The road trains come and the road trains go
and I sit at my campsite and watch the flow
of road trains on the Barkly.
The early sun is blessedly weak.
The sky is vast and blue and clear.
Strong south winds keep the heat away:
the pale slender trunks of the young gums sway
and the spinifex shivers.
And the road trains come and the road trains go
and I sit at my campsite and watch for
road trains
rolling
on the Barkly.
Out here little distracts the eye,
White line, white line, white line, grid.
Austral Downs, Avon, Soudan, Frewina,
Cattle stations of the Outback are bigger
than three American states put together.
And the road trains come and the road trains go
and I sit at my campsite and wait for the growl
of road trains
on the Barkly.
A distant rumble, a far-away roar,
metal on metal, rubber on tar.
A leonine head, the serpentine spine.
Fifty-five metres on thirty-two wheels
as tall as the driver’s hipline.
By afternoon the heat has soared.
The bush is still, the wind has paused.
The road train stops, the red dust flies
in clouds so thick the bellowing beasts
in its belly are hidden from sight,
but for the clatter of hooves and
the saleyard smells.
When the dust subsides
the thing is not to catch their eyes,
peering over the rails
their big round eyes.
And the road trains come and the road trains go
and I sit at my campsite and watch the flow
of road trains on the Barkly.
Evening comes and cool respite.
Pinpricks of light fill the indigo sky
and I sit at my campsite in the darkening quiet.
And on the Barkly -
road trains lit in red and white,
dragons roaring through the bush night.
*The Barkly Highway runs for 755 kilometres through the Australian outback across the Northern Territory and Queensland. Road trains are massive trucks that haul cargo including cattle across the country.