The Outback continues...

The Kumarina Roadhouse, Meekatharra, Cue, Mt Magnet and a brief stop at Nannine. Nannine no more. M was tired, Kili was bored and I was glued to the window, face shiny and adoring. This was scenery I could never tire of. Would never tire of, given half a chance. I thought about the character in Winton (in the Turning?) who lives on a road where the only 'sign' is a decrepit fridge with a broken door. I want to live at the end of a road like that. I think. Sometimes.

And worship nothing but the relentless sun and the red dust and the unforgiving vastness of the sky.

Nannine was a bit of a shock. A former gold-mining hub, with a railway running through it and a thriving little community is now nothing. . . but a collection of artefacts. This tub, a burnt and lonely doll's leg, a broken porcelain horse...Thankfully Marble Bar hasn't (yet) gone the same way.

In Mt Magnet we demolished burgers and said goodbye to even the Telstra signal. Payne's Find was a mere 150km away.

The Payne's Find Roadhouse has (apparently) changed. This was my first time and I appreciated the derelict rundownness of it all. Six cans of VB, a bottle of scotch in a bag of ice and we were on our way to the farmhouse, 60km hence, down the unsealed Payne's Find Sandstone Road.

My understanding was that we would find Charles and give him the whisky, say thanks for letting us stay, and head off to find the others. As it happened, we stayed on the big rock with him and helped him and his buddies with the drinking. Helped wholeheartedly.

Then back at camp finally with B and P and the others, Mat remembered that he'd forgotten the other tent for K. So sleeping arrangements were cosy to say the least. And the smell on the third day...

We spent all of Sunday driving around the station... and from the whole day, I still didn't get to see all of it. The tracks were often overgrown and had to be machete-d clear, there were some tracks we didn't even attempt. There were dead kangaroos around dams, caught on fences they couldn't quite clear - left to dry out in considerable pain. The heat was searing, the landscape dry - I was so excited the whole day I think by the end of it even K got tired of asking "Are you STILL excited?"

There wasn't any hunting by us, yet food was still plentiful, and in terms of the camp, my learning to poo-with-a-view was a definite highlight.

The only other thing I would add, is don't eat bean soup for breakfast if you're going to share car space with two others on a hot day driving home. Potent business.