Smartcarby- Stories of the outback

Faith was still in town. She was a relief nurse who was originally from New York City, bought a flat in Kings Cross because it reminded her of her town of birth with all the prostitution, rape, murder and drug taking. Well that's what she said. For an adventure she decided to sign up for a relief nursing and ended up at the airport at Fregon. What a contrast - no buildings, traffic noise and total isolation. It is no wonder that she didn't get back on the plane and head right back. We got to know one another, and she had a keen interest in photography and she owned a Nikon (I could never afford one).

Leonie and Bruce at Sunset

We decided to have a barbecue around a camp fire and show this American what living in the outback was all about. So we put the barbie on top of the car and headed out to Officer Creek and go rabbit shooting. When we cooked the meal which included barbecued lamb chops and sausages, vegetable cooked in a camp oven, roasted potatoes and pumpkin in the coals with butter and herbs. We had pancakes and golden syrup for desert (at about midnight).

When we had cooked the meal, James sat ontop of the car with a spotlight and we had song and dance performances by Kylie, Michael and David. It was unreal - there we were out in the middle of nowhere, no other living people within 50km and we were having a three course meal and show. Faith was sure that we could sell this to American tourist for a lot of money. (I think that this is already done to death at Alice Springs). We then spent time trying to take photographs of the gunpowder flash from Bruce's gun. We then blasted off into the bush to kill more rabbits. With me driving, the boys on the roof with the spotlight, Bruce on the shooting chair and Weazle running beside the car. Faith was enjoying every minute.

Here you can see the recoil of the riffle

Weazle would love to run and get the rabbits and would follow the sound of the bullet, often Bruce had to avoid hitting her as she was so keen to get there. If a rabbit had been killed she would then stand near the carcass until David would ran and find it. If it wasn't quite dead he would hit on the ground, breaking its neck. He would also check to see if the rabbits had myxmitousis (a disease released to try and combat the huge rabbit invasions but hasn't worked and it sends the rabbits blind so that they starve to death. A very slow and painful death) but we would never take these back to Fregon we would leave the bodies for the foxes. James would just love to run, he would just run around everywhere unfortunately he would spend all of his time looking at his feet and the ground rushing past. This also meant that he would crash into trees, bushes or fall down rabbit warrens and end up being hurt. The dead rabbits would be pilled on the back of the roof rack with their blood dripping down the back window. Sometimes if the rabbits where just stunned, not dead they would jump up from the pile of dead rabbits and bound off into the distances causing Weazle to purse then with great excitement.

We arrived back in town at around 1:30 am all excited and happy with the night. This was a fantastic way for family and friends to enjoy one anothers company. You never needed TV with all the various activities that could be done out here. In the morning we drove around Fregon giving rabbit to all the old folks to enjoy. Although they would have to spit the lead bullet out.

Top of page