Translating Signals
Added on Monday, August 11th, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Jim the tracker
Diary: Alice Springs
Left Jims at nine having finished off some work. Having a coffee in Alice Springs, trying to buy a flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires. Going to have to ride until six tonight at about 80mph so hopefully make 400 miles. Falling behind, have to get to Sydney for Tuesday morning and also need to get my tyres replaced. Otherwise it’s good. Sun out but cold. Wind has dropped. Fuel consumption in the main tank at 80 is 124 to the gallon and 112 at 98. In a headwind it’s worse. In fair spirits, jobs getting done, no problems at home, so far so good.
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The Stuart was quiet. It was easy to imagine this track from the sky, a single thread of tarmac that split the bush like a parting. At tree level it was a lonely experience but high up, the expanse of bush would only exaggerate the penetration of mans efforts across this huge continent and reinforce the capabilities of humankind to confront nature and survive. As the architects of our own destiny we are insecure creatures. Perhaps it takes explorers like Mr Stuart and civil engineers, surveyors and road builders to egg the ego on.
Diary: Cloncurry
Getting tired. Riding all day. Another 12 hours with two 15-minute stops. Writing the book, editing the film as soon as I get off the bike at the end of the day. No days off. Getting 5 hours a night sleep for weeks. Catching up with me. Just arrived in this small town and am shattered. Can hardly think straight. Walked into the Central Pub looking for a cheap room but they are full. Watch some TV. Order chicken and chips and sit blankly at my table waiting. Today has passed me by. Can only remember the road and the gas stations.
As I become calm, my mind steps back from having to survive to being able to remember. It’s like the two functions cannot co-exist. It isn’t the type of memory required to ride the bike that is now an acquired characteristic, more closely it is a type of memory that has the capability to save data on the move. If a human were somehow a wireless receiver translating signals from what it sees into something that could be warehoused until needed, that is the kind of memory you need on a motorcycle. The sole impediment to this isn’t storage, which is underused, but the strength of the signal and it’s capability like a mobile phone to roam across different environments.
The meal at the Central Hotel was good; chicken and chips with veg for A$10. In the bar, a chap told me that he was the descendant of the aboriginals that Captain Cook took back to England as examples of indigenous peoples. They bred two generations and his granddad came back and bred him. All the blackness had gone.
‘So what do Aboriginal people think,’ I asked, because they seemed to be in a world of their own.
‘Nothing,’ he said, and then left the pub.
On the road you get a lot of negativity. The wife haters, the tax dodgers, skankers and charlatans, the racists, rip-offs, those who say you can’t do things, the doom mongerers, the liars, blasphemers and the pr**ks. The moment you start to listen you hear of illnesses and death and all the sundry reasons why life is a piece of sh**. You become the conduit for peoples hard-earned stories, and like that message you give to your special tree, they all assume a stranger is going to move on, so it is safe to off-load secret stories.
As a traveller you become, psychologist, counsellor, futurologist, judge, diplomat and clown. It is the responsibility of the traveller to look sincere and caring at all times. You take a Hippocratic oath not to patronise or condescend or be too obsequious, whilst the most miserable looking lag weighs you down with yet more heinous tittle-tattle so he lets you get on your bike and move on.
The next day at McKinley I met a cattle train driver and we spoke about what it was like to be a truck driver.
“Alright”, he said.
“What sense do you have of feeling Australian?” I asked.
“What? Are you taking the pi**?” He said. Obviously I’d asked the wrong question.
“Where are you driving to next?” I asked more meekly.
“Down to Alice,” he said peevishly, climbed into his cab and drove off.
Further on I rode past the Walkabout Creek Hotel where Crocodile Dundee was filmed and when I said to the gas station attendant that he looked like Paul Hogan’s dad he told me to f**k off so I did.
Further on I met a fat Kiwi who said he knew Monmouthshire and had married a Welsh woman and said it was the worse experience of his life. How could I know? Further down at Winton, I popped into the Twylight Café, dinky on the outside but linoleum and plastic tablecloths on the inside. There were excellent black and white photographs on the wall and the photographer worked here so I asked if we could chat but she said she wasn’t interesting. So I ran across the dinky little road to the Royal Open Air Picture House but he didn’t want to talk. So I ran back to the café and ordered a cappuccino. 250 miles done, 500 to go.
176 kms South East and I made it to Longreach. It was an equally clean and tidy town. These towns are really main streets with small suburbs and survive on a diet of bottle shops, motels, cafes and garages and here in NW Queensland, saddlers and stockman’s goods. On the outskirts of town I fuelled up, ate a Mrs Mac pie and drank a carton of milk, before setting off once again. The plan to reach Rockhampton before nightfall was almost on schedule.
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