly all of us prefer to cosy up together along the coastal strip.

Tourism is Australia is somewhat like the Emporer's New Clothes. It is refreshing that someone actually tells it is-like it is.........most journalists are paid to visit by Tourist offices..............We have spoken to people-heaven fobid that were not impressed with kangaroo island.........Does anybody dare mention the outback flies and bugs............they are meant to be a surprise!

We even have aregular poster on here Queen Vic who has a particular disdain for Kangaroo Island which we've been doing untold harm to apparently by letting too many Koalas use it as a retirement village.

And yes, the flies and get mentioned often enough with encouragement to buy a broad brim hat,get a fly net and of course make sure to ask of the sanger eating instructions under the net in seven different languages.

There might yet be some advantage to be gained by advising travellers that if they really want to see the worlds oldest pyramid eroded by time they should travel all the way to the centre.

On the waterless creek beds and road crossing dips that are installed - they're cheaper than culvets and do not block up with flash flood debris - probably could have been cheaper to construct a mega one instead of Sydney's coathanger!
Did you know that such bridges were the forerunner to coathangers as we know them?

And out west around Broken Hill, the crossings which usually have a warning sign saying Dip, became known as Dippy Dogs or lets say the local show Dippy Dogs were alleged to have been produced from the wild dogs road kill that occurred regularly at such dips.

And then of course Nature would have quite spectacular Creek crossing shows, particularly further away from civilisation.

I was driving to Mutawintji NP once and in coming on a sandy creek bed there appeared a huge pinkish colouring of some twenty thirty metres across which suddenly rose into the air just sufficiently to clear the car and turned grey as we passed beneath.
A glowing UFO it was not, but a hovering flock of densely packed galahs it was - quite amazing.

Another bush experience was being awoken one morning by the most raucous and high decimal level cries - more noise than you would ever have at the MCG with the tightest of Grand Finals - and on getting the eyes open you would have thought it had been snowing, so thick were the cockatoos roosting over a nearby stand of pines.

But our country certainly changes after several hundred kilometres have been driven from the coast and the author has hardly told us of anything too remarkable.
It is a different life, different people well before anywhere near the outback is reached.

farrermog,
I love scats. it is so much fun seeing what has been there before you and may still be around.
Still, the article did take a lot of space to tell us that Australia has a lot of space.

Yeah, well she is after all an architect (of the built environment) and we all know their jobs tend to run 30% over, at least.

I for one look forward to her columns even if I don't agree with everything she's on about.

I agree she is a great wordsmith. If I had that talent ...

And even that article could be worth a bit in certain tourism markets - I wouldn't be the only one who has met Germans and Swiss who can't get enough of our nothingness.

I'm an east coast American and I too, can't get enough of Australia's interior nothingness. I love that feeling I'm on another planet. Cant wait for our next adventure - thinking of a drive across the Nullarbor, or maybe to Boulia or Lawn Hill in western Queensland.

And Americans - thanks Ralph.

So there's our new international tourism campaign -

'We've got nothing for you'/ 'We've got plenty of nothing/ 'Nothing looks so good'/ 'We enjoyed doing nothing on our vacation' / cut to expanse of sky and scrub and perhaps a selection of scats for the boutique end of the market - the possibilities are... endless.

Me too, Ralph ... and I'm a local! The minute I get over the Blue Mountains and beyond ... the flatter it gets ... aaaahhh.
Happiness is being able to stand in the middle of a paddock and being able to see the horizon meet the ground, with only the odd tree to interrupt your line of sight.

And, there's actually NOT nothing. Well, maybe except at high noon when "only mad dogs & Englishmen ....." And even then, there will be some form of vegetation hiding all sorts of creatures which, at other times, will be scooting around doing their thing. I think the author's writing with her tongue firmly in her cheek, and with an appreciation for some of the subtleties - even if they are ant poo!

Yeah, we all need to get out once in a while and stand or preferably sleep under an uninterrupted sky. Bokhara - I had the same feeling when I took every opportunity to get out of Sydney where I lived for forty years and more so now when I can't get out quickly enough on my infrequent visits. Might be different for those who can afford to live on the harbour or beach, but small doses are probably best for the extremes of city or bush.

And not just the sky, but also driving along listening to The Hospital Hour - much better than Macca IMO.

Apologies - was talking ancient history there (as well as the usual bull). For those who need to know, 'The Hospital Hour' was a very popular national radio program focussing on a regional hospital and its local community; Macca's (aka Ian McNamara) 'Australia All Over' is a very popular national radio program with people calling in from all over and broadcast from anywhere and everywhere - IMO it could be much better researched and tends to over-romanticise the 'bush' and 'old ways'.

.. and an interesting mix of dogmatic statements and moral equivocation. Take today’s Sunday with Macca, talking about the road kill on Australian roads. A guest was talking about deaths to people when motorists swerve to avoid dead animals left on the road. The guest pointed out that removing an animal you have killed from the road was the right thing to do. Macca agreed with him, rambled on about the number of dead animals he had seen recently and thought about removing form the road before he said, yes it is hard to know what is the right thing to do.

The right thing to do is to remove dead animals from the road and road side. Not just for the sake of avoiding other human deaths but other animal deaths as well. I can understand people not having the fortitude to kill an animal they have seriously wounded but removing it from the road side takes so little time. Large trucks, road trains, cannot back up and have trouble enough stopping so it is a public service for the rest of us to now and then remove their road kill as well as our own.