Spotting - Superman writes...

Superman writes….

Spotting is our new game that Muz and I play when we are travelling in the truck with Murray and Brenda.

You don’t need to know how to spell or know your alphabet-so long as you can see-you can play ‘Spot’.

Never before have road signs, road traffic, seemed so important, but when you are the only vehicle on the road for hours on end and all you can see is endless open paddocks of scrub, tussock grass, spinfex, the odd green tree – spotting becomes important. Spotting helps Murray to drive safely – giving him time to decide whether to drive over the road kill that is lying in the middle of the one lane road or to pull over for the oncoming traffic.

Muz, myself, Brenda and Murray play spot – the first to see a road sign-can be hand written, or the grey lizard, or road kill, or the best spot is another vehicle.

On a stretch of 3 hours driving we spotted  12 dead kangaroos, 2 dead pigs, 3 live wild pigs, 1 live piglet, 3 dead foxes, numerous eagles, 2 live snakes, one 3 trailer road train and lots of dried creeks, live emus, live kangaroos, live cattle and cows.

There are no fences but every 5-8kms there are grids, and often this is where the handwritten signs are-“wandering stock”, “no lines”, “single lane widens”, “overtaking lane – next 2 kms”,  animals on the next 5kms are our PETS”.

 This sign intrigued us – PETS out here – what were we going to see – alas we didn’t see any pets, but later that day when we arrived at the Toompine pub for our next camp –all was revealed. Around 5pm each evening the pets come home to the fenced paddock with an endless supply of dam water and whole oats to chew on. Over 100 goats – many pregnant, 2 alpacas, 2 donkeys, 1 horse, 4 chiwaua cross dogs, 1 red dog come strolling along the road. They are locked in for the night and at 8am the next morning, off they go to graze the roadsides.

The “overtaking lane” was the RFD airstrip.

Toompine is the pub with no town, whereas Yowah is the town with no pub or liquor licence. There is about 1 hour between the two. Toompine offers the traveller ‘motel’ style accommodation-tin sheds!  - Shared toilets/showers with the campers who receive free power and water, all provided by the shire. Meals at the pub were huge and very tasty.

The lizards are hard to spot-they look like a dead stick or a curled tyre snake.

Muz and I were sitting on the gas bottles at Cooper Creek – keeping an eye on things –as we do each day – and we spotted the ‘cops’ coming towards us…

Out jumped 2 cops – Mark and Brendan-they had seen us and wanted to know who we were, where did we come from, Muz reckons they were checking up on us – cause they asked if we had a gun… and what our plans were and lots of questions. So we suggested a photo for ‘old times’. Mark and Brendan are posted at Quilpie – 240kms away and were on an ‘Operation’ –so they said – they were part of a 4 vehicle operation.  We saw them later – wel,l we saw 4 police vehicles.