Feature Photo: Reflections, Ellery Creek © L.M. Kling 2021
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2026
Dad sucked on his lemon (a proven refreshment and guard against dehydration). ‘About a-quarter-to-twelve.’ He continued to sit and suck on his lemon as if in no hurry.
‘A-quarter-to-twelve?’ I stood. ‘We’ll never get there. We can’t even see the trig.’
‘Well, um-er, we better get a move on.’ Dad rose and slung his pack over his shoulder. The T-men shuffled up a worn kangaroo track. I took a quick swig of water and bounded after them.
We stopped at a three-pronged fork in the trail. Three mountain points stood before us. ‘Now, which way shall we go?’ You’d think Dad would’ve worked the route out before we embarked on this project, using his compass and detailed maps. But apparently, he hadn’t.
Phillip (older cousin) raised an eyebrow. Richard (my brother) scratched his chin. Ashleigh (younger cousin) shook his head, and I shrugged.
Dad hummed and hawed.
‘We could hike up and down the gully to see,’ Richard said.
Ashleigh sighed. ‘That would take too much time.’
‘What about the saddle?’ I asked.
The men looked at me, their eyes narrowed. ‘To which point?’ Dad spoke for them all. For the next few precious minutes, the men bantered about what option to take, cutting me out of the decision-making.
‘Ah, well, time’s running out. I guess we can’t expect to reach the top,’ Dad announced with the damning tone of resignation.
I stomped off towards the saddle.
I bolted on southwards and upwards to the spur. Even menacing prickle bushes didn’t stand a chance as I charged through them. Behind me I could hear the Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! as Dad hacked his way in pursuit of me. ‘Come back! You can’t go off on your own!’
Scratched and sore from the fight with the bushes, I stopped. A tightrope path lay ahead. Not even enough width for my feet on this razorback. I turned and watched the shrubs shake.
Dad emerged, brushing seeds and thorns from his arms. He shaded his eyes as he looked up. ‘You’ve taken the correct action.’
‘What?’ I scratched my eyebrows. Dad’s big words confused my exhausted mind.
Wheezing, Dad caught up to me. ‘See?’
He pointed at the nearest mound. ‘See, the trig?’
I squinted towards where the hill met the cobalt blue of the sky. At the highest point, a thin wire shimmered in the heat. ‘Oh, yeah!’
While Dad and I gulped down some water, Richard, Phillip and Ashleigh galloped past us. ‘Watch your step on the spur!’ Dad warned.
We picked our way along the razor back ridge. I held my breath and resisted the urge to look down past the tight-rope path where I placed each step. Holding my arms out straight either side, I teetered and tottered to the end of my ordeal. When I reached the slope at the other end, an incline with generous girth and no cliff in sight, I collapsed to my knees, then bent over and kissed the sandstone.
However, my rejoicing was short-lived, and I rose to my sore feet to push on. After plodding up and down more ridges, more rocky slopes, and more frequent rests to nurse my aching calves, our allotted time to reach the summit by 12:30pm lapsed.
We gathered around Dad.
‘What’s the verdict?’ I asked. A breeze cooled the back of my neck.
Flies gathered on Phillip’s back. Richard slapped between Ashleigh’s shoulder blades and clapped the flattened insects from his palms. ‘Twenty.’ He flicked the last of the sticky flies from his palm.
‘Well,’ Dad took a deep breath, ‘We’ve come this far, we might as well go all the way.’
‘We have a full moon, that’ll help,’ Ashleigh said.
Phillip waved a pesky fly from his face. ‘Okay!’
‘Let’s go!’ Richard slapped his hands together near Phil’s nose and killed that fly too.
‘Alright!’ I said.
Determined to reach the peak, we plunged forward, despite being famished, wrung of perspiration, weary and late. We were so close. Every so often, the trig teased us, appearing as we reached a high point, and then vanishing as we dipped into a valley. Richard and Phil raced each other.
I climbed over a wall of rock and saw the trig wobbling above the slope in the oily heat. I scrambled upwards. A saddle stretched and rose before me. Damn! Another false top! I struggled over the saddle to face another false top. After staggering over the fifth false top, I saw the trig and blinked. Was it real? Or was it a mirage? I limped up the jagged path, pain shooting down my calf muscles with each step. The trig disappeared behind an outcrop of rocks. We’ll never get there!
I skirted the rocks and saw the trig fifty meters away, bold, rusty, and high. Under the shade of an orange sheet that fluttered like a flag in the wind, Richard, Phil and Ash lounged by the stone cairn, packs off their backs, stirring Salvital into their cups of water and then sipping with delight the reward of their labour. The time was one o’clock.
Ten minutes later, Dad dragged himself over the last ridge and limped to the summit. There, he sat on a rock and rubbed his knee. ‘O-o-oh!’ He inspected the damage, red and swollen. ‘I tripped and fell on my knee. I hope I can get down alright.’
‘You better,’ Phillip laughed. ‘You can’t exactly camp up here.’
‘You’ll have to get down,’ Richard said.
‘Yeah!’ I gazed at the view, entranced by the once-ancient ocean bed surrounded by islands of mountain ranges that snaked like the backbone of a prehistoric creature into the haze on the horizon.
‘Hey, look at these!’ Phillip excavated some calling cards from a tin can wedged in the monument to the summit. Our predecessors had conquered the mountain one year earlier to the day. The scribe wrote: “The climb was well worth the effort”. They described ascending to the peak by the southern ridge starting from Giles Spring. This tip gave us the idea to descend by the south ridge and traverse west through the pound to the camp.
We celebrated with lunch of “scroggin” (a muxture of nuts, dried fruit and chocolate) and copious amounts of Milo and strawberry-flavoured Quick mixed with powdered milk and water. We took photos of the stunning scenery and each other as evidence of our triumph over adversity.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2017; updated 2021; 2026
Feature Painting: Trekking towards Mt Giles challenge (Pastel) © Lee-Anne Marie King 2021
***
We sailed along on the road to Uluru, the warmth of the sun on our cheeks and breeze in our hair. Sand-hills rolled up and down and then into the distance. Black trunks of ironwood trees flitted past. The Rock made random appearances and disappeared. A wheel flew past and bounced into the bush.
I looked at Richard. ‘What was that?’
‘A tyre.’
‘Where did that come from?’
‘The trailer,’ Richard remarked with a sigh and pointed.
The trailer scudded on its side, red dust billowing all around it.
Richard leaned over the rail and thumped the driver’s window. The Rover eased to a stop and Dad leapt out. ‘What?’
‘The trailer!’ Richard said. ‘Again!’
The men gathered around the trailer and discussed their options in lowered tones. Dad frowned, he put his hands on his hips and gazed at the ground as Mr. B glared at him.
‘Poor! Very poor for a trailer!’ Mr. B muttered. ‘What are we going to do about it, mate?’
Dad shifted his feet and then with his boot scuffed the stones. ‘I don’t know. What do you reckon, Richard?’
Richard shrugged.
‘I say, laddie, can you find that tyre?’ Mr. B asked.
‘It’s long gone,’ Richard said. ‘But I’ll try.’
‘They’re expensive.’ Dad kicked the one remaining trailer tyre. The men stared at the one-wheeled trailer as though they were visiting a gravesite.
‘Alright,’ Richard muttered, ‘I’ll go and see if I can find it.’
Richard stomped down the road. He placed his hand above his eyes and peered in the direction the tyre had vanished into the scrub.
Matt caught my gaze. ‘Boring!’
‘Let’s go up that hill and see if we can take a photo of Ayers Rock and the Olgas,’ I said. As we were walking, I conveyed the information I had gleaned from Dad about the Olgas. ‘Did you know, Matt, that the people who own this land call this amazing collection of giant boulders, Kata Tjuta which means “many heads”?’
‘How far are the Olgas from Ayers Rock?’ Matt asked.
‘My dad reckons they are 30 miles west of Uluru,’ I replied. ‘he says we’re going to camp outside the national park, just beyond the Olgas.’
‘Olgas, that’s a funny name.’
‘Yeah, it’s German, I think. Dad was telling me that in 1872, the pioneer explorer Ernest Giles discovered them and called them “The Olgas”, after Queen Olga of the German Kingdom of Württemberg.’
‘Imagine having a few rocks named after you.’ Matt laughed. ‘The Boulders of Lee-Anne.’
‘Matt’s Massif,’ I joked.
Matt tittered. ‘What about, Richard’s Rock?’
‘Hey, I just remembered, back in Ernabella, there’s a Trudinger Hill. How cool is that?’
‘So, every time, people see those funny rocks and boulders in the distance, they will be reminded of some mouldy old German queen.’
‘Now that you put it that way, sounds a bit odd, us Europeans putting our names on the features of this ancient land. I wonder if they’ll eventually change the names back to what the Pitjantjara peoples call it someday.’
We mounted the nearby rise and admired the Rock, bathed in the blue of midday.
‘There are certain advantages to trailers breaking up,’ I remarked.
Matt nodded. ‘Yep, sure are.’
‘It’s like an adventure.’
‘Yep, sure is.’
The men decided to leave the trailer on the side of the road and fix it upon our return when we passed that way. By then we hoped to have the parts and equipment required to reattach the rogue wheel that Richard had found and then hidden underneath the trailer.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2018; updated 2022; updated 2026
*Feature Painting: Sunrise on Kata Tjuta (Known as The Olgas until 1993 but by 2002, its name has been officially reverted to its indigenous name, Kata Tjuta) © L.M. Kling 2013
***
In the cool, crisp morning, the sun shone lemon-yellow rays but not much warmth; we strolled around the Woomera Rocket Museum. Rockets of all shapes and configurations stood in the open-air, testimony of what once was. This RAAF Base and village had once been a lively town in the 1950s and 60s, as an Anglo-Australian Cold War defence project. On this day, Saturday, July 20, 2013, the place seemed a mere shell of its former self, a cemetery of what once was, rockets rising like giant tombstones to the sky.
We meandered around the rockets, reading signs, eulogies from the past when threats from enemy nations were imminent. I was reminded of older friends telling me of a time when they practised drills hiding under their school desk in the event of enemy attack.
My mother recalled when on February 19, 1942, Darwin was bombed. She was a girl in Hermannsburg at the time, and whenever a plane flew over, the Aranda women would wail, fearing disaster.
Now, Hermannsburg was a mission set up by German missionaries in 1877. Although by the 1940s the mission was fair dinkum Australian, having existed in Australia for all that time, the name, being German, raised suspicions among the Allies with the advent of World War II and the conflict with Germany. Hence, Mum remembers British officers flying into Hermannsburg to check the place out. They had to make sure there were no German spies. My grandpa, Pastor Sam Gross, and his wife (my grandma) hosted these officers and put on a lovely spread of lunch for them.
After investigating any mitigating threats, the British Officers flew away in their propeller plane, satisfied that Hermannsburg was no threat. Nevertheless, they confiscated the only link to civilisation, the community pedal radio. Just in case they really were spies, I guess. Further, to make sure that no threat to the Allies arose from this humble mission, they sent Rex Batterbee, a World War I veteran, to oversee the mission in the role of “protector of the aborigines”. As he had visited and then lived in Central Australia since the mid-1930’s, Rex taught Albert Namatjira to paint watercolours and helped him launch his career as a renowned artist.
Homeward Bound
Needless to say, in 2013, such threats of foreign enemies seemed in the distant past. But, being only 446 km from our home town, Adelaide, we were reluctant to linger amongst the rockets. Having packed and checked out of our overnight accommodation, we were eager to start our journey home.
At a steady 90 km/h, we made progress down the highway that split the gibber plains in half.
‘I bet the T-Team (my brother’s family) are home by now,’ I said. ‘No hanging around taking time to look at any more places for them.’
‘Why don’t you ring them just to see where they’re at?’ my hubby said.
I texted my niece. The time was 10:30 am.
“We are in Port Augusta,” she replied by text.
‘There’s no way we’ll catch up to them,’ I said, and then texted back, “Have a safe trip home.”
Clouds and rain descended on the land the further we drove south. By the time we reached Port Wakefield, the cold had seeped into the car. I put my parka on my legs to keep warm. Yet, for lunch Hubby insisted we eat alfresco in the rotunda at Port Wakefield. After all, despite his aversion to the cold, he needed to stretch his legs. Plus, it seemed no café existed in the town.
The rain and cold became more intense as we approached Adelaide. After driving through the grey, sodden streets, we arrived home, just as darkness fell at 5:30pm.
What disaster awaited us?
Hubby opened the door, and we trod inside. Son 1 played a computer game on the PC in the dining/living annex. He ignored us. We tiptoed through the family room. Not too much mess, and the carpet remained visible and clean.
We found Son 2 all rugged up and cosy in his room playing World of Warcraft. He said, “Hello,” and then asked for a coffee, then followed up the conversation with, “I’m hungry, what’s for tea?”
In the kitchen, as I prepared a drink, I noticed the dishes had been done, and the cats fed. I thanked Son 1 for the effort. He took all the glory and remarked that his brother had done nothing.
The Aftermath
There are always casualties that follow every holiday. And this one was no different. Two paintings which I had planned to exhibit in the upcoming Marion Art Group exhibition had gone AWOL. I’d like to think they were stolen … but I reckon they would be found in some odd place sometime in the future.
Eleven years hence as I write this final chapter, I wonder what paintings they were?
Oh, and the other casualty, Hubby, who proudly boasted that he had taken thousands of photos of the Central Australian trip on his mobile phone, can no longer find where those photos went. It would seem those photos went AWOL too.
As for the T-Team, they actually arrived home after us, having spent a night at Port Germaine. They decided to treat themselves after roughing it for the past two weeks.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2024
Feature Painting: Ormiston Memories, the reason for the journey © L.M. Kling 2018
***
[While Mr. B and his son, Matt stayed back at camp …
Three of the T-Team faced the challenge of climbing Mt. Liebig. And finding their way down. After a successful climb (except for the lost quart can) to summit Mt. Liebig (Read Part 1 of this adventure in my travel memoir The T-Team with Mr. B Central Australian Safari 1977 ), the T-Team lost their way … ]
Extract from The T-Team with Mr. B Central Australian Safari 1977, a prequel to Trekking With the T-Team Central Australian Safari 1981. Available on Amazon.]
We heard a blood-curdling scream.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Rick, I hope he’s alright.’
We scrambled down the last of the gully and ran along the ridge in the direction of Rick’s cries.
Rick rose above the mounds of spinifex rubbing his behind.
‘Are you okay?’ I fought my way through the prickly barbs to my brother.
‘I’m fine, except I fell, bottom first in the spinifex.’
‘Oh, so it’s just a false alarm then, we thought you were really hurt,’ I said. His scream was worse than the prickly bushes’ sting.
‘Well, I’m going to avoid any more painful encounters,’ he said and with that he stomped away from me and within minutes, drifted out of view.
We also diverged. Dad was confident that all gullies lead to the big one at the base of the slope. ‘Ah, well! We will meet Rick in the gully below,’ he assured me.
But contrary to Dad’s prediction, we did not meet Rick. I could not help thinking, this was not the first time as far as Rick was concerned. We’d already lost him in the sand dunes near Uluru. Almost.
Dad continued to search for his quart can. But that little friend Dad had cherished since the fifties, eluded him also.
We weaved our way down the main gully for about an hour. A huge spider in a web spanning the width of the gully confronted us. The spider, the size of a small bird, appeared uninviting, so we backtracked and decided to hike up and down the ridges.
For several hours, we struggled over ridges. Up and down, we tramped, yet seemed to make little progress; the rise and dips went on forever. The sun sank low, and so did our water supplies.
The heat drained me. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. But we had to ration water.
Dad slumped on a slab of rock at the bottom of a gully. ‘Drink?’
I took the canteen from him and filled my cup. Then I spooned in some Salvital. I chugged down the water as it fizzed. So refreshing!
‘Oh, Lee-Anne!’ Dad quibbled. ‘You didn’t leave much for me!’ He poured the last drops of water from his canteen into his mouth and gazed in despair at the lengthening shadows of the mountain.
‘Oh, but Dad! It’s not fair! We will never get out of this place! We are lost forever.’ I had visions of future hikers coming upon our dried-up old bones thirty years later. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Well, um, perhaps we better pray God will help us.’ Dad bowed his head and clasped his hands. ‘Dear Lord, please help us find our way back to the truck. And forgive me for growling at Lee-Anne.’
‘Forgive me too. Help us not to run out of food and water, too.’
‘Bit late for that,’ Dad muttered. ‘Ah, well.’
We had barely finished praying, when an idea struck me. ‘Why don’t we climb up a ridge and walk along it. Surely if we go high enough, we’ll see the landmark and the land rover.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. We need to conserve our energy.’
‘Just one ridge won’t harm us.’
Dad sighed. ‘Okay, it’s worth a try.’
I raced up the hill and strode along the ridge. I climbed higher and higher. I glanced towards the east expecting, hoping, willing the Rover to appear. But with each stride, each hopeful gaze, nothing. I resolved to climb further up the slope before turning back.
After a few more steps, still nothing. With the heaviness of defeat, I turned to climb down. Then I saw it. The Land Rover sat at the base of the mountain, glistening in the last rays of the setting sun.
‘There it is!’ I jumped up and down over-reacting with excitement.
‘Praise the Lord!’ Dad’s shout echoed in the valley.
With renewed energy, we attacked the last mounds that lay between the vehicle and us.
‘Rick will probably be sitting there waiting for us wondering what has happened,’ Dad said puffing as we strode up to the land rover. ‘Can’t wait to have a few gallons of water.’
We rambled over to the rover. Dad circled the vehicle and returned to me shaking his head. ‘He’s not here.’
I wandered around the clearing searching for Rick. I looked behind bushes and under some neighbouring bean trees. My brother was nowhere in sight.
But worse still, when Dad tried to fill his cup, only a few drops of water trickled from the land rover’s water tank.
Dad stared at the ground and tapped his pockets. ‘This is not good. This is not good,’ he said.
The sun had set and a cold chill cut through me. He’s lost. My brother is lost in this wilderness. ‘What if he’s had an accident?’
‘We need to pray,’ Dad said.
Dad prayed, ‘Father, bring Rick home and provide us with water too.’
We waited watching the colours on the mountain fade and our hopes fade with them.
‘I guess we better get going,’ Dad said. He opened the door of the Land Rover.
Rick staggered around a nearby outcrop of rocks.
We ran to greet him.
‘Rick, you’re okay,’ Dad said hugging him.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘I took the long way and trekked around the base of the mountain. I thought it wouldn’t take that long, but it just went on and on.’
As we walked to the Land Rover, Dad studied the vehicle. ‘You know, it’s on a slope, if I get it to level ground, we might have enough water.’
Dad drove the Rover to where the ground flattened out. Water never tasted so sweet.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2019; 2021; 2023
***
[Extract from Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981]
After relishing the sweet crunch of cornflakes for breakfast, the T-Team drove back to Ormiston Gorge. We hiked through the gorge admiring the red cliffs, ghost gums and mirror reflections in the waterholes, and took less than an hour to reach the end with the view of Mt. Giles, lumpy and sapphire blue.
Settling near a waterhole framed by reeds, Dad built up a fire on the coarse sand while our family friend, TR rolled up his trousers and dipped his toes in the pool. ‘Hey!’ He pointed and did a little dance. ‘A fish! I see a fish!’
Our cousins, C1 and C2 raced over to TR. ‘Where?’ They peered into the pond. I trailed after them, hunting for fish through the plumes of muddied water near TR’s white calves.
‘There!’ TR waved his finger at the middle of the waterhole.
C1 squinted. ‘Oh, yeah.’
C2 waded into the water and peered. ‘I don’t see anything.’
Richard hunted and fossicked through the cooking equipment Dad had scattered around the campfire. ‘You got a sieve? A net? Anything?’
‘What for?’ Dad asked.
‘The fish.’
‘Ah, you know, those fish can lay dormant in the dry creek bed for years and when the rain comes, they spawn.’ Dad just had to tell us.
‘Well, this little fishy is going to be our lunch.’ Richard snapped his fat fingers together like crab claws. ‘I’ll catch it with my hands if I have to.’ He strode into the pool with such force the waters parted like the Red Sea. ‘Now where’s that fish?’ He said as he sank up to his waist.
‘There it is!’ TR gestured. ‘To your right.’
Richard glanced, his smile faded. ‘Oh, is that all? It’s just a piddley little thing. Not enough for lunch.’ He was neck deep in the water and prepared to swim. He shot up. ‘Ouch! Something bit me!’
‘Better watch out, might be Jaws,’ I said.
‘You didn’t tell me there were yabbies.’ Richard bobbed up and down, then reached down to catch his feet. ‘Ouch! It bit me again!’
‘Why not yabbies?’ C1 said.
‘Now that’s an idea.’ Richard replied.
‘Ah! Shrimp!’ C2 waded towards his cousin. ‘I love the taste of shrimp.’
‘Hmm, yabbies,’ Richard said. ‘We used to catch yabbies all the time when we were young.’ With an explosive splash, he submerged in search of the yabby that had bitten him.
Dad, TR and I waited for the damper scones to cook and watched Richard and C1 turn bottoms up like ducks in the water in their quest for yabbies. C2 waded in the shallows of the pond, a roughly sharpened stick in hand ready to skewer any hapless water-creature.
Soon we breathed in the sweet aroma of baked scones. Dad flipped the foil wrapped balls out of the coals. ‘Lunch is ready!’ He clustered the silver spheres together using a small branch as if they were balls on a snooker table. Empty-handed the lads dragged their soaked bodies from the waterhole and schlepped to the fire place to collect their consolation prize of damper scone.
Richard held his stubby index finger and thumb in the form of the letter “C”. ‘I was this close to getting a yabby.’
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; Updated 2018; 2021; 2026
*Feature Painting: The Other Side of Ormiston © Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016
***
Here I was, merrily thinking the exhibition at Brighton Central finished on Saturday. Then my art and writing friend informed me it’s Sunday. So, there you go, a bonus day. If you have time and are in Adelaide, head down to Brighton Foodland, corner of Edward Street and Brighton Road, to view this brilliant display of artwork. Again, Marion Art Group (MAG) has done well, paintings selling like hotcakes at times.
So come, treat yourself, and have a look.
Meanwhile, click on the link below and read my story behind one of my paintings, Ghost gum, Western MacDonnell’s.
Feature Painting: Ghost Gum, Western MacDonnell’s © L.M. Kling
[In 2013, the T-Team, next generation embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Once every month, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre and memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013, with my brother and his family; the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, a crazy robot toilet incarcerates me.]
Morning and the dawning realisation why this campsite may not have been popular. Anthony stomped around the tent, grumbling.
‘I got no sleep last night,’ he snapped. ‘Kept getting woken up by those trucks rumbling all night. And their lights. Just as I drifted off to sleep. Those lights shining into our tent.’
‘Will you be alright to drive?’ I asked.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ he sniffed. Anthony was a man, after all, and infallible.
We moved like snails, packing up. I loaded the Ford’s rear with stuff. Next minute, Anthony was there unloading and repacking. Must do it right, even on the last leg of our journey.
While he played his version of luggage-tetris, I wandered off to the BBQ hut to check for any forgotten items that might lurk there. And behold, sitting rather smugly in a rather obvious position on the bench next to the BBQ facilities was Anthony’s water bottle. You just have to wonder whether the water bottle had legs and hid when we were searching for it the previous night. Then, when it realised that it might be left behind, it positioned itself in the fail-safe position to be found. The water bottle is not the first item to “hide” from me and then “reappear” in a place where I have looked a dozen times before …
There was much rejoicing over the lost water bottle that was found.
Owing to Anthony’s meticulous care in packing, we were the last to leave the campsite.
As we travelled the long monotonous stretch, I slept a bit, wrote in my diary a bit, and then stared out the window at the red earth, gibber plains, and twisted corkwood trees.
Anthony took my hand. ‘I’m sorry I was grumpy.’
‘That’s okay, blame it on the trucks that kept us awake all night.’
‘I swear that there was a truck that shone its lights straight into our tent.’
‘Yeah, it seemed that way,’ I replied. ‘Perhaps we can stay at Woomera in a cabin tonight and get a decent night’s sleep.’
‘Yeah, why not!’
Around two o’clock, the landscape evolved from flat and stone scattered to low-lying hills pockmarked with what appeared to be giant rabbit holes. Signs warned visitors to beware of mineshafts.
‘Lunch at Coober Pedy?’ Anthony said.
‘Yes, but … first a toilet stop.’
‘And where do you suggest?’ Anthony glanced at me and then gazed at the mineshaft-littered hill face.
‘A service-station? Or a pub?’
‘And where’s the service station?’
A tour of Coober Pedy yielded no service stations that we could find. And he who wanted to save money and eat a picnic lunch was not willing to enter a pub for the loo in case it entrapped us into eating in there.
‘What about the playground and BBQ area where we had tea with the T-Team on the way up to Central Australia?’ Anthony suggested.
Bad suggestion …
But, at the time, I agreed. Lunch and loo visit in one hit.
We settled down at a picnic table near the automated toilets. Anthony prepared the sandwiches while I dashed into the “robot” dunny to do my deed.
While I sat on the tin throne, country and western-come-Hawaiian music clanged away. Did I detect a banjo while the toilet roll unfurled itself for me? No button to flush. Oh, well. Once I washed my hands, the toilet duly flushed. Then, I placed my hands under the air-dryer. As usual, I am invisible to this universe and the cohort of air-dryers that belong to it. The air-dryer refused to acknowledge me and blow air on my wet hands. Oh, well, I’ll dry my hands with my own towel from the car that exists quite happily in my universe.
I step to the sliding door and press the large blue button. The music volume increased. But the doors did not oblige. I pressed the blue button again. Nothing. Just the demented music. Becoming more demented.
I read the instructions. And pressed the blue button again.
Nothing.
I hit the button.
Kicked the door.
I sat down by the stubborn, un-sliding door.
And waited.
Instructions said I must vacate this automated, locked-down establishment in ten minutes. As if to press its point, the “robot’ toilet ramped up the annoyance level of the music.
What’s worse, I had entered this pongy prison without my mobile phone. Or jumper. It was cold in there.
Anthony called from the outside. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m trapped,’ I replied. ‘The toilet won’t open.’
‘Have you tried to push the button?’
‘Yes, a million times.’
‘Well, you must’ve done something wrong.’
I noted that the blue button had written on it “touch free” and then I figured, That’s why the toilet’s incarcerated me. Touching it must’ve broken its rules. ‘Has it been ten minutes yet?’
‘Not yet.’
Then, the blue button, which I’m meant to push for my release from this demented can, the button that has “touch free” displayed on it, lit up and vibrated. But the door refused to budge.
I pushed the door. No joy. It stayed locked, and the not-so-ambient music went on and on like some crazy organ-grinder.
I was starting to imagine a security guy in some dug-out office in the middle of Coober Pedy laughing at this old jailbird (me) … when …
A voice from above warned, ‘You have exceeded your stay; you must exit immediately.’
‘Not that I haven’t wanted to,’ I snapped back. Pushed the vibrating bright button, yet again. Pulled the door. Still as stubborn as.
‘You have exceeded your stay. You must exit immediately.’ Followed by the crazy music.
I rolled my eyes. ‘I wish.’
Watched the door. Hoping. Praying it would open.
‘You have exceeded your stay. You must exit immediately.’
I waited and watched. ‘You might need to call the police or emergency services to release me,’ I told Anthony.
As if it heard my warning to call the authorities, the door slid open. I leapt out. ‘Yay! I’m free! I’m free!’ I jumped and danced in front of a rather unimpressed husband. ‘I’m never going to be in one of those things again! I thought it was never going to open!’
‘Come on, let’s have lunch,’ Anthony snipped, ‘We’ve already wasted twenty-five minutes.’
‘Not before I get my jumper, I’m freezing. You don’t know how cold it was in there. I’m never going into a toilet without my mobile phone or a jumper. Ever.’
As we munched on our sandwiches, a brisk wind chilled us to the bone, even with an extra layer of clothing on. A little indigenous boy scampered into the evil “robot’ toilet. Less than a minute later, he exited. Anthony then went into the same crazy “can” and was out in two minutes.
‘How did you do that?’ I asked.
Anthony replied smugly, ‘I pressed the blue button.’
‘So did I, a dozen times.’
‘You must’ve done something wrong.’
‘Just my luck, I had to be incarcerated by the toilet.’
So, out on parole from the Cooper Pedy “jerry can”, we escaped this town and headed for Woomera.
[to be continued …]
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021; updated 2026
*Feature painting: Desert Storm Brewing, Lake Hart © L.M. Kling 2025
***
[In 2013, the T-Team, next generation embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Over the next few months, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre and memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013, with my brother and his family; the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, the T-K Team commences their return to Adelaide from Alice Springs.]
After packing up our belongings into our trusty Ford, topping up with petrol, and cash supplies, we departed Alice Springs and headed south to Adelaide. It’s amazing what one discovers retracing our steps to South Australia. In the morning sunlight, there, mini-Ulurus, mini–Kata Tjutas, and mini-Mt Conners.
At Kulgera, we shared lunch with flies. All around us, people swished at their faces. My glasses kept falling off as I fanned the flies away. In the end, I put on my sunnies. Then, when that strategy failed, we retreated into the roadhouse and had coffee in the restaurant. Self-serve for $3.
I drove the following 180 kilometres to Marla. A slow drive at times, stuck behind cars pulling caravans.
‘Why don’t you overtake?’ Hubby whined.
‘I’m playing it safe,’ I replied. ‘Better to be late than dead on time.’
‘Humph!’
The caravan convoy eased into Agnes Creek.
‘Ah, freedom!’ I said and pressed on the accelerator. The Ford powered up to 100 km/h.
‘Careful!’ Anthony warned. ‘Don’t go too fast.’
‘I won’t.’
I kept my promise and maintained a steady 100 km/h all the way to the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory.
There, at the border, we parked to check our itinerary of food for fruit and vegetables. Owing to the prevention of bringing any fruit fly infestation into South Australia, fruit and vegetables had to be disposed of in the bins provided. More flies hovered around, joining our forage in the back of the Ford.
A passing Northern American tourist remarked, ‘Are South Australians so precious?’
‘Yes, we are,’ I muttered to Hubby, ‘how else have we kept the scourge of fruit fly out of our state?’
All around us, fellow travellers hauled out their luggage from their cars or four-wheel drive vehicles and disposed of their fresh produce. None of them looked happy.
Sitting on a picnic table, a lad about Son 1’s age, and wearing a fly net, boiled up a pan of canned corn and peas on a portable gas cooker.
Nodding in their direction, I remarked to my husband, ‘Do they think canned vegetables are a problem?’
‘Quiet, Lee-Anne, they might hear you,’ my husband snapped.
‘Maybe someone should tell them that it’s only fresh vegetables that need to be disposed of.’
Hubby shook his head. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’
After depositing the few offensive apples and oranges in the bin, we piled into the Ford and charged forth on our journey south down the Stuart Highway.
A sign warned of penalties for the non-disposal of fruit and vegetables.
Hubby breathed in. ‘Oh, no, what about the potatoes?’
‘We have potatoes?’
He nodded. ‘What are we going to do?’
I shrugged. ‘Eat them? For tea?’
‘How are we going to do that?’
‘I guess we’ll have to stop over at Marla and camp there tonight. Then cook up the potatoes.’
‘I guess I could try and make rösti on the BBQ facilities provided,’ Hubby sighed. ‘Good luck getting a campsite.’
With the potatoes securely stored in the cooler hidden in the Ford, we stepped into Marla’s red brick tourist park office. Tent site? No problem. Plenty of room on the grassy park for campers.
However, fearful that the biosecurity police might emerge from under a mini-Ayers rock and ping us with a hefty fine, I was designated to cook up the potatoes and one offending onion, while Anthony pitched the 2-person tent in the middle of the verdant camping reserve. My potato dish was not exactly rösti, though.
While frying up this “contraband” fare, a familiar white van whizzed past. I stepped out of the BBQ shelter and waved to them. The white van turned around.
The T-Team joined us for our potato and onion fry. Our nephew contributed their stash of vegetables to make a stir fry. Mrs. T shared the T-team’s adventures visiting a friend’s cattle station south of Alice the past couple of days.
My older niece was not her usual cheerful self. While helping me wash the dishes in a crummy camp kitchen with little light, Brother T confided in me that she may not have been happy about driving the Oodnadatta track.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘she must know that track is full of tacks to bust tyres.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, yeah! Maybe we won’t go that way…’
We waved the T-Team off on their venture south at around 8.30 pm. Then Hubby crawled into the tent and began tossing out clothes, bags, and stuff into the frigid frosty night.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Where are you hiding the drink bottles?’ he cried.
‘Are they in the car?’
‘No, I’ve looked there.’
‘Sure, they’re not in the BBQ hut?’
‘No, where have you hidden them?’
‘I don’t remember, “hiding” them. They must be left somewhere,’ I said. ‘It’s too dark to look for them now, so you might just have to be satisfied with the thermos.’
With a grunt, he, who is always right, shrugged on an extra coat, sat outside the tent, sipping hot chocolate from the thermos, and playing with his phone. Wrapped in my sleeping bag, I sat beside the man who had lost his water bottle and wrote my diary by torchlight. Ours was one lonely tent in an expanse of couch grass.
Having lost the battle to mourn the temporary loss of his water bottle alone, Hubby crawled into bed at 10 pm. Soon after, I followed him, and in the warmth of the thermal sleeping bag, I soon fell asleep.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021; updated 2026
Feature Photo: Mini Ayers Rock © Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2013
***
[In 2013, the T-Team, next generation, embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Over the next few weeks, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre and memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013, with my brother and his family, the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, the T-K Team visits Emily Gap.]
Lunch With the Ants
Our plans changed. Hubby decided we could take a risk with our fuel situation, so since we were in the vicinity of the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges, we visited Emily Gap and had lunch before refuelling the Ford.
‘After all,’ I said to Hubby, ‘it is almost two o’clock, and I’m hungry.’
He just had to reply, ‘Hungry? Unlike you, I can wait till teatime.’
‘Hmm, yet another similarity you have to my father. Only he could fast from breakfast as well as lunch.’
As we rolled into the shady climes of the Emily Gap car park, I remarked, ‘But such a lovely place to sit and have a picnic, don’t you think?’ I had already sourced some nuts and chocolate from my bag in case he disagreed with my suggestion.
‘We’ll go for a walk first to see the rock paintings and then have some lunch,’ Hubby grumbled. ‘I don’t want to walk on a full stomach.’
While Hubby marched ahead to find the rock paintings before they disappeared, I trailed behind and nibbled my nuts and chocolate. Needed reinforcements to do the walk.
Hubby vanished around a corner. A few minutes later, he appeared, jogging towards me. ‘They’re here! Come, look!’
‘Oh, yeah,’ I replied, remembering 1981 when TR baited us with some significant discovery of Indigenous art. That art turned out to be less ancient and more modern.
I followed Hubby. Around the bend, he pointed. ‘Look! There they are.’
Gazing at the entrance to a shallow cave, I said, ‘Oh, yeah! So, there are. They look like giant caterpillars.’
We spent some time examining the array of caterpillar paintings and carvings; the totem of the Easter Aranda people, we assumed.
‘I think my dad took us to Jesse Gap,’ I said as we walked back to the picnic area. ‘I’ve never seen those paintings before. When he took us out to the Eastern MacDonnell’s, all we saw was artwork of the Western kind, graffiti. When we suggested visiting Emily Gap, it was already nearly dark, and Dad thought there would only be graffiti there too. After all, we had just been to the Devil’s Marbles, after sunset, so it was getting too dark to see anything at that time.’
In the shade of the gum trees in the picnic area, we “shared” our lunch of canned tuna and buttered bread with some inch ants. Had to put our food on a rock and then move the picnic rug, but the inch ants followed us.
After lunch, we found the BP petrol station that my brother had told us about. And finally, the Ford had its fill of LP Gas. Then, on our way back to the Caravan park where we were staying for the night, we swung by the local IGA. There I bought mince, button mushrooms, two onions, shampoo and conditioner. Would you believe that the shampoo and conditioner I had brought from home had not lasted the distance of our two-week Central Australian journey?
In the golden light of late afternoon, while I helped Anthony put up the tent, I watched another family pitch theirs. The father sat in his director’s chair and directed the rest of the family, the women and children, on how to put up their tent.
But, ah, what bliss to cook tea in the light of the common kitchen. Spag Bog, and plum pudding. Dessert, hot chocolate.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021; updated 2026
Feature Photo: Emily Gap © L.M. Kling 2013
***
