Scotch College

Chaplain's page September 1998

A Desert Reflection

We're walking along the Gunbarrel Highway between Giles and the Olgas. There are six of us. The road is wide, and at its side green spinifex dots the red earth as flowers smile in many colours. There are no turnoffs. Shortly the coach will come and collect us.

The boys' conversation breaks in on my wandering thoughts. They are talking about corrugations. Corrugations in the road and the strippped down car bodies strewn along the roadside. They remind me of that Midnight Oil song about this road.

 

Nothing could be longer than a corrugated road
no one ever follows where the road trains go

 

Alan pauses to pick up a twenty cent coin from the dust. It's dated 1967. The year after decimal currency was introduced. We speculate about how long it might have lain in the dust, and about its story. How irrelevant money seems at this moment. Daniel was the first to see the camels. Sure enough, a herd of eight wild camels. Four cows, two bucks and two calves. We get close before they decide to move off the road. Unaware that we won't follow they move well away. Right out of sight.

On the other side of the road Ed observes some birds of prey circling overhead; over something dead or dying, we speculate. Ours is the most arid of continents. White inhabitants have clustered around the coastline. We have created the most urbanised nation in the world.

ëEremos' is the Greek word for desert. There is an Eremos Institute in Canberra. It is a centre for the study of Christianity and spirituality. It recognises that the wilderness has a special place in sensitising the human soul. But we have left the outback to a few intrepid settlers, larger numbers of transients and, of course, the blacks. They seem almost at home. Seem to ëcarry in their hearts the true country'. (The Dead Heart 'n Oils)

Off the road John spots the largest enamel mug we've ever seen. About one litre capacity we reckon. How much water do we carry? None. The coach should be coming along behind us any time now. There is a certain incongruity about a luxury coach out here. Like everything else it struggles to survive. To maintain its air conditioned, rest room and video equipped comfort as the road hammers at wheels and dust infiltrates the interior and reaches to the sinuses. Will 1000 litres of diesel see us safely to the journey's end?

 

I hear the sound, it's the wheels as they
drive
and the cultures collide on that highway

 

What would happen if the bus never came! What if we were left just waiting; waiting as for Godot?

 

ah, it's a hard day. the children will sing as the
satelite swings down that highway

 

Waiting for the bus, ..for Godot ..for God. The red earth, the spinifex, the smiling flowers.

Rev Graham Bradbeer