He says that he took up his new post, the paper was at such a low ebb, he doubts if it would have survived the financial year. “When I arrived, I said to the staff of five women, ‘these are your parameters, and this is the job I’d like you to do.’ But they’re all good and I love them. They just wanted a bit of direction. So, I’ve been giving them a bit of training and it’s just overwhelming how well they’re doing.”
He’s not a big fan of political correctness, preferring to ‘say it like it is.’ He thinks that a country paper can get away with things that a city paper couldn’t. “Nobody’s going to complain out here!” he says.
Colin tries to work with the Outback Tourism Association as much as possible. “Wherever they go, we’ll give them 500 papers, say 100 of the last five issues and they’ll put a heap on every bar in places like Windorah and Birdsville, where there are no newsagents.” All they ask is a gold coin donation in the tin for the Royal Flying Doctor Service for each newspaper.
“Because they’re worshipped out here George,” he says, “you may have seen the designated strips of highway for them to land on,” and I nod, then ask him if he plans to stay in Longreach.
“Look, I love the place I’m from, Home Hill, but I also love this place. It’s full of characters. Genuine, generous people. So, I don’t think I’ll ever leave. I’d love to have someone of around 45 or 50 to take over and bring the paper forward. So, my message is, if you want to do something with a sense of achievement, if you’re sociable and want to get to know the people, then come out here and you’ll have a ball!”
Out of Longreach the land is as flat as still water – open ranchland, punctuated with stands of bush and scrub. Large sections of highway, which is now named Matilda, are un-fenced, so my wildlife radar is on high alert. Cattle stations are ridiculously huge. The largest in Queensland is Davenport Downs which is over 15,000 square kilometres or 3,730,000 acres in size – about the same size as East Timor.
If approaching Longreach was like Texas then this stretch reminds me of Botswana or Namibia, minus of course, colourful Africans, zebra and antelope. Every 50ks or so there is a rest area, with shaded picnic table and toilets. I sit at one after a while and finish reading Heaven’s Prisoners, once again in awe of James Lee Burkes writing. Sometimes it seems that reading these days is a guilty pleasure, a bit like smoking. I still get the odd speculative glance when people see me reading in a coffee shop or pub on my own. Maybe it’s becoming a counter-culture? It’s always been a very private act for me. A chance to disappear for an hour into another world. Reading a novel often confirms that implicit in us all is a universe of possibilities. There’s no feeling like immersing yourself in the comfortable cotton wool of your favourite author’s world.
I’m in no hurry, as I only plan to ride 200ks today. With a sigh I close my book and leave the muggy, wet bayou country of Louisiana. I clunk the Kawasaki into gear, let out the clutch and enter the dry outback again. Kilometre after kilometre. The outback, an entity all to itself, seemingly indifferent to the world’s goings-on. A huge road train towing four trailers buffets me, sucking hot air along with it as it heads east.
The long economic boom in Australia has seen a sharp increase in freight traffic and a subsequent increase in accidents involving heavy goods vehicles. Since the last recession way back in 1991 (and I remember it well as we’d recently signed on the dotted, for our first mortgage, with a 17.25% interest rate!) road freight has increased 150%. Today a staggering 2.5 billion tonnes of freight is carried on the roads each year.
I read in the paper recently that NSW Roads Minister is considering cunning plans to help truckers concentrate on the route ahead. One idea is to install a camera that monitors driver’s eyelids and how many times they look away from the road. If they are deemed to be tardy in this regard, an alarm will sound, and the seat will vibrate. A more extreme idea is to administer an electric shock via a bracelet if the driver looks away from the windscreen for more than two seconds. I’d be interested to see how these ideas are received by truckers!
I cruise around Winton’s wide sunny streets looking for coffee, finally parking in the main drag and wandering over to a young guy who’s climbing onto his Suzuki DR 650, a bike similar to mine. He’s a fellow cross-country man by the look of his gear. It’s plain that he sees me heading over for a chat but just pulls away, eyes front. Ah, well, it takes all sorts I suppose. The pretty young girl who makes my coffee is from Exeter in Devon and says she can’t understand people who want to live in cities. I sip my flat white, swat flies, listen to Stevie Wonder on the radio, and stare out at the almost-empty main street, expecting a tumbleweed or two to blow down it.
The North Gregory Hotel in Winton is where Banjo Patterson performed Australia’s unofficial national anthem Waltzing Matilda for the first time in 1895. Winton is also the centre for dinosaur country, as thousands of huge fossilised footprints are to be found in the nearby Lark Quarry Conservation Park. Tourists are reminded of this by plastic rubbish bins on the pavement made in the shape of dinosaur feet.
I phone Mick, who’s kindly offered talk to me and put me up on his nearby cattle station, and ask him for directions. He’s busy mustering but tells me to come up anyway and make myself at home. The ride out to Windermere Station is marvelous. A couple of kms out of town I turn on to a red dirt road and soon find myself riding across a huge dusty plain following tire tracks towards a collection of buildings in the distance. Mick’s wife Anne, is expecting me and I’m soon dumping my gear in the cosy spare room. The farmhouse is built on tall piles to allow for the regular floods, allowing Mick to build his own bar under the house. It’s here that I now find myself, beer-in-hand with Anne and Mick’s off-sider Dan. Mick plays barman. He asks me what I’d like and when I say, “VB please,” they all laugh and hi-five each other. “At last we can get rid of that shit!” he says, Queensland XXXX drinker to the core. Percy is parked in the bar next to us.
Cattleman Mick Seymour
I place my dictaphone on the bar and tell Mick, tanned, blue eyed, and as solid as a bull, not to be intimidated by it. “The last time I had one of them pointed at me, it was a policeman,” he says, and I realise that Mick wouldn’t be intimidated by much at all. I start by asking if he’s always been ‘on the land.’
“Most of the time,” he replies, “although I wasn’t born on the land. I was born in Cloncurry – my father was a shearer, a slaughterman and a butcher.” He sips his XXXX and puts my can of VB into a ‘Pub in the Bush’ tinny-holder. His hands are big, and work-worn. “You haven’t moved far then,” I say.
“Well I have – I’ve just gone in a big circle.”
“Well tell me of your journey,” I say in my most corny interviewer voice, half Parkinson, half Oprah, which makes everyone smile.
“I left school at 15 and took off on my own, working on cattle stations all over Queensland. I worked for Stanbroke, a big cattle company for over a decade.” Another sip of beer. “I wasn’t much good at school. I wasn’t stupid, I just didn’t like school work. I hated homework, so I’d get this girl I knew, to do it for me.”
It was while contract mustering around Clairmont in the Central Highlands that Mick met Anne. The couple, in their early twenties