FUNNY STORIES

31st MAY

Needing to get my car attended to has left me with another night in Alice. Derek and his wife were kind enough to let me stay at their house so I didn’t have to drive back out to Ormiston or pay for accommodation in Alice. Derek is also a mechanic and is fixing my car tomorrow for me as there was no way I was taking it back to the other mob again. Derek is a real character and a really nice bloke he has seen it all out here and was telling a couple of stories about when he was driving road trains. The Aboriginals out here between Alice and Tennant Creek are trouble with a capital T and this is understatement they had this scam going with the tourists, they would pretend they were broken down park on the side of the road and put the bonnet up and wait for someone to stop. When they stopped they would harass them for money and smokes and threaten them. Derek said when he used to see them parked like this and he could pick them a mile away he would put the road train in the dirt up behind them about a km out and watch how fast they dropped the bonnet and bolted. Broken down yeah right…….he said it was the funniest thing to watch.

The other one was a time when a drunken car load of them asked Derek for a push start. Derek nudged his road train up directly behind the heap of shit they were driving and started to get them travelling up the highway. 30 40 their car wouldn’t start 50 60 and it still wouldn’t start and he said by this time all the hands were hanging out of the windows and he kept picking up speed 70 80 90 their eyes were bugging out of there heads through the back window and arms were going crazy out of every window. Eventually he said they veered off the side of the road into the scrub. They wouldnt be drink driving tonight!!!