Australia – Hello Outback, Jimbo, his goat and opals in Coober Pedy
I was picked up at Adelaide airport by Jimbo and his goat, Gary.
http://www.donnybrookmail.com.au/news/local/news/general/goats-need-love-too/2392989.aspx
Its over 800km from Adelaide to Coober Pedy but we decide to drive through the night and get it done, we have to make regular stops for Gary to piss and poo. Jimbo also grabs a bit of scrub bush at every opportunity so that gary has something other than the car seat to chew on sat in the back. He is a happy traveling companion who surprisingly doesn’t smell. Well not as bad as Jimbo. The pair have clearly bonded and jimbo cannot stop telling me about how much his life has improved since he got a goat.
There is an old Outback saying that goes, you are not a real Aussie until you have killed your first Roo. Well hello Australia, Bob Slayer is one of you. Shortly after sun up I took over driving the goat transporter, an old beat up $400 ford something or other, Within 5 mins of getting behind the wheel a giant rat jumped across the road in front of us. There was a blam, the car did a jump and skippy was not going to bounce any more.
I wanted to dig a hole by the side of the road and bury him, but jimbo, although not insensitive to the welfare of animals as he has displayed in his love for gary, pointed out that we passed a road kill Roo probably every couple of kilometers and we would need to do a lot of digging to respect them all.
At midday with the temp in the 40′s we pull into Coober Pedy. Less than 2000 people live here. That is half the capacity of the apollo. Half of these folks live undergroumd here cos it is so hot. The landscape of mines and caves have been used in films such as pricilla, mad max, pitch black and a bunch of others. My first impression is what a hot and dusty shithole.
We had no gig booked but after an hour of walking around town with a goat we have a gig set up for tomorrow evening (in the opal), a place to stay underground, beer and a good feed. This seems to be how they roll out here. If they like you then they take you in.
We had a sleep and then spent the evening putting up posters in the 4 shops, 2 servos, 4 and a half restaurants and 2 pubs. We met the local cops who are coming down for a knees up tomorrow. We also met a Czech opal miner called Vic who has been over here for 30 years. He has invited us for a kangaroo bar b q tomorrow. I didn’t ask if it was BYO. Jimbo suspects that he might have a daughter he is trying to marry off.
Gary the goat has just done a little bleat outside our cave. He is the most low maintainence traveling partner you could ever imagine. So long as you give him a bit of old tree and a splash of water every now and then he is happy. He is sleeping on top of jimbos car.
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