Approximately November 1983, on the road between Kalgoorlie and Agnew.
I haven’t been taking pictures, so I’m delving into some old ones. This is one of a few that I have on my laptop, scanned from the originals. It isn’t a good photo – I used to take photos without much thought.
I had flown into Perth airport the previous morning from Bali. It was the end of a six month stint of travel / living in Sumatra and Java mostly. I hadn’t seen any westerners for most of that time, until I got to Bali. From that point on I saw everything Australian as a foreigner for quite a while.
What I saw in Bali was mostly pretty ugly. I had heard of the generally bad behaviour of Australians in Bali as I got closer to Bali.
The saddest thing about Bali, was the Balinese. Most of the people making money in Bali were from Java (Jakarta), or Australia. The Balinese way of life had changed dramatically in a short time. Their endemic religion was being driven out by the spread of Islam; if you wanted to be succussful or get somewhere, it paid to conform. This had the most effect on Balinese women, who found their freedom suddenly very limited. The Balinese language was being replaced by Indonesian. The older people were lost, not being able to speak Indonesian they had to rely on their children to interpret. The children were taught Indonesian at school, but not their own language. Beautiful jungles and coconut plantations were being replaced by huge hotels, shops and bars. The traditional residents were forced to move and live in different places or to work for their new landlords as third rate citizens and for very low wages.
I hitchhiked from Perth to Kalgoorlie; got into Kalgoorlie during the night. It was a chaotic scene, everywhere people were drunk and swearing and fighting and falling over – it was worse than Bali. I could hear the intermittent smash of bottles. I was told it was pension day. After living in a well mannered and considerate Indonesian society for so long it was a huge culture shock.
I couldn’t find anywhere to stay, so spent the night in a school shelter shed in my sleeping bag.
The following morning I started hitching North, to a little town named Agnew on the edge of The Great Sandy Desert. There was a nickel mine there (I think it was nickel), and I’d heard it had just opened up again because the price of nickel was good. I was broke and hoped to get work at the mine.
It was midday before I got a lift. Only three vehicles passed, but they all stopped. Two were going in the opposite direction, but stopped to see if I was OK, ask where I was headed to and if I knew anybody there, and just friendly talk. I felt that I was now in the fold of a very small but caring community. I was on their road that led only to their communities (Leinster and Agnew).
My lift was arranged via cb radio with this road train.
Everywhere was in flood, and this was one of the many stops we made to check the level of the water across the road, and whether the road underneath was still there or not.
The truckie at one point was talking to another truckie on the cb radio. They were discussing the flood crossings, when the other truckie mentioned something like “look out for the long legged ladies”; this was truckie lingo for emus. It was great to hear language like this again.
(c) Andrew Calder

Popularity: 18% [?]