Daily life in the Back of Beyond

There are many facets to normal life the one doesn't usually consider that here, cut off from 'civilization', suddenly become a challenge rather than a nuance to everyday life. As my boss Cameron put it, "When you live out in the bush, no one's going to come help you, so you have to do it all yourself." Already I have played the roll of plumber, electrician, gardener, and more, because we are simply too far to pay for such services.

Other aspects of life require creative solutions as well. Since the nearest town is over 5 hours away, grocery shopping is fairly impractical. Thus once a week on Tuesdays, a gigantic refrigerated truck comes to the station to deliver food and supplies that the station manager has ordered in advance. This same truck stops at every station along the road making deliveries before returning to Mount Isa, some 8ish hours away. On Fridays the mail plane comes, swooping down to swap incoming mail for outgoing, and taking off again for the next station. While this is a vast improvement from the mail wagons of the early 20th century, which would come something like once every 6 weeks or, in some places, once every 6 months, it is still vastly different for someone who is accustomed to the option of overnight delivery.

Garbage is another issue. What do you do with your rubbish when you are too far away to have it picked up? The answer - you burn it. The first time I burned my trash, my urbanized, modernized, liberalized conscience revolted. But given the circumstances, what else are you going to do?

Electricity and water are also not standard order out here the way they are at home. There is a shed, about the size of a 2 car garage that house the generator. It rumbles along all day and all night powering the station. That means that there is never silence around the homestead, but also that my wonderful air conditioner ("air con") is kept cranking at all times. God bless air cons.

Water is supplied through 2 sources- rain water and ground water. Surprisingly enough, the rain water is for drinking, while the ground water is for washing and watering the livestock. The rain water is collected from roof runoff in gigantic cisterns during the Wet. Since no one has said anything, I imagine this lasts through the Dry. Heaven forbid it should run out. The ground water is piped up from artesian wells using what is called a "bore"- once wind operated, now diesel. It is laden with minerals and is terrible to drink, although I've heard that after a few days out mustering, you learn to be less picky.