Boil The Billy
“… I think there’s something funny going on under the ground out there …”
T.J., of Tennant Creek, writes:
Years ago, over in the backblocks of West Australia, I found a casual job cutting mesquite and painting a stable on a piggery run by a half mad Irishman whose first name was Brendan.
His second name was Fitzpatrick but, for the sake of preserving his identity, I won’t mention that.
When I was considering what colour to use for the stable job, Brendan said: “Oh, it doesn’t matter what colour you use. You can paint it any colour you like.”
“Any colour at all?” I enquired, just to make certain.
“Yes,” he nodded, “any colour you like, as long as you paint it green.”
After studying his pigs in a sty, I couldn’t help but notice that one of the sows was hobbling around on two wooden legs, secured with an arrangement of leather straps.
Brendan explained: “I carved those legs meself out of a bit of redgum I found down the creek.”
“But how did she lose her legs?” I asked. “Did she have an accident?”
His eyes grew reflective as he continued: “Ah, she’s one fine little pig, that one, and no mistake. Clever, too. Very intelligent. One time my hut caught fire and she ran down the paddock to find me, squealing her head off. While I was putting out the fire, she ran around the edges pissing on the flames …”
“Yes,” I said, “but what’s all that got to do with her wooden legs?”
“Well,” the Irishman added, “when you own a fine pig like that, you don’t want to eat it all at once now, do you?”
In another of our local pubs an old-timer was regaling a group of listeners on the subject of ghosts in Alice Springs.
“All this stuff in the paper about ghosts isn’t new,” he reminisced. “The Alice has had ghosts since Adam was a pup, but we don’t go around blabbing about it, that’s all.”
“Have you seen ghosts around here?” someone asked.
“‘Course I have,” he nodded. “I’ve heard one, too.”
“Heard one? Where? What happened?”
“Years ago,” said the old fellow, “we had an old woman here who was a sort of a spiritualist. She could contact people who’d died. Anyway, I had an old droving mate who got bit by a snake out along the MacDonnell Ranges while he was looking for some horses. When we found him, he was pretty fly-blown so we dropped him straight into a hole by the creek and covered him up with rocks.”
“Does his ghost still hang around that place?” came the query.
“Not that I know of,” said the old-timer. Well, his Mrs was pretty cut up about it, so she had a quiet word with this spiritualist woman I mentioned and asked if she could get in touch with the spirit of her husband, Mick.
“One night a few of us got together in an old hut near Billy Goat Hill and the spiritualist started concentrating. After a while we heard Mick’s voice. It seemed to be coming down through the roof, clear as a bell. His old wife got pretty upset and started crying. She asked her husband if he was happy where he was, and did he need anything.”
“Mick’s voice said: ‘Yairs, old girl. I wish I could get that big waterbag I’ve got rolled up in my swag.’
“His Mrs said: ‘Your waterbag? ‘Why should you need a waterbag in heaven?’
“And Mick’s voice came back: ‘Who said anything about heaven? They put me in the other bloody place and I can’t find a waterhole anywhere!’”
Up along the northern track I was told the story of an unorthodox land rights claim.
There once emerged a group of part-Aboriginal speculators who let it be known that three certain Poinciana trees had sacred significance.
The land on which the trees stood was prime real estate being prepared for development.
Everything came to a halt as the legal boys on both sides sharpened their pencils in readiness for prolonged legal proceedings.
That is, until some bright soul quietly whispered in someone’s ear that the Poinciana tree had been introduced from overseas.
Therefore, how could it be possible for this species to have acquired ancient ceremonial ‘dreaming’ status?
The land claimants withdrew from the scene overnight.
An Aboriginal craftsman approached an English tourist in the Todd Street Mall, asking if she would like to buy a real boomerang for $50.
The English woman asked: “Is it a come-back boomerang?”
The salesman nodded and money changed hands.
The tourist immediately took her boomerang down to the dry river bed to test its capabilities.
The boomerang flew unerringly straight.
Indignantly, the English woman hurried back to the mall to confront the boomerang maker.
“It’s no good,” the tourst complained. “It won’t come back.”
“It come back alright,” the old man said, sadly. “I sell him two times today and he come back two times.”
At Wycliffe Well, (372 kms north of Alice Springs), residents are still claiming they are visited on a regular basis by UFOs.
Inside the roadhouse are two large noticeboards crammed with newspaper and magazine clippings describing the weird events witnessed in the night skies – i.e., strangely manoeuvred aircraft zipping this way and that, a ‘mothership’ receiving other smaller craft hovering in flight, etc.
According to the proprietor, Lou Farcas, motorists travelling at night along the Stuart Highway between Taylor’s Creek and the Devil’s Marbles are often accompanied by a UFO flying directly above the vehicle’s roof.
On reaching the Devil’s Marbles, he said, the UFO zips off into the night and disappears from sight.
One motorist claimed a UFO descended over his car and, while matching its speed, beamed down a strong point of brilliant white light straight into the driver’s eyes.
He later said: “It was a bit uncomfortable, but it didn’t stop me from driving.”
Mr Farcas said: “I learnt from someone else that the same bloke had had to be put into hospital because he was starting to get very bad headaches.”
A roadhouse employee said there was “something funny” going on out in the western desert country.
“If you go out there,” she said, “it looks like photographs you see of Mars. Very empty. Very lonely. It gives you chills. If you go out there in a 4-wheel-drive. don’t be surprised if a helicopter drops down in front of you and tells you to turn back. I think there’s something funny going on under the ground out there …”
Mr Farcas added: “An old Aboriginal bloke told me one time he was working on underground tunnels between Pine Gap and the country out here to the West. I often wonder if the Yanks are secretly experimenting with anti-gravitational aircraft … You know, one of the strangest things is this: there have been dozens of reports of UFO activity around here over the years, but not once has anyone from the government come out here to make official enquiries.”
An Alice Springs resident claims he met a backpacker with a difference.
Somewhere down the track, north of Erldunda, our informant says he came across a young fellow walking by the highway carrying a petrol tin.
Believing it to be a motorist who had run out of fuel, the Alice Springs man stopped to offer the walker a life back to his stranded vehicle.
“I don’t have a car,” the walker admitted. “I’m hitch-hiking.”
The petrol tin had specially fashioned clips which allowed the whole top section to be remov
The traveller said: “I worked out this lurk ages ago. A lot of car don’t like stopping for hitch-hikers any more. If they see a backpack, they just keep on driving. So I got rid of my pack and remodelled this petrol tin. Since I did that, I’ve had no trouble getting a lift. They see this tin and assume I’ve run out of fuel. Clever, eh?”
Devious, too.
A “Mare For Sale” advertisement appeared in the local media.
An Ilparpa woman, whose 15-year-old daughter had lately turned horse-mad, quickly located the seller to ask a few relevant questions.
The horse owner, an elderly Aboriginal man, told her he would sell the mare for $250.
“Him don’t look too good,” he told the woman, “but him number one horse for ridin’ in the bush, for rounding up cattles – everything.”
Examining the mare, the mother evaluated the horse’s appearance as better than average; the teeth showed it was still younf, about 4-5 years old. Its hooves were cleanly shod, and it was quietly behaved.
“Yair,” said the old man. “it big pity him not look too good.”
“Oh, it looks alright to me,” the mother replied. “I’ll buy it from you.”
Less than a week after the purchase, the irate woman re-appeared at the old bloke’s front gate, leading the mare by a rope.
“I want my money back,” she complained. “This horse nearly killed my little girl. It ran her into a tree one day and knocked her off, and this morning it ran her into a fence and she nearly broke her leg. The vet. says the mare is almost blind and it can hardly see where it’s going.”
The old man shrugged: “Well, Mrs, me tell you first time it not look too good.”
A Swedish female backpacker confronted a hostel employee with the query: “Your toilet door has a sign with ‘sheilas’ on it. I have been told by an Australian woman that this word is offensive; it is sexist and disrespectful.”
“No, it isn’t,” the male employee replied. A ‘sheila’ is a female just as much as a ‘bloke’ is a male.”
“Well,” said the Swedish lass, “would you be offended if I called your mother or your wife a sheila?”
“No way,” he responded.
“Would they be offended?”
“I doubt it.”
The Swedish backpacker shook her head despairingly before saying: “Well, I wish you Aussie blokes and sheilas would sort yourselves out. I’m getting confused.”
