Silverton

Heat baking earth under dry crackling leaves, in crevices of bark, on the underside of stones. Bleached grass, dry earth to the horizon. A line of emus stalk the nothingness, then pound away with feathers flouncing, striding into the far distance, disappearing into the low scrub on the near horizon. Sun sets over dusty plains where sheep tracks lead like wheel spokes.

A distant night storm - Broken Hill

Dark, threatening clouds hug the horizon in a long gloomy band. The early evening darkens to a glassy patch of brightness in a swirling sky and suddenly even that was gone. The horizon is lit by sunken lightening flashes, flickering like an erratic florescent light. Gusts of gritty cool air, a smell of dampness. A noise like rushing wind and torrential rain hammers down. A storm cuts across the continent to dump rain onto flood plans and storm water drains, on lignum flats and stony ranges, on riverside gullies and desolate overgrazed paddocks. The white explosions of lightning move along the horizon and sink from view.

A new day, washed clean and clear. Flies, first light at six. Cockatoos drift towards the river, contradictory and raucous. Intervals of sunlight between skidding clouds across a lightning blue sky

Night Drive - Broken Hill to Mildura

Kangaroos appear, bouncing elastically, near misses made possible by constant braking and slow speed. Stars wheel across the windscreen and the cross rises in the star speckled sky. Ghostly outlines of tree skeletons appear and disappear. Sheep appear and scatter and reappear. They stand staring, eyes in the sweep of headlights like green refracting jewels. Owls, grasshoppers, bats, moths and flying ants make traceries in the dark. The struggle to stay awake on the straight road, in the comfortable airstream, cushioning us like a dream and the constant humming of the engine. The night breathes under the luminous star shine.

Other headlights materialising in the far sky and intermittently sink down. When they bore pass eventually they do so blindingly as if something has leapt flashing from the dark, from the deep, from the waters of where we are going.