The outback and your spirit.

The outback is a tonic for the spirit in a range of flavours.

It can be the beauty, the solitude, the challenge, the mateship, the time for yourself, or the flavour of freedom.

You can find solitude in the open plains where there are no buildings, no fences, and no people in sight. Or your solitude might be found at a small waterhole discovered unexpectedly after wandering off the main track.

Swim naked if you want to. Make love in the open. (You can usually hear another car coming for miles giving you plenty of warning.)

Sleep under the stars away from trees and your campfire. After a while you feel the night sky close in and wrap around you.

Spend a couple of hours fishing or pretending to, at a secluded billabong. Noodle an opal dump in a remote part of the opal field. Explore the ruins of on old outback homestead.

Get up early in the morning and carefully walk over the sand hills to see the myriad of tracks left by unseen and unheard visitors during the night.

Climb a hill and spend time gazing over the vast expanse of “nothingness”.

Sit in the shade and watch the microcosm of life around you. Look for signs of invisible life such as small animal tracks, bird’s nests, mysterious burrows and animal droppings. (On the pure white sand hills of the Old Strzelecki Track a species of ant builds a network of tunnels from clay to travel from one spinifex bush to another.)

Accept the challenge of exploring remote and secret areas, the challenge of being on your own or the challenge of overcoming difficulties by yourself. The reward is worth it.

Find mateship in the presence of other travellers, the locals, your outback guide or from someone you meet when you are in trouble.

The feeling of freedom and timelessness only comes with experience. A sense of comfort in these surroundings needs to develop first, then you can notice and appreciate the absence of marked boundaries, the endless horizon, and the proximity of the night sky and the feeling you can explore, travel and camp anywhere you want.


Take your time, forget about your itinerary for a while and enjoy the experience.

The Outback is a tonic. It will discover your spirit and rejuvenate it.

Welcome to the forum Geoff and there'll be more than a few people wondering where Mintabie might be - Mintabie Opal Fields Information Page for others info.

Having lived at Broken Hill a few years and got out to a few empty places I've got some feel for your sentiments but don't know as I'd be recommending to the average traveller re for as you'd well know the inexperienced can easily perish up your neck of the (well not too many) woods.

I take it with the harder sandstone rather than the more clayier stuff of other fields, you do not have the luxury of living underground, a pity if so with the climate.

Do you get many visitors prepared to make the trek off the highway and all the white stuff nearer to Marla on the older road, that old diggings?, and re visitors, remember an older American guy travelling solo maybe by name of George earlier last year it might have been.

Keep enjoying those night stars.