Tracks

Chapter 1

There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns – small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. (Davidson) Chapter 1

The minute I saw Sallay Mahomet it was apparent to me that he knew exactly what he was doing. He exuded the bandy-legged, rope-handling confidence of a man long accustomed to dealing with animals. (Davidson) Chapter 1

Not a thing was out of place. Gladdy Posel met me at the door – a bird-like woman, middle-aged, with a face that spoke of hardship and worry and unbending will. But there was a suspiciousness in it also. However, she was the first person so far who had not greeted my idea with patronizing disbelief. (Davidson) Chapter 1

Suddenly, Kurt appeared around the corner – an apparition in white taking giant strides. I could feel his fury before he reached us and stood up to face him. (Davidson) Chapter 1

I was an urbanite in the bush? Had I suddenly landed in Ku Klux Klan country? I had spent time before with Aboriginal people – in fact, had had one of the best holidays of my entire life with them. (Davidson) Chapter 1

The suspiciousness returned. ‘There’s nothing damn well wrong with the blacks except what the whites do to them.’
It was my turn to smile. Gladdy, it appeared, was a rebel. (Davidson and Gladdy) Chapter 1

He had been with camels all his life, although his relationship to them was anything but sentimental, and he treated them somewhat roughly for my soft-hearted tastes. He knew the animals as well as the back of his own hand, and some of that knowledge seeped into me and came out when I least expected it on my journey. I had met his wife Iris, who had an outrageous and wonderful sense of humour and who helped me to laugh at my predicament. She was a perfect contrast and complement to Sallay. They were two of the nicest people I met in that god-awful hole and I like, admire and respect them to this day. I am also eternally grateful. (Davidson, about Sallay) Chapter 1

I hated myself for my infernal cowardice in dealing with people. It is such a female syndrome, so much the weakness of animals who have always been prey. I had not been aggressive enough or stood up to him enough. And now this impotent, internal, angry stuttering. (Davidson) Chapter 1

Chapter 2

To really come to grips with the Australian cult of misogyny, one has to plod back through all two hundred years of white Australia’s history, and land on the shore of the ‘wide brown land’ with a bunch of hard-done-by convicts. (Davidson) Chapter 2

And they had alcohol to soften the blow. By the 1840s it began to dawn on the residents that something was missing – sheep and women. The former they imported from Spain, a stroke of genius that was to set Australia on the economic map; the latter they brought over in boats from the poor-houses and orphanages of England. Since there were never enough to go round (women, that is) one can visualize only too clearly the frenzied rush on the Sydney wharves when the girls came bravely sailing in. (Davidson) Chapter 2

Drawn closer by our common enemy and our alliance with the people down in the creek, Gladdy and I were developing a deep friendship. Without her, I simply could not have stayed with Kurt as long as I did. (Davidson) Chapter 2

There was one flaw in Kurt’s relationship to the animals: when his temper was up he could be brutally cruel. (Davidson) Chapter 2

It was a gentleman’s agreement. Kurt refused to sign anything, saying that was not the way he did business, but as everyone knew, most of all me, Kurt had never been a gentleman. (Davidson) Chapter 2

Another trap. It was the inauspicious beginning of the ‘camel lady’ image which I should have nipped in the bud right there. (Davidson) Chapter 2

The next day I left the ranch in a daze. I was never going to get my camels or anything else. I marvelled at whatever blindness it had been that allowed me to stay as long as I did as his dupe. I moped around the neighbours’ house for a few days and cried a lot and beat my chest. Then I was offered a job by that irascible old gentleman Sallay Mahomet who was to become a friend, camel-guru and saviour. (Davidson) Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Before that moment, I had always supposed that loneliness was my enemy. I had seemed not to exist without people around me. But now I understand that I had always been a loner, and that this condition was a gift rather than something to be feared. (Davidson) Chapter 3

Just before moving to Basso’s, I had met a group of young white people involved with Aboriginal rights. Like me, they had brought with them the idealism and indignant morality of their various good educations. It was against this small group that the catch-cry, ‘Do-gooder troublemakers from the city’ was levelled by many of the locals. (Davidson) Chapter 3

‘What have I got to look forward to?’ she would say. ‘Booze? Getting married to someone who beats me up every night?’ (Joanie) Chapter 3

As Kevin Gilbert writes in Because a White Man’ll Never Do It:
It is my thesis that Aboriginal Australia underwent a rape of the soul so profound that the blight continues in the minds of most blacks today. It is this psychological blight, more than anything else, what causes the conditions that we see on reserves and missions. And it is repeated down the generations. Chapter 3

It is easy enough to take them somewhere in a group, but getting an animal off on its own is a trial and a battle of wits. This is understandable as they are a herd animal, and equate company with safety. It is very threatening for a camel to be out on his own, especially with a maniac on his back. (Davidson) Chapter 3

So that was that. No Katie, no trip. Fate again. And all that time and all that money and all that energy, devotion and care, for nothing. Eighteen months had passed down the plug-hole, for nothing. (Davidson) Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The fear was like a fungus that slowly grew over me and defeated me in the weeks that followed. I went down down down to that state that I had long since forgotten existed. (Davidson) Chapter 4

Kurt went away on holiday and Gladdy decided to leave while the going was good. I was happy for her; she looked better already. But I knew how much I was going to miss her, and I was frightened of being left on my own with her husband. (Davidson) Chapter 4

It was rational, unemotional. And I wonder now if that’s how people usually come to it. Coldly. It was so simple really. I would walk way out bush, sit myself down somewhere, and calmly put a bullet in my brain. No mess, no fuss. Just nice clean simple exit. (Davidson) Chapter 4

Because no life was better than half-life. I was planning it out, the best place, the best time, when suddenly Gladdy sat bolt upright in the bed opposite me and said, ‘Rob, are you all right? Do you want a cup of coffee?’ It was the equivalent of a bucket of iced water thrown over someone in hysteria, waking me to the horror of what I was thinking, the enormity of it. (Davidson) Chapter 4

He told the buyers that I went along with the ranch and would teach them all they needed to know about camels. They knew precisely nothing. I went to see them. (Davidson) Chapter 4

And I recognised then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. (Davidson) Chapter 4

And on that final turn, there they were. Julie spotted them, we took a position and flew back to the runway. And that was the point at which all my disparate selves agreed to do the trip. (Davidson) Chapter 4

This debilitating fear, this recognition of the full potential of Kurt’s hatred of me, and the knowledge that Kurt could and would hurt me very badly if I displeased him enough, was the catalyst which transformed my vague misery and sense of defeat into an overwhelming reality. The Kurts of this world would always win—there was no standing up to them—no protection from them. With this realization came a collapse: Everything I had been doing or thinking was meaningless, trivial, in the face of the existence of Kurt. (Davidson) Chapter 4

Chapter 5

What happened to north, south, east and west? Where did they go? Only seconds before I had had such a firm and confident grip on them. There was some ill-concealed snickering and nudging going on behind me. (Davidson) Chapter 5

And most of all, I wanted to do the think on my own without outside interference or help. An attempt at a pure gesture of independence. (Davidson) Chapter 5

He was a nice enough boy – rather Jimmy Olsenish I thought – one of those amoral immature photo-journalists who hop from trouble spot to trouble spot on the globe without ever having time to see where they are or be affected by it. (Davidson) Chapter 5

Of course I must take the money and run. I had no choice. I needed handmade water canteens, a new saddle, three pairs of stalwart sandals, not to mention food and pocket money. I also knew at some level that it meant the end of the trip as I had conceived it: knew that it was the wrong thing to do – a sell-out. A stupid but unavoidable mistake. It meant that an international magazine would be interfering – no, not overtly, but would have a vested interest in, would therefore be a subtle, controlling factor in, what had begun as a personal and private gesture. (Davidson) Chapter 5

Rick came laden with every trapping under the sun. (Davidson) Chapter 5

I had thought long and hard about a radio, and had decided that it was somehow not right to take one. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t need it, didn’t want to think of it sitting up there, tempting me, didn’t want that mental crutch, or physical link with the outside world. Foolish I suppose, but it was a very strong feeling.
I eventually gave in grudgingly to taking the set, but refused the pedal part point blank. I was angry with myself then, for allowing other people to stop me doing things the way I wanted to do them, for whatever reason. And angry because that other one of me, the boring practical self-preserver, had said, ‘Take it, take it, you idiot. You want to die out there or something?’ (Davidson) Chapter 5

…vastness, ‘I love you. I love you, sky, bird, wind, precipice, space, sun, desert desert desert.’
Click.
‘Hi, how’s it goin? I got some shots of you waving goodbye.’ Rick had been sitting in his car with the windows up, listening to pop music, waiting for me to come round the bend.
I had almost forgotten. I plummeted back to earth, my grandiose emotions crashing into shards of fussy practical detail. (Davidson & Rick) Chapter 5

I wondered what powerful fate had channelled me into this moment of inspired lunacy. The last burning bridge back to my old self collapsed. I was on my own. (Davidson) Chapter 5

I had a long session with the mirror that afternoon, trying to find out if I was a bourgeois individualist or not. Perhaps if I had taken along a company of people and made it a communal camel trip, it would have met with approval? No, that would merely have been liberalism, wouldn’t it? Revisionist at best. Heaven forbid. You can’t win. (Davidson) Chapter 5

So far, people had said that I wanted to commit suicide, that I wanted to do penance for my mother’s death, that I wanted to prove a woman could cross a desert, that I wanted publicity. Some begged me to let them come with me; some were threatening, jealous or inspired; some thought it a joke. The trip was beginning to lose its simplicity. (Davidson) Chapter 5

I began right then and there to split into two over Rick. On the one hand I saw him as a blood-sucking little creep who had inveigled his way into my life by being nice and by tempting me with material things. On the other hand I was confronted with a very warm, gentle human being who genuinely wanted to help me and who was excited by the prospect of an adventure, who wanted to do a good job, and who cared. (Davidson) Chapter 5

Chapter 6

I had decided to follow an abandoned track that would eventually meet up with the main Areyonga road. Now, the definition of a track in Australia is a mark made across the landscape by the repeated passage of a vehicle or, if you are very lucky, initially by a bulldozer. These tracks vary in quality from a corrugated, bull-dust-covered, well-defined and well-used road to something which you can barely discern by climbing a hill and squinting in the general direction you think the said track may go. Somethings you can see where a track is by the tell-tale blossoms of wildflowers. Those along the track with either by growing more thickly or be of a different type. Somethings, you may be able to follow the trail by searching for the ridge left aeons ago by a bulldozer. The track may wind around or over hills and ridges and rocky outcroppings, straight into sand-dunes, get swallowed up by sandy creek-beds, get totally lost in stony creek-beds, or fray into a maze of animal pads. Following tracks is most often easy, sometimes frustrating, and occasionally downright terrifying. (Davidson) Chapter 6

‘She’ll be right, mate,’ the closest thing to a Zen statement to come out of Australia, and one I used frequently in the months ahead. (Davidson) Chapter 6

I nodded off with Diggity snoring in my arms as usual. (Davidson) Chapter 6

… two sandstone mountain faces of the Macdonnell Ranges. As settlements go, it is a good one. It is laid out traditionally, that is, a small village of houses where the whites live, a general store which Aborigines are being trained to run themselves, a school, a clinic, and the Aboriginal camps sprawling around the outskirts looking like Third World refugee centres. (Davidson) Chapter 6

I had a clock which I told myself was for navigation purposes only, but at which I stole furtive glances from time to time. It played tricks on me. In the heat of the afternoon, when I was tired, aching and miserable, hours lapsed between ticks and tocks. I recognised a need for these absurd arbitrary structures at that stage. I did not know why, but I knew I was afraid of something like chaos. It was as if it were waiting for me to let down my guard and then it would pounce. (Davidson) Chapter 6

Chapter 7

I had approximately two weeks’ travel before I could expect to reach Ayers Rocks, and I was not looking forward to my arrival. Rick would be there to bring me back to reality. And I knew that the Rock was tamed, ruined by busload upon busload of tourists. (Davidson) Chapter 7

If felt vulnerable. Moonlight turned the shadows into inimical forms and I was so glad of Diggity’s warmth as we snuggled beneath the blankets that I could have squeezed her to death. (Davidson) Chapter 7

I went into the bar for a beer, there to be met by a group of typical ockers, all talking, as is their wont, about sex and sheilas. ‘Oh great,’ I thought, ‘just what I need …’ (Davidson) Chapter 7

Uluru they called it. The great Uluru. I wondered how they could stand watching people blundering around in fertility caves, or climbing the white painted line up the side, and taking their endless photos. If it had me almost to the point of tears, how much more must it have meant to them. (Davidson) Chapter 7

Rick arrived the next day, all bouncy and enthusiastic and full of energy. (Davidson) Chapter 7

They were gorgeous photos, no complaints there, but … Never let it be said that the camera does not lie. It lies like a pig in mud. It captures the projections of whoever happens to be using it, never the truth. (Davidson) Chapter 7

I felt vulnerable. Moonlight turned the shadows into inimical forms and I was so glad of Diggity’s warmth as we snuggled beneath the blankets that I could have squeezed her to death. (Davidson) Chapter 7

I posed in caves and walked back and forth across sand-dunes. I led the camels over escarpments and I rode them through wildflowers. ‘What about honest journalism?’ I shouted, and set my face into cement-like grimaces as I stamped along. Poor Richard, how I made him pay. I think he was truly frightened of me at times. (Davidson) Chapter 7

Rick called the ranger at Ayers Rock, to test his radio, but not only could he not contact him, a mere twenty miles away, but he had a crackly conversation with a fisherman in Adelaide, five hundred miles to the south. (Davidson) Chapter 7

I constantly imagined what it would be like, how much better it would be, if I were on my own. I was no longer blaming Richard, however, but myself. I knew I had to take full responsibility for his being there, had to come face to face with the fact that this trip would not, could not, be what I had planned and wanted it to be. And instead of seeing the potential that was there, I mourned for the loss of my hopes. (Davidson) Chapter 7

That night injected two new elements into our relationship. The first was tolerance – that is, the necessity to compromise. It set the real basis for an unlikely friendship which, although it was to have its ups and downs, was there to stay. The second was sex. (Davison, about Rick) Chapter 7

Whatever justifications for photographing the Aborigines I had come up with before, now were totally shot. It was immediately apparent that they hated it. They knew it was a rip-off. I wanted Rick to stop. He argued that he had a job to do. I looked through a small booklet Geographic had given him to record expenditures. In it was ‘gifts to the natives’. I couldn’t believe it. I told him to put down five thousand dollars for mirrors and beads, then hand out the money. (Davidson) Chapter 7

We didn’t talk much on the way home. I did not know then that it was merely a rule of etiquette to give some little gift at the end of a dance. I felt it as a symbolic defeat. A final summing up of how I could never enter their reality, would always be a whitefella tourist on the outside looking in.
And so it dragged on, that gradual decaying of my little hopes and dreams. (Davidson) Chapter 7

Chapter 8

I was twenty miles out, tired and thirsty. I drank some beer. I was about to turn off and make camp when through the beer-hazed afternoon heat came striding three large strong male camels in full season.
Panic and shake. Panic and shake. (Davidson) Chapter 8

So tired, I slept in the creek and thought of nothing but failure. I could not even light a fire. I wanted to hide in the dark. I thought it was surely longer than two days, I had walked so far. But time was different here, it was stretched by step after step and in each step a century of circular thought. I didn’t want to think like this, was ashamed of my thoughts but I could not stop them. (Davidson) Chapter 8

There was nothing but chaos and the voices.
The strong one, the hating one, the powerful one was mocking me, laughing at me.
‘You’ve gone too far this time. I’ve got you now and I hate you. You’re disgusting, aren’t you? You’re nothing. And I have you now, I knew it would come, sooner or later. There’s no use fighting me you know, there’s no one to help you. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’
Another voice was calm and warm. She commanded me to lie down and be calm. She instructed me to not let go, not give in. She reassured me that I would find myself again if I could just hold on, be quiet and lie down.
The third voice was screaming. (Davidson) Chapter 8

Aborigines. Warm, friendly, laughing, excited, tired Pitjantjara Aborigines, returning to Wingelinna and Pipalyatjara after a land rights meeting in Warburton. No fear there, they were comfortable with silence. No need to pretend anything. Billies of tea all round. Some sat by the fire and chatted, others drove home. (Davidson) Chapter 8

I talked to my companions a little. They decided that one of them should accompany me to Pipalyatjara, two days’ walk away, to look after me. I was sure it was going to be the talkative one, the one who spoke English, and my heart sank.
But as I was about to walk off with the camels, who should join me but – the little man. ‘Mr Eddie,’ he said, and pointed to himself. I pointed to myself and said ‘Robyn’, which I suppose he thought meant ‘rabbit’, since that is the Pitjantjara word for it. It seemed appropriate enough. And then we began to laugh. (Davidson and Eddie) Chapter 8

Chapter 9

When Eddie walked a little behind I could feel him looking askance at me – feel his puzzled eyes on the back of my head.
‘What’s wrong with this woman? Why doesn’t she just relax? …’ (Davidson) Chapter 9

That night Glendle cooked tea. Eddie had set up camp outside and old men and women were constantly coming up to see him and talk to Glendle and me. I was once again struck by these old people. They were softly spoken, chuckled constantly and seemed completely self-assured. (Davidson) Chapter 9

Ceremonies are the visible link between Aboriginal people and their land. Once dispossessed of this land, ceremonial life deteriorates, people lose their strength, meaning and identity. (Davidson) Chapter 9

The turmoil lasted all that day, but gradually faded as I relaxed into Eddie’s time. He was teaching me something about flow, about choosing the right moment for everything, about enjoying the present. I let him take over. (Davidson) Chapter 9

We walked off and he continued to smile that special happy smile to himself. I asked him who it was, and he turned to me beaming, and said, ‘That was Winkicha, my wife.’ There was such pride and pleasure in his face. I had never seen that particular quality of love shown so openly between a man and wife before. It staggered me. (Davidson and Eddie) Chapter 9

If there is sexism amongst Aborigines today, it is because they have learnt well from their conquerors. The difference in status between black women in Alice Springs and black women here was unbelievable. (Davidson) Chapter 9

Eddie picked the plants he wanted while I watched. The vague uneasiness and fidgetiness of having the projected pattern of the day rearranged was soon soothed by the meditative way in which we searched for them. (Davidson) Chapter 9

The thing that impressed me most was that Eddie should have been bitter and he was not. (Davidson) Chapter 9

Eddie looked at me and scratched his head. ‘Who is he, what does he want, why all these photos?’
I tried to explain, but what could I say. ‘OK, Rick, that’s enough.’ Rick pulled out another camera. ‘Look, I’ve got the perfect solution.’ It was an SX 79, an instant Polaroid. He took a photo of Eddie and handed it to him.
I was furious. ‘Oh, I see, sort of like beads for the natives. Look, Rick, he doesn’t like being photographed, so quit it.’ (Eddie and Davidson) Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Despite the fact that this leg would be the first real test of my survival skills, despite the fact that if I was going to die anywhere it would most likely be along this lonely treacherous stretch of void, I looked forward to it with newfound calm, a lack of fear, a solid reliance on myself. (Davidson) Chapter 10

Throughout the trip I had been gaining an awareness and an understanding of the earth as I learnt how to depend upon it. (Davidson) Chapter 10

And just as Aborigines seem to be in perfect rapport with themselves and their country, so the embryonic beginnings of that rapport were happening to me.
And my fear had a different quality now too. It was direct and useful. It did not incapacitate me or interfere with my competence. It was the natural, healthy fear one needs for survival. (Davidson) Chapter 10

Here would be some feed for the animals and a place where they could roll in the dirt to their hearts’ content. They were unsaddled by mid-afternoon and immediately began to play. I had been watching and laughing at them for a while and suddenly, spontaneously, there off all my clothes and joined them in a romp. We rolled and we kicked and we sent the dust flying over each other. Diggity went apoplectic with delight. I was covered with thick caked orange dust and my hair was matted. It was the most honest hour of unselfconscious fun I have ever had. Most of us, I am sure, have forgotten how to play. We’ve made up games instead. And competition is the force which holds these games together. The desire to win, to beat someone else, has supplanted play – the doing of something just for itself. (Davidson) Chapter 10

OK, you fusty old Freudians, you laudable Laingians, my psyche is up for grabs. I have admitted a weak point. Dogs. (Davidson) Chapter 10

It’s an accusation that brings an explosive response every time because it seems to me that the good Lord in his infinite wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable – hope, jokes and dogs, but the greatest of these was dogs. (Davidson) Chapter 10

When the beliefs of one culture are translated into the language of another culture, the word ‘superstition’ often crops up. (Davidson) Chapter 10

The Wards had given me a leather muzzle to put on her to protect her from strychnine baits, which were dropped way out in the desert from light aircraft to exterminate the Australian native dog, the dingo. But she had hated it. She had whined and scratched at it and looked such a picture of misery and heart-break that I eventually took it off. (Davidson) Chapter 10

She was on her side convulsing. I blew her brains out. I knelt frozen like that for a long time then I staggered back to the swag and got in. (Davidson, on Diggity) Chapter 10

And that night I received the most profound and cruel lesson of all. That death is sudden and final and comes from nowhere. It had waited for my moment of supreme complacency and then it had struck. Late that night, Diggity took a poison bait. (Davidson) Chapter 10

Chapter 11

They were disturbingly vivid. I woke to the reality of loneliness, and was surprised at the strength which enabled me to accept it.
It may seem strange that the mere death of a dog could have such a profound effect on someone, but it must be remembered that, because of my isolation, Diggity had become a cherished friend rather than simply a pet. (Davidson, on Diggity) Chapter 11

I decided to use my hated radio set that night to call Henry and check up on the direction. I wasn’t so much panicked as uneasy. I wanted to talk to someone. Everything was so still and there was no Diggity to play with or talk to or hold. It took me half an hour to set the wretched thing up – a long bit of wire draped over a tree, and another along the ground. It didn’t work. I had carried this monster for fifteen hundred miles, loaded and unloaded it hundreds of times, and the only occasion I needed it, it wouldn’t work. It had probably been broken all along. (Davidson) Chapter 11

It wasn’t bush folk. It was the jackals, hyenas, parasites and pariahs of the popular press. By the time I saw the long-lens camera trained on me, it was too late to hide, or get out the gun and blast it at them, or even realize that I was crazy enough to do such a thing. Out they spilled. (Davidson) Chapter 11

I was now public property. I was now a feminist symbol. I was now an object of ridicule for small-minded sexists, and I was a crazy, irresponsible adventurer (though not as crazy as I would have been had I failed). But worse than all that, I was now a mythical being who had done something courageous and outside the possibilities that ordinary people could hope for. And that was the antithesis of what I wanted to share. That anyone could do anything. If I could bumble my way across a desert, then anyone could do anything. And that was true especially for women, who have used cowardice for so long to protect themselves that it has become a habit. (Davidson) Chapter 11

The world is a dangerous place for little girls. Besides, little girls are more fragile, more delicate, more brittle than little boys. (Davidson) Chapter 11

Chapter 12

It’s hard to say who Jan and David were more pleased to see – me or the camels. I knew my beasts could enjoy a happy and pampered retirement here – to this day, my friends at Woodleigh are the only people I can really discuss camel behaviour with ad nauseam and know that they will understand. They dote on them as much as I do and are virtual slaves to their every whim. Dookie, Bub, Zelly and Goliath had landed on their feet. This was their new home, and they immediately took over. (Davidson) Chapter 12

I felt free and untrammelled and light and I wanted to stay that way. If I could only just hold on to it. I didn’t want to get caught up in the madness out there.
Poor fool, I really believed all that crap. I was forgetting that what’s true in one place is not necessarily true in another. (Davidson) Chapter 12

The trip was easy. It was no more dangerous than crossing the street, or driving on the beach, or eating peanuts. The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision. (Davidson) Chapter 12

His links with the special places we passed gave him a kind of energy, a joy, a belonging… He knew every particle of that country as well as he knew his own body. He was at home in it totally, at one with it and the feeling began rubbing off on to me. Time melted — became meaningless. I don’t think I have ever felt so good in my entire life. He made me notice things I had not noticed before — noises, tracks. And I began to see how it all fitted together. The land was not wild but tame, bountiful, benign, giving, as long as you knew how to see it, how to be part of it. (Davidson, about Eddie) Chapter 12

And that term ‘camel LADY.’ Had I been a man, I’d be lucky to get a mention in the Wiluna Times, let alone international press coverage. Neither could I imagine them coining the phrase ‘camel gentleman.’ ‘Camel lady’ had that nice patronizing belittling ring to it. Labeling, pigeon-holing — what a splendid trick it is. (Davidson) Chapter 12

It was easier for me to see myself in Rick’s lens, riding down to the beach in that clichéd sunset, just as it was easier for me to stand with my friends and wave goodbye to the loopy woman with the camels, the itching smell of the dust around us, and in our eyes the fear that we had left so much unsaid. (Davidson) Chapter 12

Charlie’s Country

Community/Life Quotes
0:00 – 4:25 minutes

‘You come from far away and bring us alcohol, ganja, tobacco, all bad!’ (Charlie)

‘G’day Luke. G’day Charlie. You white bastard. You black bastard.’ (Charlie and Luke)

Community/Pay Quotes
4:25 – 7:20 minutes

‘I don’t need a big note.’ (Man in community)

Community/House Quote
7:20 – 10:50 minutes

‘You’ve got a job…and you got a house… on my land. Where’s my house? Where’s my job?’ (Charlie to Errol)

Community/Hunting Quotes
10:50 – 15:25 minutes

‘No this is a good one, plenty of meat.’ (Black Pete)

‘Sit down very slowly. I better sit down slowly too.’ (Black Pete)

Community/Police Quotes
15:25 – 29:30 minutes

‘They’ve got my car… and your rifle and my gun.’
‘That’ll soon stink up the whole police station!’ (Black Pete and Charlie)

‘We need to camp somewhere out of the way.’ (Gaz)

‘I have no money left… or food. I’m hungry.’
‘There’s lots of food in the bush. It’s like a supermarket out there.’ (Charlie and Lulu)

‘The kids go to school now. They don’t care anymore.’ (Charlie)

‘We need to teach them… …the traditional ways.’ (Old Lulu)

‘I like the high life.’ (Luke)

‘Damn, you black fellas are smart when you wanna be.’ (Luke)

‘I’m not a recreational shooter… I am… a hunter. I danced for… the Queen of England… when they opened that building. I bet you never did that.’ (Charlie)

Community/Sickness Quotes
29:30 – 38:27 minutes

‘It’s all that… …white man junk food we eat.’ (Charlie)

‘They’ll take me to Darwin. Then you’ll die in the wrong place… a long way from your country. A long way.’ (Charlie)

‘It’s not a dangerous weapon. It’s a hunting spear, not a battle spear.’ (Charlie to Luke)

‘I’m gonna have to destroy it.’
‘Well, fuck you then. Treacherous bastard! Fuck those thieving… white bastards. Why did you come here? From far away… stealing people’s stuff! Is this your land?’ (Luke and Charlie)

Community/In the Bush Quotes
38:27 – 1:05:00 minutes

‘They stole our land and put a police station on it. They’re lucky. I’m only borrowing their car! We’ll bring it back later.’ (Charlie)

‘Live the old way… …going to my Mother Country.’ (Charlie)

‘Long time since I painted anything…’ (Charlie)

‘I’ve been away fishing, now I’m home. I’m eating well. It’s my own supermarket.’ (Charlie)

Darwin/Hospital Quote
1:05:00 – 1:10:03 minutes

‘Do you mind if I call you Charlie? I have difficulty pronouncing foreign names.’
‘Now I’m a foreigner?’ (Charlie and the doctor)

Darwin/Longrassing Quotes
1:10:03 – 1:22:20 minutes

‘You gonna buy some grog? Are you banned?’
‘I’m okay…’ (Faith and Charlie)

‘They should just shoot us… …like in the old days.’ (Charlie)

‘You bring shame to us. She’s wrong skin for you. You’ve broken the law. And that’s poison you’re drinking, it rots your brain.’ (Black Pete and Old Lulu)

‘Where’s your home, eh? This is our land, you bastards!’ (Charlie)

‘You treacherous fuck! Come on, I trusted you! You fuckin’ turn on me, you fuckin’ useless black bastard!’ (Luke)

‘Sorry for hittin’ you, Charlie. You know, you can’t just sit on the grass all day and call it “the old ways”. These times have changed.’
‘No, they haven’t. You’re still trying to change our culture to your bastard culture!’ (Luke and Charlie)

Darwin/Prison Quotes
1:22:20 – 1:37:20 minutes

‘This mean my country is my home. That means… …I was living in my home……nice and peacefully. Then the police came… to throw me out. That mean… nothing more to say.’ (Charlie to magistrate)

‘White fellas locked me up for being aboriginal. I wanted to live in the white fella’s way now.’ (Charlie)

‘Hard to talk to you when you don’t look like you.’ (Black Pete)

‘Your gonna report to me weekly. You’re gonna show up on time. .. banned from buying alcohol. …you won’t be allowed to associate with known drinkers.’ (Parole officer)

‘Everyone in this country are known drinkers. Police are known drinkers. Tell them not to associate with me.’ (Charlie)

‘I want to go home now… back to my own country… where my place is…’ (Charlie)

Community/Teaching Quotes
1:37:20 – 1:48:00 minutes

‘What are you doing in the bush?’
‘You know I like it here.’ (Old Lulu and Charlie)

‘Okay, I’ll teach them. I’d like to do it.’ (Charlie)

‘I’ve danced there! For the opening of the Opera House and the Queen was there too… I’ll show you, eh?’ (Charlie)