Out West

The Australian West…the outback. I feel kind of on holiday, also on sick leave, also…just part of a journey that seemed to start when? March? May? Nearly 6 weeks ago? Since last Thursday? I have still to tell of Crystal Tony and kinesiology. Just a short while ago I went for a walk on the red soil at dusk. It felt quite a lot like Arizona, California inland, the American West. It smelt like those memories. Parakeets flew overhead. I stood and merged with distant hilly contours and silhouetting solitary trees, each with its own unique pattern. I wondered at the space and peace of it all. How I felt so connected to the Earth. How pure and comforting it felt. As the almost full moon rose.

This is Charters Towers. A trip to help a friend, and also for me to take restful time for myself. An old outback mining town. A really cutesy historical high street. Where people really do say g’day…aiy. Where they wear very big hats and drive big old battered trucks. Where the white dogs I saw were covered in red dust from the soil half way up their legs. Where on my walk around the outback golf course I ended up at number 14 MacDonalds hole. And the view was beautiful. And there really are a lot of birds. I feel I really need this break.