Sexism cont'd

It seems only yesterday that I was writing about Julia Gillard's outburst in the Australian parliament when three years of daily sexist jibes and, yes, misogynistic horror stuff circulating among redneck backbenchers finally conspired to make her speak her mind. When she lost her job a couple of weeks ago many women in Australia – and some modern men, I'm sure – hung their heads in dejection while reflecting on how unready this nation is to appreciate the attributes women can bring to high office.

I worked in publishing houses in London for many years. There were always many more women on the staff than men, but that disproportion was never reflected at board level. Perhaps over that time I became inured to underlying sexism such as this. It is comparatively easy to rail against some of the more obvious daily examples, but sometimes, for sanity's sake, you have to put them out of mind. What a pleasant surprise it was in the Outback when, on chatting to a couple we'd just met, I was asked what I did for a living. It was the woman who asked me, natch.

So, from sexism in politics and the workplace to sexism in sport.

We have just endured Wimbledon. Don't get me wrong, I love tennis, and stayed up to watch Andy Murray win his second Grand Slam title in 12 months. I would have liked to watch the women's final too, especially as there were 'new' faces, but I didn't fancy two days of sleep deprivation. People still don't seem to know much about this year's champion, Marion Bartoli, even though she was a Wimbledon finalist in 2007. She hasn't got long blonde hair, you see, or slim bronzed legs up to her armpits. I actually can't bear to watch some of those candidates: Maria Sharapova may be beautiful but the excessive volume of her grunting renders watching her unenjoyable. Anna Kornikova was gorgeous, too, and acquired 'hottest female athlete' and lots of similar labels, but how many people remember that a WTA singles title eluded her?

Watching Wimbledon has several other irritations. I didn't mind seeing Andy Murray's girlfriend in her nice green Victorian Beckham frock as she took her place in the players' box. But I didn't want to witness her reaction to every point, and I didn't want to miss replays of key shots in order to marvel at her big hair or whatever it was that repeatedly attracted the cameramen. Neither do I give a toss whether or not Murray is going to propose to her now he's achieved his Wimbledon goal. One of the worst blunders of the tournament was silly-old-sod commentator John Inverdale's comment that Bartoli was 'never going to be a looker' while discussing her tennis technique. There were complaints about his sexist comments during Wimbledon back in 2009, too, so obviously he's a bit of a slow learner. The BBC apologised but still allowed him to commentate on the men's final the next day.

Since the weekend it has been pointed out ad nauseam that Murray is the first man to be Wimbledon champion since Fred Perry in 1936. I assumed the media were talking about the men's title even when the headlines replaced 'man' with 'Briton'. But what that change did, of course – and let's give them the benefit of the doubt – was to inadvertently overlook the four British women who have won the title in the years between Perry and Murray. Shame on them, and me.

Meanwhile, sexism is alive and kicking in Oz, despite the Gillard debate dying down. Now we have the latest porno, sorry, promo for surf retailer Roxy in the run-up to the World Women's Championship Tour of Surfing. There are lots of pert-butt shots and much sensual panning up and down long tanned limbs but no surfing footage whatsoever. All the model does is paddle out rather awkwardly. Women's surfing here has been battling gender inequality for years. As with tennis, people prefer to watch the men, in the water that is. The sexualisation of female athletes – beach volleyball probably takes the biscuit – in order to garner bigger audiences and more customers is peculiarly disquieting.

I'm sure I'll be called all manner of things for banging on about this subject again. Bitter and twisted, whingeing, etc, etc. Hey, I should just get on with it, shouldn't I, as a woman in Australia? And that's exactly what I'm going to do, highlighting sexism whenever I can.

Opals at the end of the line

Quilpie, Queensland. What a great address.

The name Quilpie is based on an Aboriginal word for Stone Curlew, the bird with the wrong-way-bending knees and the disquieting wail. I had no qualms about Quilpie: I knew I'd like the place. It's full of opals – the 'jewel of the Outback' and my birthstone; it's further into the Outback than Charleville; and it begins with Q. Place names don't come much cooler. Once I was there, I loved the quirky life-size silhouettes in the median strip in Brolga Street; buying postcards from the electrical shop and putting air in the tyres at the hardware shop; and seeing more different kinds of birds at a lake no one's ever heard of than any of the supposedly brilliant bird-watching locations along our route. Quilpie Shire's 'brand' is based on the opal's colours, by the way.

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Sitting on the Bulloo River, Quilpie is not far short of 1000 kilometres west of Brisbane. Grazing and mining are the main economic activities of the town which was established with the railway in 1917. Deposits of oil and gas are extensive, as is boulder opal. As the name implies, the opal is attached to, and has to be separated from, rock; whereas opal at Coober Pedy and Lightning Ridge in New South Wales occurs in clay. A notable visitor to Quilpie was Amy Johnson, who made a forced landing in low mulga in May 1930 on her way to Brisbane after her record-breaking* flight from London to Darwin.

The Westlander train runs twice weekly to Charleville but you have to connect to Quilpie by coach. The train used to divide at Charleville, and there were branches to Cunnamulla and to Quilpie, aboard the 'Flying Flea'. Until 1994, that is. Now all you can do is you wander nostaligically around the end of the line. The Outback Mail Run Tour is the way to get further these days. You can join the postie as he delivers to ten remote cattle and sheep stations, an almost 400-km round trip, twice a week.

 

 

We had a day to 'do' Quilpie. Naturally, after coffee, our first stop was the opal shop, where we spent some time, as well as money. Usually when you go shopping with something very specific in mind – and I may be addressing mostly women now – you don't find it. It's just the way of the world. But on this day I did. I didn't want a large opal: when all is said and done – and yes, predictably – I prefer diamonds. However, I thought it might be nice to have a small, dark, teardrop-shaped opal. And there it was. My friend acquired some large rocks (top of page) and I got a thing of beauty and wonder only slightly bigger than a grain of rice.

Next up was the Bulloo River Walk. Here we saw evidence of the erosive powers of a normally quiescent Outback river; detected the queer signature smell of the Gudgee tree; and heard the cheeping of White-plumed Honeyeaters all around us.

I enjoyed our river walk. The Bulloo is an isolated, or closed, drainage system. It isn't part of the Murray-Darling system or the Lake Eyre Basin: instead, it flows into several ephemeral lakes that are blocked by low hills from reaching other systems. Quilpie gets its water supply from artesian bores, so washing and showering were accompanied once again by the less than delightful smell of hydrogen sulphide, as at Charleville and Kilcowera. Never take a shower in this water wearing jewellery: it will soon become discoloured.

A few kilometres further out of town to the east is Lake Houdraman. Set among shady river gums, Houdraman is covered at certain times of year with thousands of cream waterlilies, but not now. The birdlife was a delight, however: egrets, Yellow-billed Spoonbills, Masked Lapwings, pellies, several ducks, among which the smart Pink-eared deserves special mention, and Zebra Finches.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we headed out of town on the Toompine Road to the Baldy Top lookout; except that we went a little further, to Table Top, which we'd had a tip-off was better. And it was. Neither of the red-rocked outcrops looks particularly high, but the 360-degree view from the top was stunning.

We were happy to eat again in the Quilpie Hotel – known to locals as The Brick, and in the process of being revamped as the Quilpie Heritage Inn – and chat to the man in charge, Rob McConachy, who tonight told us about polocrosse, which is like polo but uses a small net on a stick, like lacrosse.

Good things unquestionably do come to an end, and tomorrow we were leaving for Windorah. Just one or two more snaps of quite delightful Quilpie.

* She didn't break Bert Hinkler's record time but she was the first woman to fly the distance solo

This post was last updated on 9 July 2013

Outback: Tibooburra to Quilpie

click on pix to see them big

We were up very early, and at TJ's Roadhouse getting a flask filled with coffee soon after they opened at 7. I mentioned quietly to the lady that we were leaving town. I felt I ought to tell someone, just in case...

It's about 55 km from Tibooburra to the Warri Gate on the Queensland border. There had been no more rain and my friend was quietly confident the track was firm enough. But to say we proceeded with caution is an understatement. The road was still closed and we were taking a risk. The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service makes it very clear in their Sturt National Park brochure:

'Please note: driving on a closed road can lead to heavy penalties. Approximately $1100 fine per axle from road authorities plus additional fines from NSW National Parks and Wildlife if driving on a closed road within a National Park or Reserve.'

And, if we were to write off the car, our insurance would be invalidated.

It took us an hour and a half to cover those 55 km, but not just because of the state of the road and our extreme wariness (slower than 25 km/h on the worst stretches), but because there was entertainment along the way.

This wasn't a serious fight but a rough and tumble between young males. Boxing is important practice for when they're dominant males in the mob and have to defend their domain. Had we been driving faster, we would have disturbed them sooner and not seen as much action. There were hundreds of roos about, all of them alive thankfully.

The landscape was... a bit grim. But always interesting. And I was just so relieved to have escaped. We were almost at the border. In the meantime, a couple of signs of note. Silver City refers to Broken Hill, a silver mining town towards the southern end of this road that cuts through Outback New South Wales from border (QLD) to border (Vic). The second sign was particularly exciting.

 

The Lake Eyre Basin drains a huge arid area in parts of four states. It has no outlet into an ocean: water that flows in intermittent rivers feeding Lake Eyre – the lowest point of the Basin at 16 metres below sea level – disappears by seepage or evaporation. Lake Eyre is an ephemeral lake, fed by creeks on slightly higher ground or sand ridges that drain any rainfall into the depression. Waterbirds gather on this type of lake to feed on invertebrates in the shallow water. As the water recedes, grasses spring up on the lake bed, providing more food for the birds. Eventually everything dries out completely, the birds leave and the flat becomes a dusty clay pan.

Soon after the signs we spotted our first rabbit in the Outback. Considering so many kilometres of fence have been constructed over the years to keep them out, or in, depending on your location, where have they all been up till now?

It was a relief to see the inevitable plethora of signs up ahead – the border. I have never been so pleased to get back into Queensland. I think the emus wanted to come with us through the gate. The Wild Dog Destruction Board needs rebranding. Whenever I see the word 'shall', I think of Cinderella: 'You shall go to the ball.' And I never understand why fine-threatening signs say 'not exceeding' whatever the amount is, which makes it sound like it won't be so bad. If I wanted to scare people into action, I'd put up a sign saying, 'Anyone leaving this gate open will be very heavily fined' – and leave them guessing. And was there a secret camera somewhere; otherwise how could anyone possible know who'd left the gate open when people pass by here once a fortnight?

Now we were fairly close to the Channel Country which I was very excited about. I wanted to see for myself the dry channels that fill only after sporadic rains. At such times we wouldn't be able to drive anywhere near here, of course. The landscape was changing, as ever. And then we started to cross the channels. They were shallow, almost imperceptible in places. You could have missed them as easy as blink, if you didn't know what you were looking for. I find them fascinating because they're a remnant of water flow and drainage patterns in ancient times on this continent. Rivers weren't deeply incised: they flowed slowly over a low gradient and fanned out into a wide, braided channel. In Queensland's arid west it is only in exceptionally wet years that rivers have sufficient flow in their upper reaches to enable them to even reach Lake Eyre. After big summer rainfall in 2010, Cooper Creek reached the Lake for the first time for 20 years.

There were still 'stony rolling plains', and to our right the ridges of the extensive Grey Range, which had been there almost from the border and stretches to halfway between Thargomindah and Eromanga.

 

We left unsealed roads behind at midday, a few kilometres short of Noccundra, where there is just a hotel. We stopped for yet another far too milky Outback coffee, talked to some fellow travellers, and admired the Galahs, whose pink never fails to impress. In these parts, you just have to have your own light aircraft parked in the yard. I notice quite a few of them have crashed lately, so don't plan too much for a ripe old age, eh?

 

By now, Quilpie didn't seem so far away, and we could drive faster on the Cooper Developmental Road, where we saw our first dingo. I think it might have been a cross – its legs weren't long enough for a purebred. And the oil wells were back – we say nodding donkeys; you say pumpjacks. We stopped at Ginniapapa Creek for lunch. Apart from five million flies – it's hard to eat a sandwich while wearing a fly net – the only sign of wildlife was a Willie Wagtail.

Eromanga makes a strong claim, and has the signpost to 'prove' it, complete with Nankeen Kestrel.

The town might lend weight to the argument if it referred to its being at the 'pole of inaccessibility' – defined in Wiki as 'a location that is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features that could provide access. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline.' Compared to places we'd been already, Eromanga didn't seem particularly remote. And Wiki claims that Papunya in the Northern Territory is the closest town to either of two furthest points from coast in Australia. Towns on tourist trails love to claim that they're the beef or navy bean or opal capital, or that they're the gateway to the Outback or the Channel Country, or the largest this or the highest that.

There were a lot more cows...

And one of these right by the roadside.

By the time we were nearing Quilpie the sun was going down behind us. By the time we'd checked into the Heritage Inn on Brolga Street it was almost time for dinner.