Page 72 of Down the Track
The ground had been rising gradually but steadily for the last kilometre or so, and they reached a small crest that gave them a view that stretched into a heat mirage in most directions. But beyond a jagged heap of fallen trees that reminded her, rather fancifully, given how far they were from any ocean, of the bones of a whale washed up on a beach to die, was a mob of sheep. They were dusty and heavy with fleece, so shearing time mustn’t be too far away, and they were stood on the track in front of them, their heads all raised to inspect the source of the noise. Beyond them, rising sharply from the ground, was the jump-up.
‘Cool,’ said Luke.
‘It’s a geographical wonder, all right. We could try to climb it, if you like.’
‘I meant them,’ he said, pointing to the sheep. One of them, nosier than the rest, had stepped forwards to eyeball them through the windscreen.
‘They might think we’re the farmer,’ she said. ‘Come to bring them feed.’
‘Can we pat them?’
She eyed the mob. They looked more like wild animals than domesticated livestock. ‘Um … probably? But I’m not sure, so let’s not risk it, hey?’ Did sheep bite? Charge? Kick? Perhaps she should have found out before she brought her son to a sheep station.
The track in front of them was getting less and less obvious and more and more overgrown, but she could see a fence line on the far side of the tree. The obvious route, where the spinifex was spaced out wider than a vehicle and the ground looked traversable, seemed to swing left, but were those tyre tracks off to the right? A farm track to some out-of-sight dam? To a water trough? Tyre marks left by the police vehicles if they’d come via public roads, like she had, rather than through Corley Station?
‘How’s my phone signal?’ she said.
‘Maybe a bar?’
‘Great.’ She took her phone from Luke, tapped the mapping app and, after an ominously long time watching the blue bar fill up across the top of the screen, hallelujah, it opened.
There they were—a blue spot shaped like a rain drop—and there was her pin showing the site where the old excavation rubble pile had been. The distance between was ten kilometres as the crow flies.
According to the map, Doonoo Doonoo Road went right from here and would bring them to the station’s boundary fence just shy of the dig site. If there was a gate, she’d drive through cross country. If there was no gate? They’d have a short hike. So long as she called it an adventure hike, and didn’t load Luke up with too much gear, it’d be fun. The afternoon was young, they had plenty of daylight, and the ground wasn’t so overgrown they’d step on a snake without seeing it first.
Snake kit, she thought, as she took her foot off the brake and turned right to follow the most recent tyre tracks. That’d have to be in the first trip to the campsite. Snake kit, swags, lantern, cookpot and dinner stuff. She could fetch some digging equipment on a second trip once they had the basic camp set up. Her powerbank, too, so she could charge her phone away from the vehicle.
‘Keep an eye on my phone’s coverage, will you, Luke? That way if there’s no coverage when we reach the camp spot, we’ll know how far we need to travel back in this direction to get some.’
‘It’s like being on the moon out here. How do kids even watch stuff on the internet?’
‘Kids out here?’ She tried to imagine what Ethel and Dot would have done to keep themselves entertained when they were kids. ‘Maybe they ride horses instead. Or feed chooks. Have you ever heard of School of the Air?’
‘Nope.’
‘It’s probably on the internet now, but it’s a kind of school where the kids out here sit next to a radio while their teacher is hundreds of kilometres away, speaking into a microphone.’
‘No school yard? No other kids?No handball?’ A horror beyond imagining, judging by Luke’s voice.
‘Still got reception?’ she said, slowing to navigate over a dry creek. The sandy bed felt as slippery as talcum powder, but they were soon across it and on rockier ground.
‘Um … yes. No. Yes.’
She braked and took a glance at the screen. Two kilometres to the pin where she wanted to camp. And there was the fence line up ahead, running parallel to the track that was becoming less and less obviously a navigable roadway, but no gate in sight. If they were following the route the police had come, how didtheyget through the fence?
‘We’re close. Let’s drive along the fence line. I’m just going to put up a marker so we know where to rejoin Doonoo Doonoo Road when we leave.’
She jumped out of the four-wheel drive and opened up the back doors. She had marker tape in one of the crates that would do the trick. Most often used to string a line between two site pegs, it was bright lime green, very visible, and she’d be able to tie it off securely around a tree marker and know it wasn’t going to perish any time soon.
She’d collect it on her way out … no single-use plastics was the mantra everyone at the Museum of Natural History tried to abide by and she’d find a second use for it another day.
There it was, a roll of the stuff tucked into a pair of canvas gloves. Ripping off a six-foot length, she turned to find a likely spot.
A rock? A spinifex bush?
She spun on her heel and spied the perfect place, a grass tree that hadn’t survived the last dry spell. It hadn’t started to break down yet, and it stood tall, over five foot of desiccated bark and dried, stringy foliage; she’d see it if she was keeping a lookout.
She headed for it, watching for snakes as she walked, but the sun was high in the sky and if a snake had sense it would have found a burrow to rest in and wouldn’t be lying about on the hot dirt getting heat stroke.
