The Voice

‘Thank you very much. I’ll be back later.’

I recognised the voice. I knew it well, though it had been a while. Perfectly enunciated, clear and deep. Loud, but not booming - just a notch above any other voice in the room. That voice had come to our house every weekday evening at seven pm while I was growing up.

When the owner of the voice had left the reception area I walked over to Terry at the counter and said ‘that was Richard Morecroft wasn’t it?’ I was a bit excited because I had a lot of respect for Morecroft, I reckon he’s cool. I feel like he taught me so much about the way the world is, and the ABC news has never been the same without him. And that story about him reading the news with a baby bat stuffed up his shirt was great.

Who would have thought I’d bump into someone like that at Arkaroola, out here in the middle of nowhere?

‘What?’ said Terry. ‘No, it can’t have been.’ She was talking in a husky whisper, having all but lost her voice.

‘Yeah it was’ said Paul the helicopter pilot who was leaning against the counter.

‘The bloke off TV?’ said Brendan who was also lurking around, ‘nah it wasn’t him.’

Morecroft had been unshaven and less groomed than on TV, but I was pretty sure it was him. That voice. Terry looked into the booking system on the computer, and up came the name ‘R. Morecroft’.

‘Oh my God it’s him’ she croaked, ‘I need to go and talk to him. I’m going after him. I love that man.’

And I thought I was excited.

‘Hold on’ Paul said, ‘he’s staying another night. Talk to him later.’

‘Alright. But I’m going to get my Letters and Numbers book, so when he comes back he can sign it for me. I’ll give him a discount on his room for it.’

I’d forgotten that he had a new show, and it turns out Terry and Brendan are big fans. Big big fans. They watch every night, one specialising in word quizzes, the other in numbers. Terry has several books.

I happened to be loitering in the bar when Morecroft came back in later, and Terry was ready. He was happy to sign her book. With her sore throat she apparently couldn’t say all she needed to, so she handed him a note she’d written earlier, which he thanked her for and said he’d read later.

He came in yet once more a little later and thanked her for the kind words, which I gathered were gushing praise of the show and how she and Brendan don’t miss an episode.

Morecroft walked up to Brendan, the stocky no-nonsense worker in his scuffed boots, work shirt and truckers cap. Brendan smiled shyly and said ‘Richard Morecroft.’ They shook hands then Brendan stepped back, not knowing where to look.

‘Terry told me you like the show?’ Morecroft said.

‘Yep.’ Brendan’s words had dried up. He shuffled his feet. ‘Watch it every night, all the time.’

‘I’m so pleased. I think the show is not so much a competition as a celebration of people’s intelligence.’

‘Yep.’

‘Alright, I’ve got to go. But it’s nice to meet you Brendan.’

The voice left the room.  

Acacia Sunrise

I got up at five o’clock. It was dark and cold, but it was May in the Flinders Ranges, so I expected that. I put on a couple of jumpers and a big jacket, grabbed my back pack and head torch and strode up the track along Acacia Ridge. My breath came in clouds in the beam of torchlight before me, and as the narrow rocky path rose steeply the clouds grew thicker. I stopped to take off my jacket, and then a jumper. I paused and switched off the torch to look at the sky above me. The silent blanket of bright stars shining up there made me shake my head in wonder. This place, this world...

It took around half an hour to reach the summit. It was still dark but there was the beginning of a faint orange glow on the eastern horizon. Closer by was a small cluster of pulsing lights at the Beverley uranium mine. The uranium that geologists had been hoping to find in the hills of Arkaroola has mostly been washed down to the plains, and now there are two mines there digging it out. Their lights were the only sign of humanity I could see in the hazy grey before me. I pulled my Trangia out of my backpack and boiled up a cup of tea, then sat back to watch the show.

I was determined to take in all that Arkaroola could offer, seeing as I’d made the long trek out for a second visit. I’d earlier spent a few days at Arkaroola, then decided to go and hike at Wilpena Pound but I’d been lured back to the more remote, the wild and free feeling of Arkaroola. There were things still to be done there. Including watching the sun rise from the top of Acacia Ridge.

Gradually the thin line of orange on the horizon grew brighter, and grew thicker. The blackness around me turned grey–green and ever so slowly the hills began to reveal themselves. The rumples of the landscape, the curves and the creases, the steep slopes and the smooth valleys slowly appeared.

The stars were dimmed one by one and when the bright point of the sun broke over the horizon, the rocks around me began glowing with a deep red. The Spinifex was yellow and the sky was blue, the precise shades changing with every moment. The rays of sun immediately warmed me, the gentle heat on my face brought out a smile.

Below me I heard a tumble of rocks, and looking down I saw two yellow footed rock wallabies hopping down the slope. These are pretty animals with a thick tail that’s clearly striped dark brown and orange. They have white stripes on their sides up to the shoulders, separating the lighter fur on the chest from the darker back, and their four legs are all the same orange as the stripes on the tail. They’re rare after years of being hunted for their skins.

 As the sun rose the colours of my surroundings became brighter. I felt like I had been one of the privileged to have seen this day born, I had seen it go from icy black invisibility to this bright sunny day that promised to be warm. I had nothing that needed doing, except maybe another hike so I was reluctant to leave my vantage point at the summit. But I knew before much longer I’d be joined by others making a daytrip up, and I didn’t feel like being there for that. So I shouldered my pack and wandered on down to see what else the day would bring.

Way out there, who would have thought?

Lying on my back, eyes open just a crack. Headache, dry mouth, urrgh. I looked around the bedroom. What the hell, where was I? I’d spent each night for the past couple of months in my little green tent. But this was no tent - I was in a single bed in a tiny room. Make-up and moisturiser bottles lined up on the shelf. A girl’s bedroom? Swinging my feet to the floor I saw I was fully dressed except for my shoes and jacket lying at the foot of the bed. I ran my hands through my hair and stood up to look in the mirror. Why was my face painted blue?

I’d been staying at Arkaroola, at the northern tip of the Flinders Ranges for a few days. A privately owned property, run as a low-key eco tourism place, Arkaroola sits on the edge of the desert. Rugged hills lined with layers all skewif stand to attention around the landscape. The air is clear, the colours sharp. Hillsides are dotted with spinifex, grasstrees are everywhere. Kangaroos, wallaroos, emus. In the sky wedge tailed eagles circle and glide.

It’s a remote place. The journey could be said to start at Port Augusta, which is itself isolated enough. Port Augusta is the town at one of the country’s major crossroads – where the main East-West highway meets the main North-South highway. A small, dusty town where the caravan park is surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence.

From Port Augusta I drove north-east towards the dry centre of the country. Through small town Quorn, through tiny Hawker and past Wilpena Pound, the main camping area in Flinders Ranges National Park. Then I turned off the tarmac and onto the dirt road which took me the one hundred and eighty kilometres to Arkaroola at the northern end of the ranges.

I camped down the back and had been hiking the rocky paths by day and staring into the campfire by night. Flaming wood crackled, smoke drifted upwards and shooting stars arced across the sky.

On the third night I’d booked in to visit the observatory and was excited because the night sky fascinates me, though I’ve never troubled to learn much about it. I went up to the bar to have a beer to get in the mood. There’s a little bar, restaurant and motel type accommodation to cater for the guests who weren’t camping or caravanning.  I got talking to the girls behind the bar, and learned they were Veronica and Kim from Alice Springs, best friends since primary school.

‘There are three of us. Kate’s here too, but not working tonight.’

Then it was time to go. The tour was good, we saw Saturn’s rings, noted that Alpha Centauri is not one but two stars, and observed a globular cluster that was some incredible distance away. It ended at nine thirty and I was all wired up, in the mood to discuss space and aliens and life’s big questions, but all the old folk filed out and into their motel rooms and caravans.

The door to the bar was locked but I could see Veronica and Kim were still inside cleaning up. I knocked on the door and mimed ’drink’ ‘quick’ ‘?’. Veronica came and opened up for me.

Yeah, no worries she laughed.

Half way through my glass of port Kim said ‘we’re having a dance party tonight and you can come if you want.’

 ‘You might have to wear something crazy though.’

They locked up and I walked with them to Veronica’s room. The two of them dived into the wardrobe to search for something appropriate. There were African pants, red high heels, a fluffy dressing gown. A pink scarf was thrown onto the bed. ‘You can wear that Steve’ Veronica said as she ran into the bathroom to get dressed. They came out with headscarves, lurid makeup and other Veronica (another one from next door had shown up) had a sort of Pocahontas thing going on.

They grabbed some drinks and Veronica handed me a cask of wine and told me to drink it. We walked up to the room where Bobby, the Welsh chef, stays. His room was about three metres by two and he’d decorated it with signs and pictures over the walls, and space for people to draw self portraits. He was wearing a tuxedo jacket and half his face was painted blue. Kate was there with blue hair and eyebrows. She was wearing a pink onesie. Kim pounced on a silver sequin jacket that belonged to Bobby, and put it on proudly. The stereo was an iphone – there were other workers sleeping nearby so volume was a problem.

‘We need some of that blue stuff’ Kim said. ‘Want some Steve?’

‘So, Bobby...you brought your Grandma’s pink onesie all the way from Wales because...?’ I asked.

‘Because you never know’ he said.

‘And the sequin jacket?’

‘Same reason.’

These guys had been working there for a few months, doing long split shifts six days a week. They seemed to love the isolation, the feeling of not really being part of the bigger world. One of them told me that on a recent trip to Port Augusta she'd had been frustrated by all the traffic lights - but I remember only seeing two sets of lights in the whole town. 

They'd created their own little world where they spent a chunk of their salary on Tim Tams and chips from the little store, drank lots of wine any night of the week and they improvised their entertainment.

There was dancing on the bed, some fast drinking to catch up with the others who’d been at it for several hours, and about a thousand selfy photos, before someone decided we’d better go to the games room to make some more noise and not annoy all the sleeping staff. Plenty of room there for handstands and a few rounds of a game called beer-pong. When it was time to call it a night I’d become such a lurching, squint-eyed version of myself that it was decided by the council of the wise that I was in no condition to either safely drive or walk the eight hundred metres to my tent. Kim let me stay in her room while she stayed with Veronica.

The headache in the morning was bad, but I didn’t regret it because I asked myself if I’d ever I again be invited to a party of this unique flavour? I guess you never know.