The Adventures - part one

THE ADVENTURES OF OLD PETE

OR

A FRAGMENT OF HIS IMAGINATION

Once upon a time there lived an adventurous man, called Old Pete; this was for two reasons, one being that he was old and the other 'cause his name was Pete.

Old Pete, or as we may get to call him, Pete, lived in the Inback, but much preferred the Outback. He disliked suburbia that much that he used to go out to a place that was near the Outback but not really Outback, ifn' ya' know what I mean. Anyrate, he would buy bags of sheep poop and cow dung and spread them around his home in the burbs, just to make it look like he was in the Outback. But he wasn't and he soon became depressed and downhearted and fairly low feeling, which is a cow of a way to feel when you are normally a happy sort of bloke hey?

It soon got around to Old Pete taking the initiative, which they made him put back, but he took it again when they weren't looking and sent for a couple of camels from a place up in the Territory wot had an abundance of said beasts and other stuff wot Pete didn't need, so he didn't send for that stuff.

There were times of the year that camels were in short supply, and this was in the Victorian Football season when copious amounts of meat pies and tomato sauce was sold at the footy grounds; however at this time, they were plentiful and abundant and lots and lots for sale.

Old Pete specifically asked for V8 camels, as he had a fair way to go ifn' he put his initiative, or the initiative wot he took that time, into action. The V8 camel is the ex-racing beast, wot was used for racing in camel races, and had a turn of speed about them that would leave something that was not as fast, standing, which explains how fast these V8 camels got to be.

His idea was to ride the camels out to the Northern Territory to see his old mate Marakorpa, and Marra's sweet bride, Elkie, or as known to those that knew, The Elk.

Old Pete, hadn't seen his mates since, oh way back, it coulda' been further than that even, so he reckoned that ifn' he was gunna get away from suburbia that the Northern Territory was as far from his suburbia as possible without riding to somewhere that might have been further.

The camels arrived, but as Old Pete would have suspected the Afghan Camel Driver wot sent em' left Old Pete with the excess postage; however, the camels were as described and Old Pete paid the amount as the Afghan Camel Driver would have suspected.

The next thing Old Pete decided he needed, now that he had a couple of V8 camels, was to hire a camel handler, which to those that know camels is something that one does not do, if they can help it - handle camels I mean, but someone wot knew about camels were called handlers, so I guess they did handle camels, which is something Old Pete didn't want to do because he had heard that they were a bit hard to handle ifn' you didn't know what you wuz doing, which Old Pete didn't, and didn't want to know, so he decided to get a handler.

As it so happened, the Afghan Camel Driver wot sent the camels had a son in the 'burbs wot knew how to handle camels, and Old Pete contacted him and asked him to apply for the job, which he did, the son that is, he did apply for the job, and Old Pete was very impressed with his camel knowledge, which could have been anything he invented because Old Pete knew nuffin' about camels, and was rather short on anything else except for the things he knew well.

Old Pete told the son, the Afghan's son, not Old Petes' son 'cause Old Pete didn't have one and ifn' he did he wouldn't be looking like an Afghan Camels driver's son, so Old Pete reckoned. He told him, the son that is, that the trip would be a long one and that the pay wouldn't be all that good as Old Pete was on the pension and the expenses of the trip precluded any payment. The son, who thought that precluded meant that he was gunna' get some money, accepted the terms and conditions; however, he was aware that there were others that had applied for the job so he left.

Heidi, the Swedish backpacker, knew less than Old Pete about camels. She said that she had seen them in a zoo but thought they were giraffes, which she also had never seen.

Heidi was blonde, blue eyed, wore short shorts and a halter top that didn't know when to halt. When she fluttered her eyelashes, all the paperwork on Old Pete's desk blew out the window and when she leant out the window to see where they had all gone, Old Pete made his decision as to who would be his handler ... sorry, the camel handler.

... read part two.