Almost a vagrant

At the StGeorge kangaroo meatworks I meet a fellow worker called Terry who was a drop-out from Sydney University. Terry couldn’t stand working at the meat works but had to stay to earn some money to buy the some outback first aid kits (a slab of stubbies). To get out of working, Terry cut is finger with a boning knife and rubbed a bit of roo bone into the wound, by the next day he was carted of to the local base hospital. Terry achieved what he set out to… one week of compo, no work allowed!

As soon as Terry’s compo ran out we decided to hitch a ride to Roma, a fairly large cattle town about 200km (120miles) away. After a few farewell drinks at the pub we bought an outback first aid kit and hit the Carnavon Highway. We spent two days hitching a ride to about the halfway mark to a small town called Surat after spending a night in the open with 2 fires blazing on either side of our sleeping bags because the nights where so cold compared to the searing day heat. During the night drivers of cattle trains (giant 3 trailer trucks) would pull up to boil up a billy of tea and share a few, usually very funny tales, before roaring off into the night with their load of mooing cattle.

The next day we arrived at Surat and settled down on the side of the road on the northern side of the town and pass the time taking bets on what sort of car would come by next or what sort of bird we would see next, I could never beat terry and eventually I owed him at least 20,000 quid. We would stick our thumb out to the occasional passing car or truck, no takers on the first day or night. On the second day we were rudely awoken by some gentle kicking in the ribs by a pair of elastic sided boots that everyone in those parts wore. From my position on the ground looking up I found myself staring into the eyes of what I at first thought was a soldier. he turned out to be the local cop, in those days they dressed in pale brown uniforms and wore wide brimmed hats similar to the Australian army issue.

The copper was a typical Aussie type that was common in those parts, tough, tall, lean, tanned, short back and sides hair and a long straight nose, enormous hands and a dry sense of humor. He was one of those older country coppers who rarely arrested anyone but preferred to dump ‘outoftown’ trouble makers well out side the town limits and told them to return only if they wanted a belting and ‘banged up’ locals until they behaved or sobered up.

He had been watching us from his house across the road, behind some trees and had decided to check us out. he made us turn out our pockets, and duffle bags, my bag contained some books, Terry had a packet of biscuits, a packet of spaghetti and some tea, we had been living off biscuits, spaghetti and billy tea, (bush tea brewed on an open fire), the Outback first aid kit ran out in the first couple of hours of the first day! We had about 3 shillings and sixpence between us which, so the cop informed us, wasn’t enough to avoid the vagrancy charge he was going to lay on us. Terry, who was from Sydney, told the cop we were hitch hiking around this “great land of yours” and that we were both Kiwis. At the mention of the word Kiwis the cop changed into our best mate!

Turned out our new mate had served in New Guinea and other places during WW2 and thought the only other decent soldiers on earth besides Aussies were the Cobbers from New Zealand, ‘Bloody great blokes” he reckoned! Forgetting the vagrancy charge he drove us to the local pub where he shouted us a few beers and a counter tea. The pub was a temporary bar inside a long corrugated iron shed with a dirt floor, the original pub had burnt down some months earlier.

The cop decided that “Paddy” would give us a lift to Roma. Paddy was a Scottish mail contractor who was driving his truck to Roma, not straight up the Carnavon Highway but via the long cattle route dropping into many far flung cattle stations where he would pick up and drop off mail which was left in empty oil drums which served as letterboxes at the station entrances, the actual station was often a couple of miles away from the “letterbox”. When Paddy arrived early that night and was ordered to take us to Roma he wasnt happy about it but agreed only if Terry And I rolled cigarettes for him during the journey which was to take nearly the entire night.

After a night rolling durries for Paddy, (2 for Paddy, one for us) we finally reached the outskirts of Roma where Paddy dropped us off at a park about an hour before sunrise, Paddy said that we would be able to get some kip on a park bench. What Paddy didn’t tell us was a group of Aboriginals had claimed the park as theirs and told us to rack off, however one helpful bloke gave us directions to Mrs Scott’s boarding house where white fellas stayed. We had to jump over a shallow, muddy creek to reach the road to the boarding house and in the dark I misjudged the jump and slipped and fell on my back in the muddy water of the creek!

just as the sun was rising we knocked on Mrs Scott’s door, a sorry site for her, one dripping wet kiwi and a grinning Sydneysider. Mrs Scott was a friendly, efficient lady who ran the boarding house with her husband who was a porter at the Roma base hospital during the day and a part-time roo shooter during the night, they shared their large, Queenslander style home with their family of 3 or 4 kids, 4 boarders and one of the boarders collection of snakes. Mrs Scott said she gave us a room because she felt sorry for us! I paid my first weeks rent by painting a seaside scene which covered an entire wall of the bathroom, Mrs Scott (I never discovered her first name) wanted it for her kids because they had never seen the seaside. Terry paid his first weeks rent by winning enough money playing gin Rummy with Mrs Scott,

During the week we went into one of the local pubs and organised a job through a bloke at the bar. We were to be builders laborers at the new power station a few miles out of town where I would meet some ex cons, a Irishman who who was on a christian mission, fist fights between the foreman and the boss etc… but that’s another story :)

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Tags:

aussie, australia, cattle, cobber, cop, country, durrie, hitchhike, mate, outback, pub, roma, stgeorge and vagrant