Travelling from Mildura to Broken Hill is like travelling on the sea, a voyage across an ocean of land. The going smooth. Sandy tracks and unsealed roads lead off. Dips and long crests interrupt the low horizon. There are no hills just stretches of elevation with small insect like movements detectable in the vastness - wallabies.

Red earth, coatings of dust. Dust smudged clothing. A night time furnace of never ending heat - something about this country blows my mind.

Breathtaking, the stipple patterning of dry shrubs on the red plain. Thousands of acres stretching out in all directions with no sign of habitation anywhere. The late afternoon light creates a dusty golden haze and it seems almost possible to detect the curvature of the earth. The silence is broken by the chatter of finches in a tree among the rocks and by the screech of a hawk. I sniff the grassy dry air, listening to the immemorial shrill of crickets responding to my closeness, the nearer ones switching off, waiting.