Stuart Highway, Dead Cars, and the Middle of Somewhere

Roads here go on forever.  They are straight, mostly flat, and empty.  In all of the driving we have done so far, we have never passed another car, at least not that I’ve noticed.  I’ve seen at least six dead cars-- cars planted in fields by edge of the road, burned out, stripped down, and rusted. What exactly do they mean?  Western contraptions growing out of this primordial landscape, a reminder maybe of the transient nature of the white man in a land that is timeless.  A warning of the inevitable.

Mercedes in a field.  Notice the tree growing up through its center?

Actually, the eerie skeletons of abandoned cars brings to mind familiar images-- scenes from the movie “Walkabout” have been playing on a constant loop in my brain.  That Australian film was all about the contrast between the natural world, the world of the aboriginal people, and “civilization.”  If you never saw it, you should.  One dramatic moment that replays over and over in that film involves a white Australian driving as far out into the bush as he can go.  He tells his children it is a picnic, but the plan all along is suicide.  He shoots himself after first setting fire to his car while his son and daughter witness the whole thing.

“Walkabout” was probably my first glimpse of Australia, watched in the early 1970’s I think, and it remained on my greatest-movies-of-all-time list for decades.  It had a profound impact on my teenaged self, resident of south Jersey, and citizen of planet earth developing an environmental consciousness.  

This is all tied together:  the burned-out carcasses of cars, the open scrubland, the exotic nature of birds, and a dry, dry season. Now nearly fifty years later, I am identifying myself:  the white girl turned loose, trying to make sense of this land down under.  It’s a lot to take in.