As you may have gathered from my first couple of posts on this booming town I live in, there is not a whole lot to do/see/experience in the town of Dingo. Why Dingo even exists is a mystery to me, but I guess I can see the purpose. From what I can tell, our roadhouse derives most of its business from truckers and workers stopping off before heading into the coal mines that are scattered throughout Central Queensland and people stopping off who are going other, more exciting places and just need a quick break!
The actual town itself though is a pretty meek affair. Located just off of the Capricorn Highway (so named because it runs along the Tropic of Capricorn), Dingo is a sleepy town consisting of about 150-200 people. Of this population, a good percentage is foreigners who have moved here for work or are temporarily working here, such as Leeanna and I. At the roadhouse, we’ve got a wide assortment of nationalities including Canadians, Brits, Irish, Americans, Kiwis, Swedish, Dutch, and of course lots of Aussies as well. It seems to me that most of the locals work at one of the two sawmills located in town that are the primary employer in the area. Other than that, there seems to be quite a few people who work in the mines, which pays quite well and usually has people working on something like four-on, four off or eight-on, eight-off, etc.
Most of the houses in Dingo are of the “Queenslander” variety, which as far as I can tell, loosely means “shitty, open air style houses with little insulation that are built on stilts in case it floods”. I’m not sure if this is the literal translation, but I’m pretty sure it’s got to be something close to that. In regards to the rest of the town, there are only a handful of public buildings, including a library the size of my bedroom that’s open two days a week; a small one-room pub that would not be out place in some Australian outback joke; and a general store that is well a general store. Outside of this, you’ve got an elementary school that houses 30-odd kids divided into two classes: Kindergarten to Grade 3 and Grade 4 to Grade 7. I’m guessing the kids all become pretty good friends, as there’s not a whole lot of selection available to you on the “friends” front. The only other structures of note that come to mind, are the two aforementioned sawmills, a couple of tennis courts, a race course, and a rodeo ring/horse jumping course. Yes, somehow in a town of only a couple hundred people we have a full-on racecourse and a proper rodeo facility!
After reading that, you’re probably asking yourself, what the fuck do people do for entertainment in the this place, Brent? I mean, besides drink at the pub and lick the backs of toads for hallucinogenic side effects.
On the home front, we watch a lot of DVDs, and boy do I mean a lot of DVDs. Once a week, Leeanna, Dan, and I borrow the roadhouse’s ute (see: small Australian pick-up truck) and cruise into the town of Blackwater that is about 45 minutes away. This trip usually consists of our grocery shopping, renting an ass-load of DVDs and on occasion getting a haircut that would make Jim Carrey’s character in “Dumb and Dumber” proud. Sadly, this outing to the small, mining town is usually the highlight of our week, because let’s be real, what’s more exciting at the age of 26 than a good ole Thursday afternoon grocery shop followed by a trip to the video store to rent some of Meryl Streep’s greatest hits? Nada.
A couple of other popular pastimes amongst the ranks here are our weekly poker games and the occasional tennis match. Due to the large number of bored travellers and workers, assembling poker games has usually not been too difficult as most weeks we draw between six and ten people, with me usually donating my money to someone else’s travel fund. Tennis meanwhile, has definitely been something I’ve enjoyed getting back into, as it was a major hobby of mine in my younger days. In the 15 weeks I’ve been here, I have played more tennis than I probably have in the last eight years of my life combined. Unfortunately for me, I still suck huge donkey balls, as evidenced by my choke performance in the Dingo Roadhouse Tennis League. There’s a good chance if my parent’s find out I lost a match, gulp, to an Englishman, they may trade me in for a box of used condoms or something to that effect.
On a less competitive note, another Dingo high point for me was being asked to go into the school for reading week to read to the kids. In all honesty I was actually quite nervous getting in front of a bunch of little kids, but luckily for me none of them seemed to care too much. They just wanted to know about such pressing things as polar bears, squirrels, and what types of snakes I had seen. I kept my trouser snake jokes to myself and soldiered on through the books. Following the readings I was presented with more tough questions, such as, “what’s your favourite page in the book?” Difficult one to answer made even more difficult when the next kids asks, “what’s your second favourite page in the book?” Are these kids for real!? Seeing as how Dingo is such a small town and I talk with a funny accent, my readings at the school made me an instant target for the local youth, who it seems all love saying hello to me and want me to play sports with them. This inevitably led to my multiple rugby showdowns against the kids and my getting destroyed physically by a 12-year old man-child. It was worth it though, as I now know the rules to rugby and can say I would probably be competitive in an under 10s league. Then again, I would probably still suck.
Other than our weekly trips to Blackwater, Leeanna and I have only really ventured into real civilization once, and that was when we borrowed the ute for a day and drove to Rockhampton. The first thing we did when we got there, aside from notice that they had traffic lights, was head to a fast food restaurant. This was promptly followed by an afternoon spent in the massive shopping mall and a lovely dinner at a restaurant along the Fitzroy River called Cassidy’s. It was a nice change, and during our fifteen weeks in Dingo it was the only thing even remotely resembling urban life we ever saw. Our only other day trip was when Leeanna, Dan, and I went to the Blackdown Tablelands which is a national park located just outside of Dingo. It’s really a beautiful sight, if not a bit odd, as there are a bunch of mountains rising out above some of the flattest land this side of Sydney. It features some gorgeous walks and lookouts amongst the mountains and some swimming holes as well. Dan was the only one brave enough to tackle the murky waters, as Leeanna and I were content to watch him swim while we ate our crackers and imagines what was lurking beneath.
The last notable thing that comes to my mind when thinking about Dingo is what every Dingo citizen lives for, the annual “Dingo Trap-Throwing Competition and Race Day”. This was held in October and it’s the biggest event of the year in the town and draws a few hundred people out the racecourse (only time it gets used all year) for an afternoon of horse racing, beauty pageants, booze guzzling, and my personal favourite goat-cart racing. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried people. The day was a lot of good fun and was highlighted by the annual dingo trap-throwing competition, which consists of people throwing something resembling a bear-trap like it’s a discus, all in the name of a fairly healthy $500 first prize. This event is a great source of pride for the town and I’ve even heard the words “world famous” thrown around, albeit very loosely. Despite this, my favourite event was watching the little kids strapped into chariots attached to goats and race them down the track like it was the redneck Kentucky Derby. A close second would have to be the country-dance at the end of the night, which provided me with some good laughs, although at that point it may have had more to do with the 20-odd beers I had consumed during the course of the day. All in all, it was a fun day out at the country races and I must say I am disappointed that I had to work during the rodeo the other night, as I imagine that would’ve been a bucking good time. Yes, I know, worst joke ever.
And on that note, it was with only the fondest (my choice of words, not Leeanna’s) memories that her and I must vacate the green pastures of the Dingo Roadhouse for the Queensland coast. It’s been real and I must thank Kiwi Bob the manager for providing us with an excellent opportunity to save money over the last little while. And thanks to everyone who’s made our time here enjoyable/bearable, it’s been real to say the least. So with that I say to Dan, Shane, Tom, Amy, Max, Elin, Johnny, Adam, Liz, Andy, Allison, Dan II, Tony, John and anyone else I may be forgetting thanks for the memories and good luck with your future endeavours and your escape from Dingo (or settling in if that’s the kind of thing you’re into)!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment