In Search of the Giant Budgerigar
On long road trips, it's important to have a travelling companion.
Not so much to share the driving; more to avoid being labelled as that creepy bloke driving around the outback by himself in a Land Cruiser.
Over the years, I've dragged along a series of female companions on my longer trips, with varying degrees of success.
One of them concocted some story about a family emergency, and insisted I drive 450km out of the way, and drop her at Sydney Airport. That was in September, and I'm still waiting to hear from her. September 2009, I should add.
Others have different ways of coping with my personality. Like drinking heavily early in the day (Heather, call me. I've lost your number).
This trip though, I had a male passenger. Paddy, my son actually, a 20-year-old veteran of my strange habits and mood swings. So you'd think he'd just roll his eyes, and think of England when the inevitable tantrums erupted.
Not so. Eventually, he insisted I let him out of the car. That was a while back, somewhere south of Tennant Creek. Like me, he's adaptable, so I'm sure he's hooked up with a community of wombats or something.
Things were difficult way before then.
He'd started annoying me early on day two, and after six weeks, had become positively irritating.
I couldn't even medicate myself - I was running low on benzodiazapenes, and even in these poorly-policed parts of Australia, the adult side of my brain kept telling me drinking beer whilst driving at 10am was not a good idea.
When he was little, I would keep Paddy quiet by giving him black jelly beans; telling him they were magic pills - if he took one, then sat completely still for an hour, he would develop x-ray vision.
I thought about trying that on this trip. He's not the sharpest took in the shed, but even taking that into account, I reckon at the age of 20 he's wised up to my jelly bean plan.
I even considered knocking him out by giving him the last of the benzos, but he'd see that as a victory.
Instead, I threw a challenge at him: whoever spots the Crappest Big Thing gets the pick of the beds in whatever squalid hotel we stayed in that night.
That's important. One cabin in, I think it was Corrawobblewangdoodle or somewhere like that, offered a double bed, and a set of bunks.
I picked the lower bunk, which collapsed in the middle of the night, dumping me on the floor on top of Paddy's iPad, which hasn't worked since. I think that was about the time he transformed from irritating to insufferable.
So from that point on, I grabbed the comfy bed (relatively speaking - we're talking outback caravan parks here), leaving Paddy to make his own arrangements.
Anway, getting back to Big Crap Things. They're everywhere in Queensland. Once upon a time, they were considered tourist attractions. Travelling folk would buy postcards (if you're younger than 40, ask your mum what they were) of the Big Banana or Big Prawn, just to stick it up the people back home who weren't on holiday.
Here's the thing though; I swear they've got smaller with the passage of time.
My memories were of majestic, towering prawns. Giant, imposing canteloupe. Even the sheep with massive testicles near Goulburn once impressed the hell out of me.
So surely somewhere there was a giant budgie, or perhaps a twenty metre tall dingo?
No, all you get are pint-sized cobs of corn, various varieties of pumpkin and what I think is meant to be a slice of watermelon. There's no danger of any of them being classed as 'big'.
If you want big, you need to look for signs along the highway.
The largest by far are the posters of George Christensen. You can spot his drooping jowls and piggy little eyes from quite a distance.
Coming a close second are the signs advertising a group of accident and injury ambulance chasers, who go by the name of Splatt Lawyers. It must be real. You couldn't invent a name like that.
Not so much to share the driving; more to avoid being labelled as that creepy bloke driving around the outback by himself in a Land Cruiser.
Over the years, I've dragged along a series of female companions on my longer trips, with varying degrees of success.
One of them concocted some story about a family emergency, and insisted I drive 450km out of the way, and drop her at Sydney Airport. That was in September, and I'm still waiting to hear from her. September 2009, I should add.
Others have different ways of coping with my personality. Like drinking heavily early in the day (Heather, call me. I've lost your number).
 |
| Pic taken somewhere west of Arewethereyet Bay. I'm not sure why it's smiling. |
This trip though, I had a male passenger. Paddy, my son actually, a 20-year-old veteran of my strange habits and mood swings. So you'd think he'd just roll his eyes, and think of England when the inevitable tantrums erupted.
Not so. Eventually, he insisted I let him out of the car. That was a while back, somewhere south of Tennant Creek. Like me, he's adaptable, so I'm sure he's hooked up with a community of wombats or something.
Things were difficult way before then.
He'd started annoying me early on day two, and after six weeks, had become positively irritating.
I couldn't even medicate myself - I was running low on benzodiazapenes, and even in these poorly-policed parts of Australia, the adult side of my brain kept telling me drinking beer whilst driving at 10am was not a good idea.
When he was little, I would keep Paddy quiet by giving him black jelly beans; telling him they were magic pills - if he took one, then sat completely still for an hour, he would develop x-ray vision.
I thought about trying that on this trip. He's not the sharpest took in the shed, but even taking that into account, I reckon at the age of 20 he's wised up to my jelly bean plan.
I even considered knocking him out by giving him the last of the benzos, but he'd see that as a victory.
Instead, I threw a challenge at him: whoever spots the Crappest Big Thing gets the pick of the beds in whatever squalid hotel we stayed in that night.
That's important. One cabin in, I think it was Corrawobblewangdoodle or somewhere like that, offered a double bed, and a set of bunks.
I picked the lower bunk, which collapsed in the middle of the night, dumping me on the floor on top of Paddy's iPad, which hasn't worked since. I think that was about the time he transformed from irritating to insufferable.
So from that point on, I grabbed the comfy bed (relatively speaking - we're talking outback caravan parks here), leaving Paddy to make his own arrangements.
Anway, getting back to Big Crap Things. They're everywhere in Queensland. Once upon a time, they were considered tourist attractions. Travelling folk would buy postcards (if you're younger than 40, ask your mum what they were) of the Big Banana or Big Prawn, just to stick it up the people back home who weren't on holiday.
Here's the thing though; I swear they've got smaller with the passage of time.
My memories were of majestic, towering prawns. Giant, imposing canteloupe. Even the sheep with massive testicles near Goulburn once impressed the hell out of me.
So surely somewhere there was a giant budgie, or perhaps a twenty metre tall dingo?
No, all you get are pint-sized cobs of corn, various varieties of pumpkin and what I think is meant to be a slice of watermelon. There's no danger of any of them being classed as 'big'.
If you want big, you need to look for signs along the highway.
The largest by far are the posters of George Christensen. You can spot his drooping jowls and piggy little eyes from quite a distance.
Coming a close second are the signs advertising a group of accident and injury ambulance chasers, who go by the name of Splatt Lawyers. It must be real. You couldn't invent a name like that.
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