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Because of
a lack of larger animals, the Central Australian Aborigine would have lived off plants,
insects and lizards. In the desert community, the women were the food gatherers, and the men the
established hunters. It was not easy, and the art of an Aborigine's survival was in
knowing where to look.
Today they lounge on the
wall, passing bottles and ignoring the flies, without a care in the world. They hang
around with little to do, and watch the miners pass by.
The former
hunter/gatherers are now unkempt and disorientated, in a world that is not theirs to
handle. Not fully integrated, they somehow hold together in their own fragmented
community. |
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three hours at the side of Stuart Highway, you begin to regret your decision to leave the
Danes and try for other lifts. The small volume of traffic that does pass, is mostly miners stopping
for lunch, or transporting explosives.
Most of them wave and
smile, probably thinking that they will get to know you over the next couple of days. |
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The cars that do come along, have a distinctive sound
from a long way off, take forever to reach you, and flash past in a microsecond. Then they are just a memory, or was it a dream.
The flies torment you as
they tickle your ears, land lightly on your lips, instantly irritate your nose, sneakily
settle on your cheeks, and try to raid the corners of your eyes.
It is almost sanity
destroying, as they keep coming back like the proverbial boomerang. |
| Tired of reading; bored
with kicking stones, or mindlessly throwing them -- the paperback becomes a bat to pass
the time: "Thwack!"
Another stone...... "Thwack!";
Still off target for
a metallic "Twang!"
Eventually, a car slows down,
the driver looks at your bags; his back seat is full with his own possessions, but he is
satisfied that he can squeeze you in.
If you
had been travelling with a companion,
you might not have gotten the lift. |
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