Looking for entertainment beyond sport

Now, Man cannot live by sport alone (unless, of course, they happen to be an AFL footballer) so Cinzia asks: “Well, what are you planning to do next weekend?” I tell her that I work hard all week and have precious little time for much else except catching up on housework. 

Last weekend I cooked up tucker to last me for most of the week – curries are my favourite so I cook up a large batch and freeze most of it so that I have five sittings to get through it all. Not on the same day, of course, in fact it takes me about a month to knock all of them off. Now, this month, I have done TWO large curry cook-offs so I already have next month’s in the freezer! 

Apart from freezing curries I also have to plan to gradually unfreeze the month’s worth of tucker that I have brought back form my recent trip to Alice to stock up on food that you can’t get in the middle of the desert. So a bit of work goes into planning the food requirements for the week upcoming. And then there is the washing, drying and ironing of clothes, bed linen and couch throws, dusting, vacuuming and mopping of floors and scrubbing of bathrooms and dunnies and they form part of a two-day assignment so there’s very limited time for relaxation but this weekend I made a special effort to create some “spare” time. I did a fair bit of preparatory work during the week and on Saturday with the aim of leaving most of Sunday “free”.

Then I pondered what options I have to fill in this “spare” time. There’s a few things that are NOT options when you live in the middle of nowhere. What’s on at the theatre this week? - That’s right – no theatre in Finke. What about visiting mates? Oh, you see your mates every day at work or just moving past in the street. It’s a little community so you mostly see everyone at least three times a week not counting at the footy match. You might have a few hours at the pub with the mates that you see everyday but, alas, the pub is a two hundred kilometre drive away on a dirt road. And then two hundred kilometres back after some solid drinking. What about a nice drive to some interesting spots in the vicinity? Well, in the desert, all the “interesting places” are further away than the pub! 

Deserts seem to be like that – every scene is pretty much a postcard of the one you see out the kitchen window. So, I thought: “Take an intelligent approach to this dilemma. What are the “special features” of Finke?” Three things (only three) come to mind: 

(a) Proximity to the Finke River – the oldest river, not only in the Territory, or Australia but on this planet. Yes, well it looks pretty much like EVERY (more recent) river in the Territory – beach sand but no seagulls and no water. 

Anyway, I cross the Finke River at least weekly because it is on our doorstep and whenever someone gets bogged in the dry sand and I go there to tow them out. One bloke called me out for a tow on his way into Finke and again the next day when he was leaving! 

Now the Finke is a sight to see when it has flowing water – mainly because it is a rare event – every two or three years – so you can’t pick when is the right time until you hear the heavy rain drops but then you run the risk of getting bogged in mud on your way to the river AND on your return.

(b) The Finke Desert Race. An international event on the world rally circuit but only comes around on two days each June so, once more, your timing needs to be spot on. 

(c) The heart of the nation. Now the geographic pin-point centre of Australia is a place on a map called “Lambert Centre” (named after the bloke who did the calculations). Now Lambert Centre is a virtual spot. Well it is a real place but it only exists on a map. It doesn’t have any buildings and no inhabitants. 

The only material thing it has is a big sign post on Finke Road (the dirt highway between Kulgera on the SA border and Finke) twenty kilometres before Finke that reads “Lambert Centre Geographical Centre of Australia 12 KM.” 

Well, I thought, why not? A man can’t live a part of his life right next to the heart of the nation and come away saying “No, I missed it. Drove past a hundred times but didn’t stop to say hello and take a selfie in the bullseye of the nation’s dartboard.” 

One of my Teachers College football premiership teammates of 1971, leading ruckman Jim Lyster, had brought it to my attention when I moved to Finke and I thought Jim might appreciate having a photo to show his grandchildren that a mate of his of long standing has been to the nation’s very heart. 

 So off I went thinking, at the very least, my little trip will bring a great deal of satisfaction to someone else. So, I set off to my destination, not necessarily with really high expectations but wondering what Ozzie icon they would have chosen to showcase to the world’s adventurous and travel curious public a pictorial representation of the nation’s heart. 

The bush track was a magnificent introduction. Two red lines in the sand flanked by flat bushland, exactly what you would imagine the Ozzie Outback looks like – fairly low-lying bushland, weaving, undulating, occasionally corrugated red sandy track suitable for single lane four-wheel drive convoys with intermittent mobile reception and no other sign of living habitation. No kangaroos, no wombats, no emus, no goannas, no crows and not even any flies (they come out half an hour after the first rainfall and we have had almost no rain since the floods three months ago).

I must say that the twelve kilometre run from Finke Road seemed to be the longest twelve kilometres I had ever experienced but I guess that was because my speed was reduced from 80 kph to 30. I find traveling on Outback dirt tracks a pleasure the like of which is only achieved during intercourse so the longer the journey, the greater the satisfaction for me and central Australia is just the place to provide it.

Anyhow all journeys usually end, mostly when you reach the destination, so here I was imagining exactly what it is that I was about to find at the end of this particularly pleasurable drive to the geographical centre of Australia. Now we can each think of what would constitute the most fitting way to indicate to the journey-maker that they had arrived at the nation’s very heart and I think they got it right! Here in precisely the actual pin-point that marks the spot is a dunny! In fact there are TWO Outback dunnies – each of which is unisex – but you have a choice of the one providing the privacy of a door and the one sans privacy – I take it for the summer days when you want to provide the benefit of any breeze, no matter how slight.

And yes, there is a flagpole.

I am left wondering though: Who the hell would come all that way to have a crap?