Mary Crawley and the Tattersalls Hotel at Barringun, NSW.
There’s something about the outback. You either ‘get’ it. Or you don’t. The outback either touches your soul, or it doesn’t. You connect with it, and, like artesian water, flow beneath its surface, feeding off it and returning the richness it gives you or you skim over it, oblivious to its rich and endlessly changing character. As you ride, the change from mulga to box, from turpentine to wilga, from gidgee to cypress to brigalow will enthral you or it’ll all just be ‘trees’. The earth’ll glide from brown to grey to black to red, from sand to clay to iron stone or it’ll all just be dirt. The changes will either transfix you or they’ll be unseen, unheard, untasted, unfelt and unknown. ‘Getting’ the outback is about your soul not your senses. It’s about your core in tune with the country’s heart. In the 1880’s one of the more erudite transients, the Hon (no less!) Harold Finch-Hatton published his, “ Advance Australia! – An Account of 8 Years’ ...