Saline is In from the Outback! The details: 8000 people ... Camping in MUD, MUD, MUD... watching Opera in pouring rain... but ALSO ... tents with beds, sheets, quilts, Chinese Lanterns, Sparkling Burgundy wine every nite, Stunning Bar & Grill at Prairie Hotel ... Camel Races ... FOX races(??) .. SNAKE races(!!). Just a typical week for Saline In The Field. Welcome Back Sa!
A Pacific Blue tree - It is my pride and joy. blooms just in spring....a cloud of vivid blue with a sweet perfume. the bees come and make the whole thing hum with life. Bush Bruce! Wearing favorite Akubra Hat -- at the snake and ferret races! FERRET!! Yes They race Ferrets. The sign says "PLEASE KEEP BACK FROM THE ROPES. THESE ARE FERRETS NOT BLOODY GOATS!" Parachilna The Tent City which was to become our home and office -- Sa with colleague Tim (aka The Invisible Man ... aka The Shadow).
Firstly, the paper managed to make a mess of the arrangements, providing me
at the last minute with a rented Ford wagon which is a very fine car for
highway driving but not for the outback where many of the roads are not
sealed.
However, it was large for the swags and sleeping bags, buckets, camp stove,
folding chairs....
So, nice and early B and I headed north towards the big horizons of the
open landscape - flat, flat, flat. It was gorgeous with the spring colors -
vistas of purple and yellow flowers.
We stopped at a truck stop for a proper truckie breakfast - which was
amusing. Crude place from the outside, but the hearty home food was
amazing. Three eggs?!? I could not eat it all.
And on northwards with the ancient mountains beginning to emerge, building
up the further north we drove. These are the Flinders Ranges which are very
rugged and beautiful. The wildflowers changed the further north we
drove...and they started to include the lovely flame-red hops which grow in
abundance up there...and more purple, of course.
There is a wonderful sense of liberation when one gets out there with those
massive vistas - the big skies.
And up past the end of the gulf and the old steel and electricity city of
Port August and inland...
And thru the red earth landscape with the blue bushes, salt bushes of one
sort or another....and inside the ranges through the most stunningly lovely
rocky hills and valleys.
And finally we reached Quorn - the first location of the four-day program
of Opera in the Outback. Once a little railway town - now sustained by
railway enthusiasts (including Koalamof) who have restored the abandoned
steamtrains and run them for tourists. A nice town with three two-storey
classic pubs in the mainstreet.
The OITO were not to be found anywhere. We hunted and waited. We met other
media teams also looking and waiting. Nothing at all set up for us. No
media tent. No information. No nothing.
It started to rain.
I sent my colleague Tim and the photographer off to the concert venue in a
gorge near the town (well about 25 k away) to do a story on the set-up and
one of the country and western stars of the show and I went off to meet up
with the horse and cattle people who were doing the Campdrafting activities
on the next day's program. The organiser turned out to be the local doctor
- thundering around on horseback. Belying its name, campdrafting includes
no gays or pencil and paper. It is full-on outback macho - stockmen on
horses singling out a beast from a herd of cattle and cutting it away from
the rest. It was all the earthy smells of animals and manure and moist
earth...and the whinnying of horses and the soft lowing of the cattle.
And the rain came down more seriously.
The doctor informed me that it would not be a very good idea to go off to
the campsites that night because "you might get in but you won't get out".
It was the second day of rain there and mud was bad, you see.
I knew Tim had gone into the Warren Gorge campsite area and I figured that
there was no use both of us being stuck there - and anyway, I had to
backpedal 40k to high ground to make digital telecommunications contact to
file my copy. So, in the by then torrential rain, I drove just a few clicks
further, back to Port Augusta where I quickly booked into the first motel -
grabbing one of its last rooms. I was not the only one seeking refuge. And
comfortably there, with Bruce stretched out reading the papers, I wrote my
copy and filed it, listening to the pounding rain and wondering what was to
become of the events.
I had heard that Port Augusta, which is not exactly a sophisiticated town,
bragged an Indian restaurant at another motel - so we went out in search of
it. And therein, we ordered dinner, asking for extra chili please.
Welllll.....that must have triggered a violent challenge in the chef.
Truly, he piled a kilo of crushed chili into the dishes. And they were H O
T. The follicles of the hair were on fire. But we took on the challenge and
ate the lot! Repairing thru the rain to our cosy little motel.
A stolen night. It was a stolen night. Comfort. Electric blanket. Electric
light. And Tim was out there somewhere in the wet and cold in a tent. Which
is where I was destined to be very very soon....
Ah...but I enjoyed that last comfort.
Next morning the rain had stopped - and we headed back to Quorn where we
met Tim and the photographer, Russell, wandering muddily in the main
street. They had been bogged in the campground. They were all muddy. The
OITO publicist had arrived and she was covered in mud, too. But the
organisation still was not set up and bad-tempered people were trying to
unload things and set up media points and merchandising points.
A busload of media and tourists arrived having had to sleep in the bus all
night down on the highway because they had been told the campsites were
inaccessible. They were furious.
Things were looking chaotic.
Fourwheel drives and the bourgeoisie started sweeping into the township and
the one main cafe was packed out. The little town was not used to handling
people in their thousands all of a sudden.
B and I decided to check out the campsite and get set up there before I got
down to work. So we drove the 20 odd clicks out along the dirt
roads...which were very muddy and slithery, but passable. I drove
defensively. (Bruce was not allowed to drive because, having lost his US
license, he is taking the Australian license the full way which means he is
on Permit plates for a year and P-plate drivers are not allowed to drive
rental cars).
The mud at the campsite was so bad that we did not even attempt to drive
into it. We left the car down on the road and, carrying as much of our gear
as we could, we picked our way around the slushy muddy track to where the
tents were set up in rows, looking for the media tents. It was not easy.
There was no one there to direct us. Just some council earthmovers trying
to do something in the mud. Turned out that the media camp was across the
creek. Yes...you heard...across the creek!!! Down the slope and up the
slope....all of it slithering, sticky, ucky, sucking mud with more mud on
the once-level surface outside the mess tent....and then around a wire
fence and up the rock-strewn hill. There we found the media tents....very
nice all of them. Uniform good quality tents (I will scan in some pix) with
camp beds inside. So, after a few trips, I had the beds all set up and
everything ready so that, at the end of the night, we could simply fall
into bed.
The council workers were having a merry time of things. They had just
managed to move a portable toilet block across the creek after it had been
seriously bogged. They had left the shower block the other side of the
creek. it was just all too hard.
The other tents on the first side of the creek were for the ticket holders.
People booking for the Opera in the Outback had several packages from which
to choose....luxury, semi luxury, rough. These tents were supposed to
contain beds and sleeping bags and pillows. They contained only beds. The
sleeping bags and pillows had not arrived.
I was glad we had brought everything we needed....plus a bit extra. I was
right to anticipate a few problems. For instance...my wellington
boots...rubber boots. If ever anything was needed. I put them on then and
there at the campground and I am afraid I wore them for several days in a
row...walking miles and miles in them - which is not what they are intended
for. Hiking boots they ain't. Mud boots they are.
We headed back to the Campdrafting so I could cover it. Oh yes, arts writer
on the subject of horses and cattle...a natural. In fact it bored me
terribly. Five minutes of half witted horsemen tormenting sad, doe-eyed,
sodden cattle was enough to bring bile to my throat. I was more interested
in a caravan selling hot coffee. Only I found that I had to buy food
tickets to get anything from the caravans. Seems the organisers did not
want money changing hands...because with the tickets they could monitor all
the spending and take their 20 per cent cut. Not impressed. Anyway I
finally got a dreadful coffee and in a desultry way watched the horsemen
and the sad, wet cattle.
Meandered off and toured the town's exhibitions, which were lovely. Met
people and talked about the problems....and then headed back the 25 km
along the slithery, slushy, dangerous wet mud roads to the campsite to
attend the first concert. We had to walk a couple of kilometers in the mud
to the concert venue and then another kilometer up through the wonderful
rocky trail into the gorge where the stage had been set up. There were
massssssses of people...all carrying umbrellas and chairs etc. And the rain
began. And the rain came down.
It was one of the most beautiful locations in the world - against a
stunning great rockface with parrots and gums and a wonderful skyline, when
you could see it. But oh, it rained. It poured. Torrents. People
disappeared under their groundsheets, plastics, oilskins, umbrellas. They
were just big wet humps. I was wearing an oilskin, but I forgot to overflap
the pocket where I kept my notepad and when I reached into the pocket - my
hand was immersed in water. I abandoned the idea of taking notes.
But the show went on despite the weather and the people loved it. These
country music fans are devoted!!!!! This was the most intrepid audience I
had ever seen in my life. The most intrepid audience in the history of
showbiz!!!
And despite the groundsheet and oilskin and umbrellas and cap, the rain
drenched my hair and went down my neck.
Oh well, once one is really wet, there is just no wetter one can get.
I found Telstra with its Iterra satellite dish and, still with rain
tumbling from every part of me, I managed to reverse charge call the office
and dictate a story over the phone. And then buy some hot food and eat it
in the rain, listening to the music.
And the water ran in brown rivulets across the pathways, and streamed into
the creek bed. It ran in sheets down the rocks. It cascaded off
umbrellas....it came in deluge, torrent, washout, slush, stream,
downpour...it was historic.
But the show kept going and the people kept tapping their wet feet and
clapping their soggy hands from under their odd shapes of waterproof
covering.
It was all a bit surreal.
Funniest sight of all was the police...in their waterproofs, they were
nonetheless walking rather oddly. Sort of picking their way, tip-toeing
through the puddles....looking very timid and water-shy. Not like big
strong policemen at all. Why? Turns out they had been issued with brand new
suede country boots that very day - and they were extremely proud of them
and were trying desperately not to get them wet.
Fat chance.
Finally, the rain eased off.....and stopped. And the night was clear with
just a light, chill wind. And I realised that I was not only cold, but
bored. Country music is not my favorite genre - not this kind.
So B and I picked up our wet things and walked the long walk through the
running water and mud, back to our sodden campsite.
Hundreds of spontaneous little campsites had sprung up off the dirt roadway
between the concert site and the official campsite....people from all over
the countryside converging. There were thousands of people there. Some were
still arriving as we were leaving. The concert went on until very late, as
it turned out.
We avoided the mud on return to the camp, preferring to climb over the
barbed wire fence and go straight up the hill with help from our torches.
My hair was drenched and there was no way to dry it.
We opened a bottle of sparkling burgundy and warmed our spirits....taking
it to the mess tent to meet up with other wet media dribbling in one at a
time, looking confused and despairing. From Japan, France, Germany....75 of
the 150 media covering this event were from overseas. Poor things. But they
were hardy...as all we media people must be.
A hungry old lady ticket holder had arrived in this "mess" tent and finding
no meals organised, managed to grate some vegeteables from somewhere and
boil them in what tasted like old dishwater - and serve up as a soup to the
cold and starving arrivals.
A colorful time was had as everyone told horror stories about the
organisation, the disasters, the discomfort....and wondered how the whole
thing was going to go.
And we opened a second bottle, sparkling shiraz....and we cared less by the
moment. Until we climbed the rocky hill and fell into our sleeping bags....
