His trade is to travel with his swag and play guitar accompanied by his bush poetry. He has been all over Australia. He even knows how to say ni hao ma in Chinese. He mentioned musicians and poets have their own network and only pass on tips to see those they rate highly: the best prevail. He recommended his mate Dawson who is playing in Kings Canyon at the moment at the posh resort where the song to listen carefully to is ‘Skinny White Legs’.
Bushy also recommends we go ½ a km down the road on the left to the rockhole where he spotted mulga parrots early this morning – they are confiding and clearly haven’t been hunted as they suffer humans mildly.
We walk into the bar. The old hotel burnt down, so this replica was built by the previous publican who was a highly skilled artisan and has made wonderful bar stools out of extraordinarily heavy mulga wood plus a fine wood bar top to match. On the ceiling, a motley collecction of hats hang over your head.
The sidebar is lined with memorabilia from the amazing number of medals won by locals in conflict. Not least is one WW2 story of a soldier who survived being a prisoner of the Japs, then getting torpedoed by a US sub, before being asked by a mate to share his plank until they were both picked up by another US ship. The mate only picked him out of the survivors in the sea to share his plank because several years previously he had an outstanding $3 debt to the soldier. In this tiny, tiny outback town, how special to have locals with a Victoria Cross, Military Cross, DFC, and many other medals – how wars have touched the most remote of remote places.
