Outback Life : the 'Tyranny of Distance'

It is difficult to understand the tyranny of distance for remote outback families until you have visited or lived remote for a while ! 
 I often find friends and family don't quite get it.

In the last 6 weeks I have been 'home' on the station for 3 periods of time, totaling 11 days. I feel like I have been stuck going in and out of a revolving door and am looking forward to the next 5 weeks at 'home.'

A Return Trip Home To Sydney

A sudden trip home 6 weeks ago for family reasons meant a 12 hour trip home to Sydney. A 45 min drive by 4wd to Bellare Mining Centre on the edge of the station to board a plane filled with miners to Adelaide, then transfer to a plane to Sydney. 

The return journey meant a plane to Brisbane, then to Charleville, and a 520km drive back to the station. On this occasion we used the north east boundary access ... the dirt 

'driveway' is 85kms long.

We did this return trip of 1140kms a week later to put our daughter Jessica back on a plane 

home to Sydney.

LSODE Cluster Day at Windorah

For the boys we teach on the station a long day's drive is part of normal everyday life. 

While I was in Sydney George accompanied the boys and their mum to Longreach for a 3 day whole school Music Camp. It was a return journey of about 1600 kms. They are used to doing the one way trip in a day. 

On one occasion their dad dropped the eldest off for camp in the morning, having left at 4 am to arrive on time, and returned home the same day.

On this occasion George and I took the boys to a one day Cluster meet at Windorah. Leaving the afternoon before we travelled about 400kms on mainly dirt back roads to arrive in time for dinner 5 hours later. The next day when the school day was over we returned to 

the station. The boys are wonderful travellers, as I assume all children who live on remote stations are, and take it all in their stride. They were a pleasure to travel with !

Local Race Days, Campdrafts, Gymkanas and Rodeos 

We have also attended a couple of weekend events, the last being the Noccundra Rodeo and Campdraft. Unfortunately because I was quite done with travelling, having only been at 'home'  7 days in the previous 5 weeks, and as it was very close to the station I made George drive over for the evening. He would have liked to have gone for the weekend as he loves this sort of thing. It was great to see the rodeo, which I like, and chat with some locals and travellers. We were impressed with ourselves, as we managed to find our way back late at night on local station roads without getting lost. Their are numerous little side roads everywhere leading to gas mine sites.

Channel Country Ladies Day

If we refer to where the roads cross our boundaries as gates, we drove 100kms to one of our western edges on the weekend to go about 270kms north along the Qld/SA border to Betoota for a Channel Country Ladies weekend. Not a single town or house in sight for the 

whole 5 hour drive on remote dirt roads. 

It was an amazing weekend spent in the desert with all types of women living and working on remote stations. The Women from all across the Channel Country had travelled like us, long distances in 4wds, to enjoy a weekend together. A varied mix from young to not so young, station ringers, cooks, govies, managers, owners, health nurses. We all camped in 
tents or trailers at the Betoota racetrack. There were seminars to attend with excellent 
speakers on different topics. Massages, haircuts, and body pampers to be had, stalls to look and buy from, meals to be eaten, drinks from the bar, an unusual Burlesque show, and dancing till midnight. The Burlesque show, which at first took many by surprise, seemed to lighten the mood and led to many trying the art of burlesque dancing, and a few trying full 

body art, and life drawing. 

The Stores

AND now today after driving home last night from The Channel Country Ladies weekend, where George served the ladies with a group of wonderful men from 6.30 am to 11pm each night, he has driven to Quilpie for the station stores. A routine that one of the others do once every 3 or 4 months to get the stations supplies, a return trip of about 700kms. But last week when one of the young men went the truck broke down. The boss went the next day to try and sort it out only to return with the ringer and our cold stores. George took the opportunity to offer. 

                                    

Hopefully this long post gives you an idea of what living remotely is about for those that make these areas their home. It is really hard to explain, and I often have friends and family questioning how often we get to the shops, to town etc. we don't ! Our nearest big store (Target, Big W, Woolworths etc) is about 1000kms away in Toowomba. Taking into account our dirt driveway is 85kms on the eastern border, then the Bulloo Development Rd is 450kms to Cunamulla, and we are not driving freeway speed at anytime, it is a long drive. 

I must also mention that 95% of our travelling is done with no phone service! relying totally on our UHF radio.

Posted by Lynne