My desert life

I have come upon a few photographs of my old desert home recently...

They are from three completely random sources, but as a picture representation of my childhood...

They are brilliant.

I think this photo is from the 1970's... Though it may be the 60's or the 80's... But I would say later, rather than earlier.

My preschool is the white roof far left bottom corner.... You can see the dry river bed (with all the trees and no buildings) in the middle of the photo, and just make out buildings on the other side.  When it floods after heavy rain (to this day), it washes over the bridges and cuts the town in half. Sometimes the water washes down in a roaring wall, and anyone in the way has no chance... But often it would slide down in a gradual trickle, slowly getting higher and deeper and faster... I have a memory of being maybe 14, and riding on horseback with a friend (her horses) up the river as it flooded... We only thought to get out and ride along the bank when it got deep enough to touch the stirrups...

Thats a cracking dust storm rolling over the ranges... They used to happen all the time in the old days. They were caused by years of running thousands of cattle and sheep through the desert. They would eat all the plants and loosen the soil with their hooves (native desert animals are soft soled creatures whose feet don't tear up the fragile ancient soil).

It was a different time then, and I used to walk to school with a bunch of kids from my street. The eldest would have been 10 and the youngest 5. We would all go home and stay at each others house in a big group, until our parents collected us and took us home when they finished work. We all knew what a dust storm looked like on the horizon, and I can remember one day, one blew up just as we were walking home from school... The littlest had only just started school and i remember i held her hand and pretty much dragged her as we ran home to her and her sister's house. We beat it just, slamming windows shut as the dirty winds hit the town. That red dust stains everything.

This is the desert. For as far as you can drive, mostly this is what you will see... Another part of the desert not far from here is called the Nullabor, it means "no trees'... Self explanatory really...

But its beautiful out there... So incredibly quiet... And the stars are so bright, you can walk around at night without a torch... Some years ago at my best friends wedding, they stopped the cars on the way home, late late at night, and made us all get out to look at the stars. I had grumbled, wanting to get home... But i was living in the city by then, and had forgotten, or probably never noticed them, thats the special thing about my friend - the Mama with the Red Heart... She notices the detail...It's a gift I tell you...  Those stars were so clear, you could see the Milky Way as though it were a footpath... Billions of suns shining down from so far away... I want to go back there just to see the sky at night one more time... Its amazing.

This is my favourite of the three... My red hearted friend took this one. Yet again, she notices the beauty, in the tiniest things...