Monday, October 13, 2014

A Bit more about tourists in the Outback

Having been in the Outback in a time when things were changing, I must confess I was not in the deep hardship times of times before my time, which I considered rather timely.  However, there came a time when there were folk that wanted to experience the Outback, or as the advertisers would have it, an Outback experience, as though experiencing the Outback was one singular feature, rather than a combination of features  that happened to be in the Outback.  Ifn' ya' know what I mean.

What happened is that the tourists, especially the "Grey Nomads" in their several hundred thousand dollar fuel guzzling, fully insect proof, fully air conditioned, fully fitted with showers, microwave ovens, and often foolishly driven where no RV was meant to go, arrived in numbers, wishing to have the Outback experience.  I mean! Did they open the fly screens...No!  Did they cook in a campfire in a camp oven in a sudden downpour, No!  Did they fore-go the latest TV drama, No! not on ya' life Nelly.  But, back home in the local bowlo',

 "We experienced the Outback experience."
"Oh,My goodness!  how brave of you...I could not stand the deprivation."
"Aw! It's all right, if you set your mind to it, like we did."

Now, again , being Fair Dinkum, the drovers of today have caravans, TV's, washing machines, and the like, and of course, they point the finger at a 'Fully,' as explained, RV, and say "Bloody tourists."

Me' I never worried about TV in the early 50s, maybe 'cause there weren't none in this country then.

I worried about the flies.  You have your horse whisperers, and dog whisperers and those old women that whisper over the back fence, but I was a professional fly worrier, I didn't worry them but they sure as all get out worried me.

I could sleep under the shade of a barb wire fence, if the need arose, and often did when I was too overcome with another Outback experience, call being  'pissed', and couldn't climb over the darn fence anyway.

So, the Outback doesn't change, people do and what they wish to whisper about, and what they want to experience is only relative to the amount of money and brains that one may have at any particular time.

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