Tag: charleville

An idle Fanny raises eyebrows.

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The neighbourhood watch was on high alert in Charleville over the weekend. A banged-up white 1990 Holden apollo had been loitering outside healthy ageing since Thursday.

Conspiracy theories were rampant.

Perhaps a body was tied up in the boot. The car’s NSW registration pointed the amateur sleuths at healthy ageing towards theft. The handbag on the seat and general mess showed it was a probably lady’s care. What had happened to her? Nasty things, definitely.

Annie Liston and the ladies at the council pooled their concern, nominating Annie to take the matter in hand. The friendly lads in blue couldn’t do anything about the car on Friday but in the face of fresh alarm on Monday, for the suspicious vehicle was still rudely idle on Annie’s patch, the police took action.

The owners were called – my parent’s in Tamworth. But they didn’t receive the alarming message until later that night.

After matching the surnames I received a few phone calls about my errant wheels. I missed the policeman’s calls but a message came through from the boyfriend in Quilpie, “The cops are chasing you to move the Fanny.”

The car was named Fanny in high school in an overwhelmingly successful attempt to annoy my mother. Not surprisingly it stuck.

Not long after that message my flatmate rang. The police had called on me at home about my car.

I began to panic as two friendly coppers strolled into the Watchman office.

But once the enquiries about my wellbeing were satisfied the men left to deliver the news to Annie. She’d been worried all weekend, she laughed.

“I see Fanny has gone. Good girl,” she texted me on Tuesday morning.

Eclipse the early-morning pain.

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I liken getting out of bed in the morning to allowing a rabid dog to lick my face. Loathe it.

Luckily my job occasionally requires early starts and in these cases my steel-like work ethic will propel me from a luscious doona cocoon.

In the ute, to the local observatory and, bam, there’s the eclipse. Funky glasses to block harmful rays were included and a few telescopes showed the moon covering the sun and its black spots – which a helpful guide carefully explained to me are the coolest spots on the sun.


And like all good things in Charleville the cool peeps were there to share a chuckle with.

So this early morning was worth the alarm clock agony. But I think I’ll keep the pre-7am starts for special occasions.

Dangerous expectations. How wrong could I be?

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If I had been given the choice, I would not have meandered down to the Charleville bowls club on Sunday afternoon. If I was offered to choose between bowls and, say, staying home to clean the scum from behind the oven, I would have tossed a coin. If a cold beer was in the offing there would have been no chance of getting me on the green. I would have missed out.

The inherent beauty of my inseparable job/life combo is that I’m forced – and not in a torturous, shoving the broccoli in my mouth kinda way, like my mother did when I was a horrid fussy-eating kid – to attend events I would definitely sidestep if the story-hunting imperative was not present. And, I’m finding that these activities, bowls, for instance or visiting the historic house and chatting with a bush tucker expert, often leave me with a broad grin.

When my expectations and assumptions are pushed aside, there is a bounty of quirky stores waiting to bring cheer to my world.

Let’s start with bowls. Mick Molloy had a good dig at making the sport popular in 2002 with his Aussie film, Crackerjack. But, the sport has struggled to woo me as a spectator. It hasn’t been actively trying, I admit, as most bowlers and indeed anyone that spends their days rolling weirdly-weighted balls along freshly-rolled turf, are self-assured enough to dismiss pesky spectators.

As I walked to the bowls club, I spotted a few ladies resting their horses at the quieter end of the main street. I adore those country moments – they give me a great sense of adventurous pleasure.

The action hotted up when I strolled onto the bowling green. One bloke was walking onto the green, casually doing up his baggy white pants when his mate told him the local journo had popped around to take a photo of him. “Aw not now, I’ve got a burning ring of fire,” he announced to all and sundry. “Yeah, he bloody does,” his mate added. “I just heard him in the shithouse.”

For a moment I realised the similarities between the hostel bathrooms in Beijing and the Charleville bowls club. An excellent incongruity.

A few seconds later I was introduced to a bloke with a broken arm, who one of the cheeky lads informed me had injured himself in a masturbation-related incident. “Yeah, he was watching at the window,” the broken-armed man told me.

The dirty jokes continued. Most of the bowlers were rather merry by the time I arrived in the early afternoon, beers nestled firmly in their palms. A few even managed to lodge their cigarettes in their mouths while focusing on their bowling with the sort of concentration Steve Irwin used to employ when feeding crocs. I left the green about an hour later feeling like I’d been welcomed into a community of people I could definitely share a smutty joke with.

The journo job here is intense. It’s a lifestyle. The constant search for information, gossip and quirky tales permeates my consciousness and takes me to places I would normally never venture. It is incredibly rewarding.

The footy has become the highlight of my week. It’s a pants-wetting event in Charleville. For the record, I have loathed the sport with venom all of my life.

The colourful language that comes off the sideline is a show in itself. It’s littered with hyperbole and fuelled by a passionate love for the footy that I have come to grudgingly respect. Occasionally it’s so rude it makes me blush, and that’s not an activity I partake in often.

I’ve developed a Sunday ritual with one of my lovely mates out here where we yarn away about Saturday’s game. I reckon our analysis, which I heartily enjoy, would put most of my footy fiend mates to shame. It’s certainly a shift from the latte-swilling girly gossip sessions I used to take pleasure in in Brissy. And it’s a long way from the beaches of Cambodia where whisky and coffee was an accepted and celebrated breakfast tradition.

But, back to the game. I’m captivated by the tackles, the penalties and exceptionally disappointed when the teams manage to rein in their aggression and avoid brawling. Of course, I run up and down the sideline like an chicken in a goose’s cage, feeling desperately out of place and constantly asking the linesman, the coaches, the players on the bench, the loitering kids, anyone, what the bloody hell is going on. I love the action. The feeling of being out of my depth and learning a skerrick more each week is as rewarding as managing to make a block of chocolate last a whole week. By the way I have just made a block of chocolate last a whole week.

It’s not just sport that is blowing my expectations away. I will concede that I am a tad lonely out here, but the biggest surprise has been how much I enjoy living in a small community. Last week as I walked down the main drag I was stopped about four times by people wanting to have a yak. In fact, it’s rare that I don’t find someone to have a chat with anytime I leave my home.

I know the name of my neighbour and I’m on a first-name basis with the postie, who honks his horn and waves at me sometimes.

On the other hand the lack of anonymity is distressing at times. Yesterday, for instance, I thought I’d bite the bullet and get some worm tablets to deal with my digestive system’s Chinese hangover. Of course, the high school vice-captain was waiting to assist me. And the tablets were behind the counter, out of my grasp. I swallowed my embarrassment and asked for some worming medicine. Tracey helpfully told me the chocolate square were the best. She spelled out a few instructions to me as I stood there and indulged in a moment of small-town-gossip paranoia, wondering if she’d tell all of her friends at the high school.

Ah, she’s the least of my worries, I thought, realising that it’s going to be a bigger issue when summer comes around and my skinny dipping cravings kick in.

For now, I love that my life has changed extraordinarily in the last few months. I cherish the adventures every day. And I can tell more of my useless expectations and judgements will be smashed into tiny pieces of appreciation.

Penny needs a boyfriend, apparently.

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The conversation started innocently enough. Shiraz and I were strolling along the friend-making path, shaking hands and exchanging intimate personal details with strangers. The night was going startlingly well.

Things got out of hand very quickly.

I was curious whether the new journalist at the rival paper, due in town on Friday, was good looking. My mate Richard was loathe to comment, possibly thinking a poorly-worded answer would bring his masculinity into question. The bloke behind the bar and his mate from the Thai restaurant in the next room had no qualms. Immediately my single status was under fire. Steve, that energetic Thai restaurateur, rocked his index finger back and forwards across his chin with his arms folded and a look on his face akin to a surgeon in risky transplant. “Hmmm, I dunno what blokes we’ve got in town for ya, Pen,” he said, shaking his head sagely. “No one springs to mind.”

I was a tad perturbed by the conversation. I’d gone to the pub to find friends, not potential husbands. But soon enough the barman was joining in, also shaking his head and adopting an expression of someone trying to dissect fish from fish bone before digestion. “Yeah, there’s plenty of young women around,” he told me. “But not that many men.”

It was a surreal moment, seeing these blokes playing cupid for me. I fleetingly imagined the two of them with wings on their back, hoisting a heart-shaped bow and arrow in my direction.

I tried to laugh them off, insisting that I was ok, that I could look after myself. But it appears that’s not the way things are done here. Just a few hours earlier I had been chatting with another bloke in the street when my marital status was dragged into the conversation. “So are you married, single or indifferent,” he asked me without an inch of self-consciousness. “No, you can’t be indifferent,” he swiftly added. The blonde in me stepped in. I put my head to one side and adopted the look I do when confronted with a mechanical problem. “That means you’re not into men,” he told me, helpfully. I muttered that, no, I wasn’t indifferent, just living my life without a man in it. And happy.

But, back at the pub, Steve wasn’t going to let my hopelessness with men go on. He called for reinforcements. Of course, that means the police. Yes, he went into his restaurant and grabbed the nearest copper, who, by the way, was dining with his spouse, and bought him out to meet me.

I got up off my chair, aided by Shiraz, and shook the nice man’s hand. Steve explained that I was single and needed a man. Yes, that’s right, needs a man.

Steve instructed the copper to look me up and down and memorise what he saw so that he could tell his mates about the pathetic brunette who can’t snag a man. The nice policeman was very obliging, but informed Steve and the bartender that most of the coppers were already attached. Oh the shame, I can’t even land a copper, I thought in a moment of fleeting self-pity. But, he’d ask around on my behalf and see if he could dig someone up.

By this stage my hard-to-embarrass demeanor was sliding. If it was not so hilarious I may have had to sneak into the pokies room to find some pyramids to hide in.

Suddenly, the mortifying moment was over. The constable went back to his curry and I ordered another Shiraz. Steve meandered back to his restaurant with a few cheeky words and a smirk. He was delighted to have embarrassed me. I was delighted, too, that I’d found some folk to have a good yarn and a laugh with, even if the conversation and the jokes were at my expense.

I strolled home with Richard and was content to keep myself warm on the chilly winter’s night. In fact, with a pillow either side I doubt there’s room for a man in my bed. But I reckon it’s unlikely we’ve seen the last of the Charleville community dating service.

Thank god for red wine.

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There is one pal who unquestioningly accompanies me on all of my journeys out here. It’s Shiraz. She’s been so supportive.

On these chilly winter nights when it’s just me sitting around my tv-less lounge room in a dashing ensemble of tights and a poncho – mind, I don’t want to sound too pathetic here, I’m not that bloody lonely – she will come and sit with me, bringing a beer-goggle shine to the room.

There is only a small smattering of flies in my otherwise perfect outback ointment. The job is bonzer, I have a stunning jogging track that I share with the kangaroos on the river and my house has a mighty fine feel about it, even without the beer goggles.

But I haven’t had hordes of lasses or lads lining up at the bar to be my friend, as I expected. I thought there would be no easier place to make some new mates. In Funnamulla it took mere minutes before I was ensconced with the curly-haired Josephine laughing over embarrassing school stories. I found myself a pseudo mum just a few days later.

It’s a different story for Charleville. I don’t even have a nickname for the town yet. It’s scandalous!

My best mate here is the journo from the other paper. I thought I’d hate him on principal, but he’s actually a nice guy and I’m hardly in a position to be choosey. I’ve also developed a soft spot for Steve from the Thai restaurant and Fred from Fat Freddy’s burger joint. I get along well with Rob from the produce store and my ol’ favourite Graham at the hardware store.

The school is a gold mine. It’s my Everest. It sits there, taunting me with its bounty of fun-loving, ridiculously good-looking young folk. Occasionally I get invited through the cast iron gates and I get to see what I’m missing out on. But I haven’t managed to wangle a dinner party invitation yet.

At one of my missions into the school, it was for a story on distance education kids gathering from their isolated bush properties, I found myself quizzing the teacher in a similar manner to the barristers I’ve been studying in court.

“So how long have you been in Charleville,” I asked the art teacher. I elicited that she’s been here six years, loves the place, watches the footy on the weekend, drinks at the pub which is scarily close to my pad and she has a cosy group of mates.

“Oh I’m so pleased to hear that,” I can recall pandering to her. “I’m just new in town and haven’t made many friends yet,” I told her, pathetically searching out some sort of companionship like a forlorn fox. “I’m sure you’ll love it,” she told me with a disgusting amount of cheer, clearly missing my searching enquiries.

I do bloody love it here, I thought. I’d just like someone for Shiraz and I to share our risottos and cheese platters with.

Perhaps my friend-making standards are too high. It seems a mockingly short time ago that I was lamenting making too many friends and having to put up with all the teary goodbyes. What a woe!

It’s a confronting struggle for me. Friendships are often easier for me to make than spaghetti bolognaise. But that was the point of coming here – I was craving a challenge.

Of course, my friend-making machine is slightly inhibited by my status in the town. As the reporter from the local rag I am definitely not trustworthy, to some, I’m flattered by the lashings of suspicion poured upon me by many locals. “We can’t talk to you, you’ll just put whatever we say in that paper,” they tell me.

“Will I ever make any friends,” I begged of Robert today. “Nah, you’ll be right,” he assured me.

And the people in Charleville are, on balance, brilliantly friendly. One geezer in the street yesterday dipped his Akubra and said “g’day sweetheart,” with genuine sentiment. And when I’m at the footy – which surprisingly is now the highlight of my life, but more on that later – or at any event which requires me to squint my brow and squiggle away in my notebook, people are absurdly friendly and helpful.

It’s boggling me, frankly.

In an attempt to cope with the lack of new pals I’ve taken to reinvigorating time-worn friendships. I often find myself scouring the facebook chat bar for company. When I lived in BrisVegas I never opened that bar. I couldn’t shake the fear that I might get stuck chatting to someone who had changed their name on the social network in an attempt to be funny or disguise their identity. Those people are so lame (ha!).

Now, I’m catching up with old mates from America, Sweden, Indo, Spain, Coffs Harbour, everywhere but bloody Charleville. Of course, Shiraz and I have some pretty witty conversation with these backpackers, but it’s not good enough. Something must be done.

Luckily, there is one little trick I’m yet to yank out of my bag. This one involves Shiraz.

I’m going to send her behind enemy lines and thrown a little social lubricant at a few folk who I’ve earmarked as good friend material. I’ve already checked that they’ve got cars and jobs. Top of my list are the ladies who I’ve caught throwing their head back and laughing with reckless abandon while walking along the street with their pals. I reckon with the help of Shiraz we’re going to get along just fine.

Astro smut.

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It’s hardly a tough crowd at the Cosmos centre on a Monday night. The grey nomads have unhooked their caravans or trailers, donned colourful woollen scarves and beanies and loosened up their shoulder muscles in pre-stargazing anticipation. The friendly folk at the door of the shed show the mostly-city crew what country hospitality is all about. There is not a local in sight, myself and the guides excluded, although I am recently arrived so probably still classed as a blow-in. Our host, Jane, tells us it took a lot of chook raffles to build the observatory. She has the nomads eating out of her palm before they’ve even seen the telescopes.

We head out to the shed with our pupils raring to dilate. As the roof slides back and the temperature plummets, Jane begins explaining things about focal lengths and cluster stars. I hastily check that my plus-one, a certified grey nomad complete with a camper trailer and a work-free schedule, has no idea what these terms mean. My aunt is also clueless. Luckily, Jane caters to such amateurs and I quickly grasp how far away a light year is. A bloody long way. The terms light-year and light-speed are bandied about as if we’re talking about the distance to Birdsville, or Perth. Then, Jane breaks out her laser pointer which looks as if its kissing the stars. “I wish I had a pointer like that,” one nomad whispered to her husband.
Jane points out a seemingly inconsequential star, with a double-barrelled name I cannot recall. The one next to it is Saturn, she tells us in revered tones, the lord of the rings. Apparently it is the pulverised rocks reflecting off the sun that allow us to see the rings around the gassy planet when we all bustle around the three telescopes. “If Earth is a pea, Saturn is a basketball,” our telescope attendant, Karen, tells us helpfully putting Saturn’s size in perspective. She adds that it’s about minus-180 degrees up there, spoiling the idea that we are hard done by in the chilly night air. “Oh it’s pretty fascinating,” one lady gushes into the telescope. My aunt reckons she thought it’d be much bigger.

Jane explains things well, talking of the milk in the Milky Way and describing stars as either toddlers, mature stars who have left home or dead stars. There’s enough science talk to impress the few amateur astronomers hanging around the stripped back shed and enough fluff to impress the others. We check out the jewel box cluster, where Jane handily describes the stars as grouping together like bees to a honey pot. Then the telescopes are pointed directly up, although Jane admits the machines don’t like standing on their heads. The audience heartily agree that they also don’t like that position. Jane shows us M6, a catalogue star that we would not be able to see without the telescope. A couple of shooting stars wow us all in the middle of Jane’s show. “Ah, a bit of comet rubbish,” she says, cheerfully dismissing them. We move on to the pair of stars the Cosmos ladies call Sapphire and Topaz. The blokes laconically prefer to call this duo the blue and yellow double star. The stars actually twinkle through the scope, reminding me of a blazing campfire. A few geezers in the group are clearly impressed with the crisp country sky. ‘You wouldn’t get this in the city,” one bloke tells his pal.

We are shown Omega Centauri, a globular cluster. “Can you see a ball of stars,” the attendant asks one eager amateur. “Yes, I can see a fuzz ball,” he replies. “That’s about 5 to 10 million stars.” We are told that we’re now in deep sky. I reckon that sounds delightfully like astro smut.

Jane points out a few extra stars and some creative constellations. I struggle to join the dots to create a dolphin or a fly. The rest of the group nod their heads and murmur that they’ve seen the designs, but I was doubtful whether some of the crew even had their glasses back on. The general consensus was that the Greek astronomers had drunk far too much red wine when they saw the fancy shapes in the night sky. However, the Aboriginal spirit god and the emu standing on its head were as easy to spot as a dead roo at dusk. Jane promises that once we’ve seen these shapes we’ll be able to impress our mates at barbeques forever. It’s an exciting thought. We were all getting pretty cold by the end of the show and a fair few of the crowd were stomping their feet to warm up. There was even talk of kettles being put to boil. And so the nomads headed back to their camps and their kettles with another outback tale for their mates back home.

Welcome to the wild wild west.

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The drive to Cunnamulla began innocently enough.

I waved goodbye to my mate Sophie as the first tinges of the sunrise kissed the sky. There have been too many goodbyes recently, I thought, just resisting the urge to beep my horn before 6am on a Sunday.

As I headed west, the sunrise made up for my cold toes. Clouds were illuminated to a shade of pink most 5-year-old girls can only dream of painting their bedrooms. The red orb gradually arced across the horizon, the changing colours mirroring the shift in the landscape. Soon enough I left behind the lush coastal fields, trading the greenery for red soils and vertically-challenged shrubs.

As I lost radio transmissions and, of course, mobile phone reception, things headed south, steadily.

I abandoned the radio static in favour of my own soulful tunes. “Ammmmaaayyyzzzziiiinnngggg ggrrrrraaacccceeee,” I began, loving that no one was around to point out my lack of tone. “How sweet the ….”

BOOM …

“Arrrrgggghhhhh.”

I wish someone had been there to hear my kick-ass scream as I ploughed down a kamikaze kangaroo. Some company to still my racing heart or commiserate seeing the poor animal fly in the air as I flicked it out from my tyres would also have been nice.

But, there I was, alone on a road where you can go half an hour without seeing another car. In that time you will probably see hundreds of roo carcasses littering the road, but they’re not really hopping company. Ha ha – I had plenty of time to become desensitised to the involuntary slaughter and pen some horrible dad jokes. I even began to have bull-bar envy.

Just days before, as Friday night was kicking into gear my mate Tracey had warned me about the foolish habits of Australia’s famous national emblem. “If you see a kangaroo don’t swerve that mother f**ker,” she advised me, sagely. “Just take it down.”

At the time I had laughed along with her. I recall taking a sip of my Pinot, loving the dramatic way she packaged her drive-safely-and-give-us-a-call-when-you-get-there advice.

Her astute words echoed in my ears for the half an hour it took to calm my pulse, memories of my laughter mocking me.

My concern about the dearth of radio stations was replaced with a simmering anxiety about kangaroos. I was lucky it did not destroy my radiator, leaving me marooned in a sea of long, straight roads. Instead it just dislodged my bumper, reshaped my number plate and generally gave my car just a little more character.

I rolled into St George at midday, six hours of driving down and just four to go. I was excited and exhilarated, noticing the isolation and feeling the slightly heightened sense of danger that I always associate with the Aussie outback.

My brother instructed me to pump up my spare tyre, just in case (and I had plenty of time to indulge in awful just-in-case fantasies). I obliged and decided that I’d made such good time that I should probably lock my keys in the car. What a fun little trick!

The solo nature of my trip hit home as I stood at the petrol station knowing that I had no mates or brothers or Scandinavians that could pull out two sticks and fix my car. Surprisingly, I was buoyed by this thought, relishing the thought that I was on an intense adventure.

I waltzed into the shop with nothing to lose and introduced myself to Tony, the helpful petrol-station attendant.

“Any chance you’ve got experience breaking into cars,” I asked, mustering an I-know-I’m-useless-but-please-help-me smile. Obviously, I have a wealth of experience with this particular grin.

“Aww, whaddya done,” Tony asked, playing me.

I confessed my idiot-city-slicker status and my crime, but won him over with the news that I was moving to Charleville to work for the local rag.

He was delighted at first, but then gave me a strange look, clearly wondering why anyone would move to Charleville. “I’m looking for an adventure,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders.

“Nar, you’ll be all right,” he relented, slightly, then added “you got a fella with you?”

I gave him a look that said I clearly do not need a man to accompany me to the country. “No, it’s just me,” I said, trying not to sound like too much of a loser.

He scratched his head, a bit bamboozled. “Ah well, do you like a bit of the right arm then,” he asked, miming bringing a beer glass to the lips with his right arm and simultaneously tipping his neck back. I returned the gesture and nodded, “sure, I like to drink.”

“Well, you’ll be fine then.”

Half an hour later Tony had cracked open the passenger door, given a strange look to the lettuce plants I was transporting across the state, and waved me off.

Optimism was on my side. I was thrilled that I’d managed to lock my keys in the car, get them back out and make a new friend.

Soon enough, I passed my first 53-metre road train, which provided a neat little adrenalin rush.

The roads were relentlessly straight, stretching to a blur on the horizon. I began to think I was seeing mirages, a town perhaps, or a petrol station, but they were just dead roos, taunting me.

Petrol became an issue about 100 kilometres from Cunnamulla. The gauge was reaching toward the big E with an enthusiasm my car usually saves for harbouring mandarin peels. With 50 kilometres to go I began to see a slight malevolence in the stark landscape. I had enough food to last the night out here, but what about water? Or would I try to walk to Cunnamulla? Would the person that stopped to help me be an Ivan Milat enthusiast? Would there even be a petrol station open on a Sunday afternoon in a town with a population of 1300 people?

The questions haunted me as the petrol light beamed at me. With 35 kilometres to go I started counting every movement the odometer made.

My kangaroo anxiety was replaced with petrol panic.

Of course, I made it to town, buzzing with nerves and delighting in the spontaneous and candid excitement I had found on the journey. One less-remarkable hour later I arrived at my lodgings, a sheep and cattle farm in the middle of splendid nothingness.

A crisp sunset and a friendly face welcomed me to the west, to the adventurous lifestyle I had hoped for.

What would happen tomorrow? I had no idea. It was the perfect moment.