Flatness freaking

After leaving the most uncharming Condobolin I drove for ages through flat, flat land. Until I went to the NSW north-west near Narrabri in 2010 to research for the coal book, I had never seen such flat land, where the vast paddocks disappeared into dancing mirages.

Here in Central NSW it was the norm.

Cleared for sheep or wheat, broadacre farmed, bisected by long, long straight roads. Any rare bend was treated as an event and much advised.

I was appalled at the scale of historic clearing.

From uncharming Lake Cargelligo I could look back at a forest fire I’d driven past, and hope it would be extinguished.

Somehow I took the wrong way out of West Wyalong and drove hundreds more kilometres in flat cleared land.

Even where it undulated a bit, it was cleared and machine striped. Man-machinery-manipulated. 

Sometimes it was colour striped, as the soils ranged from orange to pink; never just brown.

I had to get used to the orange clouds I saw being dust, rather than the nitrous oxide ‘blasts-gone-wrong’ of the coalfields.

I was beginning have to quell a rising panic after several days of such flatness, over thousands of hectares; I am, after all, a Mountain Woman. 

Would this sort of country ever end? Let me up higher, soon! I needed elevation like I need air.

Any isolated rise in the land was notable, and feted. Unsurprisingly and unimaginatively, this is called The Rock.

With the Lachlan Sculpture Trail fresh on my mind, when I first saw this monumental steel structure I stopped, perceiving it as another such creation. 

It could have been, as yet unfinished, with no wires, and sci-fi creature-like.

But there were hundreds of them, standing in readiness across the flatlands, some with workers still high up in their entrails.

I stopped in Mathoura near the closed Info centre to check emails, hotspotting off my phone, then drove to Swifts Creek campground in Murray Valley National Park.  It was the furthest along the riverside dirt road of any campgrounds there, but not very appealing…

Getting my van set up just as I like it, level, panels facing north, etc. took a while; then I thought to check reception.

No phone. Emptied everything out, shone the torch under seats. No phone.

Heart sink.

Packed up, took some Rescue Remedy drops and a deep breath, drove all the way back to Mathoura to where I’d last used it, trying to work out what I’d do.

Searched and searched again. Scuffled leaves in the gutters even. No phone.

Found the police station, which was shut.

BUT, hanging from the door handle of that station was my phone.

Thank you, thank you, honest Mathoura person!!

The joy almost made up for the depression of the flatlands…