The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya Read Online Free PDF

pulled up for some lunch. Murray opened up the overnight bag and found a thermos full of sweet white tea, strong enough to stand a pinch-bar up in, and two roast beef and home-made chutney sandwiches about the same size as a
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. There was also a bag of roughly chopped meat for Grungle and the bones from Sunday night’s sirloins. Murray fed the dog first and then, with the car doors open, got stuck into his sandwiches while he gazed fondly at the still rugged, yet increasingly beautiful countryside around him.
    The Whitulah was nowhere near full but a fairly steady stream of clear water, trickling languidly over the smooth white stones that formed its bed, showed there had been a little more rain than usual during this year’s dry. Patches of huge golden king orchids moved gently in the warm breeze at the edge of the river and took advantage of the extra moisture, along with a few small beds of Sturt’s beautiful white desert roses — their bright crimson centres looking almost like drops of blood. Silver wattle and giant silverelkhorns vied for space on the river bank, among great smooth rocks whose shiny whiteness was stained by spreading patches of brown and green moss. Murray’s attention, however, was directed mainly to a pair of beautiful olive-backed orioles singing melodiously in a magnificent golden wattle tree. There were plenty of other birds around but the orioles’ shrill clear sound seemed to rise easily above the others’ before they were abruptly interrupted and driven from their tree by a flock of noisy white corellas who started fighting as soon as they landed, squawking and jostling each other for a better position. Murray smiled and shook his head, and even Grungle seemed to wince and wish they’d shut up.
    A movement in the bushes a few metres behind the wattle made Murray freeze and tentatively move towards the loaded submachine gun on the back seat. It was a wild dog. At this distance Murray couldn’t miss; he’d nail the savage carnivorous pest and besides doing the bush a favour get the bounty on its scalp. But when the animal nosed its way a little further out of the bushes Murray could see it was a rare black dingo, probably attracted by the smell of the food and the noise. Grungle sensed the dingo’s presence, spotted it, and immediately began to bristle.
    â€˜Hold on mate,’ said Murray, taking Grungle firmly by the collar. ‘We’ll let him go. There’s not too many of them left — and he ain’t gonna do too much harm out here.’
    The black dingo heard Murray’s voice and vanished as quietly and mysteriously as it had appeared.
    Murray finished his sandwiches, gave his stomach a rub, and the dog’s too. ‘Well. What do you reckon mate? We get crackin’? With a bit of luck we should be there in another four hours or so.’
    Grungle seemed to nod his head in agreement and hopped back up on the front seat. Murray rinsed the thermos in the creek and they were soon on their way again.
    The road on the other side of the Whitulah was now nothing more than a dusty, uneven, rock-strewn trail, across which crawled numerous thick growths of orange desert pea. The plains were way behind them now and by the time they had pushed through the metre or so of water that formed Farrars Creek and past a dot on the map called Currawilla, they headed into an even worse stretch of road leading towards another dot, Pulparara.
    The landscape around them changed dramatically once more. Precipices and mountains, thrown up by volcanoes andhewn by water rushing through them millions of years ago, formed ragged ridges along either side of the narrow dirt road. Massive orange, ochre and mauve cliffs would often tower over the Land Rover. Some were smooth, as if cut by a hot knife through butter, while others were weathered into frighteningly weird patterns and shapes by man’s greatest enemy and the leveller of