Before The Fall

We finally, after a massive drive which saw us pass through the Riverina, cross the Murray, roam around Port Augusta for the afternoon, watch half the street get arrested for public disturbance, stay overnight at Wirrundi, Polish My Bar declared the t-shirt of one handsome young local, back, no doubt, here in the middle of nowhere, for university holidays. We ended in Streaky Bay and thought immediately, we've driven all this way for this! Everything was booked out for the holiday season, surprise, surprise, the caravan park booked solid, holiday houses let. But the beauties of the place unfolded rapidly, where the desert meets the sea. Families fished off the jetty at all hours. We finally rented a house at Scealey Bay, pronounced Scaley Bay for eight nights and here it was we finally came to rest.

The tennis was on the TV, the pre-cursors to the Australian Open. Every Australian summer was characterised by tennis on the televsion, the battle of personalities, the game play. Col only ventured off the verandah and down to the beach once, but I tried to get down most days. There were no local shops, pub or post office. The locals I met all thought they had died and gone to heaven. There was a battle between the pro and anti-development lobbies. The farmer, who's 34,000 acres surrounded the bay, had put a significant number of blocks up for sale, ranging between $66,000 to $135,000. They were all waiting for it to go ahead. Couldn't be stopped they said. Nothing of what Australia had become had reached here. Before snarling yuppies and grasping welfare lobbyists had curdled public debate. Before the trendies took over. Before everything had gone to theory and the arseholes took over. A purer time, was there ever such a time?

They pulled into tiny places and said: imagine growing up here. A blonde, pudgy, slightly effeminite boy sat outside Hungry Jacks in Broken Hill. Imagine growing up here if you were even slightly different. It would be like Australia in the 50s all over again. That time which had come to represent horrific conformity, but also a simpler, better time, when a day's work was the decent thing. Before the culture had descended into market speak and how to handle your success seminars, the grey audi of last year out and the black back in. Instead, here, where there was no local shop and people left their cars unlocked. Here where the view across the bay changed constantly as the light of the day passed, and we watched transfixed at the end of our days.