The Long Drive

As I have started submitting a column in the Queensland Country Life, I thought I would start posting the articles that are published on here, with the addition of pictures, so that you can see what and where I am talking about.

 

. . .

I had been dating The Farmer for about a week when he invited me out to the farm to see shearing in action. They were winding up the following week and so I had to decide quickly.

I explained to my boss about how shearing was finishing up that week and how I may never have the opportunity to see it again. The Principal agreed that it was a worthwhile occasion, and I completed all the relevant paperwork to take Friday afternoon off work.

The Farmer gave me the easiest directions to the shearing shed. They weren't necessarily the quickest directions, but they were by far the least complicated ones, and as this was to be my first foray into the world that was 'country driving', we agreed that this was for the best. The Farmer told me to pack my 'work clothes' for the trip.

Friday came around faster than I expected. I had put aside a pair of jeans (new) and a check shirt I had borrowed. Neither were what I would classify as 'work clothes', but as my 'work clothes' mostly consisted of dress skirts and pants and blouses, this was foreign ground for me. It would have to do. I left work at 1pm, and tried to recall the directions as I drove.

I was busy concentrating on counting the grids (was it six or seven I was supposed to cross?). I couldn't believe that I was driving on a 'road' with grids! Soon I had been driving for over an hour and I was starting to fret about the definite possibility that I was lost. In the very likely event of that happening I would either be forced to drink my own urine or eat a kangaroo carcass in order to survive before anybody would EVER find my fully dehydrated and emaciated body on this road to nowhere. For all I knew, I was already a goner. The road was less than ordinary. It was too far from anywhere, and I was really starting to wonder if The Farmer was even worth all this effort. Surely this couldn't be the road he lived on? It was rough. Pot holes were scattered haphazardly from one side to the other. The corrugation left me sore and tingly. I couldn't imagine myself driving on this road on a permanent basis. This would probably be my first and last visit to the farm.

 

Example of a corrugated road.

 

Just as I was about to give up and turn around, there it was in front of me. Across the roof of the shearing shed, clearly visible from the road, was The Farm. I visibly relaxed. I had survived, and was then able to see shearing in all of its magnificence, all explained to me by The Farmer.  It’s something I still love to see all these years later, I just don’t have to take time off work to do it anymore.

 

The Farmer doing his thing. Worth the drive!

 

I’ve also come to realise that it’s not the journey (all corrugated and long), but the destination that matters anyway.