My Life in the Sea of Cars
A LETTER FROM ARNHEM LAND
MY LIFE IN THE SEA OF CARS
A LETTER FROM ARNHEM LAND
JAMES MURRAY
First Published 2009
This e-book edition 2011
Transit Lounge Publishing
95 Stephen Street
Yarraville, Australia 3013
Copyright ©James Murray 2009
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.
Every effort has been made to obtain permission for excerpts reproduced in this publication. In cases where these efforts were unsuccessful, the copyright holders are asked to contact the publisher directly.
Front cover photograph by Paul Miles/Getty Images
Back cover photograph by Egon van Engelen www.flickr.com/photos/le_pike/
Design by Peter Lo
Transit Lounge is a proud member of the A.P.A.( Australian Publishers’ Association) and S.P.U.N.C. (Small Press Underground Networking Community)
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-publication data
Murray, James Andrew, 1960-
My life in the sea of cars : a letter from Arnhem Land /
James Murray.
1st ed.
9781921924088 (e-book)
Murray, James Andrew, 1960-
Self-actualization (Psychology).
Alternative lifestyles.
Arnhem Land (N.T.)--Description and travel.
Arnhem Land (N.T.)--Social life and customs.
Dewey Number: 158.1
Contents
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Acknowledgments
FRIDAY APRIL 1ST, 2005
It starts yesterday when I go shopping. I buy food to last me eight days: muesli, powdered milk, crispbread, peanut butter, rice, pasta, potatoes, onions, tomato paste, curry paste, apples, dried beans, dried fruit. Then I buy the dictaphone I’m talking into now.
I go home and pack my backpack. I find my compass, my maps, my billy and cup. I throw in a little medicine kit. While doing the things I usually do on a Thursday afternoon and evening with my children, I get on the phone to tidy up loose ends and make the arrangements that will enable me to be out of town and out of contact for eight nights and nine days.
At about 10 o’clock I start tidying and cleaning my house. My ex-wife is staying here while I’m away, and I want it to be acceptable for her. I clean and tidy until the 4 am news comes on the radio. By this time I am exhausted, moving in slow motion, so I give up and go to bed. An hour later the alarm rings. I get up, ring a taxi, kiss my sleeping kids goodbye, grab my pack and go out into the dark street.
The taxi driver is very young. He seems to be in a foul mood, and he eventually launches into a bitter denunciation of the new road rule, brought into effect this very day, limiting the speed on suburban streets to fifty kilometres per hour. He drops me at the transit centre, and before the sun has risen I am dozing against the window of a greyhound bus.
I get off at the small town at about 11 o’clock. There is a minibus going to a tourist place sixty kilometres away. I am the only passenger, so I sit in the front and talk with the driver. He tells me his life story, his hopes and fears. He is about to retire, and he is very interested in real estate.
The resort is off the highway a few kilometres, so he drops me at the turn-off. Most of the traffic from the town turns there, but the bitumen continues for another hundred and fifty kilometres to another small town and another highway. I move down the road a bit and stand beside my backpack, holding out my thumb to each car that approaches. I’ve had a few very long waits in this area.
After two hours of kicking stones, an old Landrover stops and I get in. The driver is a few years younger than me, and he keeps turning to look at his little daughter sleeping in the back seat. He tells me he makes this five hundred kilometre round trip twice a week. On Friday he drives to get his daughter and take her to his place, and on Sunday he returns her to her mother.
He is surprised and a bit suspicious when I ask to be dropped off in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. There is a little dirt track running off to the left. I’d been vague about my intentions and I had lied to him when I said I was meeting friends. I didn’t want to appear too freaky.
‘You got enough water?’
‘Five litres,’ I say, and he considers this for a moment before nodding and driving off.
I watch him go. Except for his car, the road is empty. I hear cockatoos and crows. I shoulder my pack down the track until I am out of sight of the bitumen. I drop my pack. I am exhilarated. I whirl around, laughing, sighing, almost crying.
I figure I have four hours of light left. I can see
