The remnants of our enormous bonfire were still smoldering when we awoke in Hungerford, to a pleasant temperature and a dry swag. We were in outback Queensland, where the dew point is high and the chance of obliterating your vehicle on a wandering cow is yet higher.
There were quiet whispers in the breakfast line that one or more vehicles had not made it through the night. This rumour seemed supported by the battered Commodores and Corollas still sitting on the flat bed trucks here and there. We dropped our heads solemnly as we ate our packet weetbix. We also heard, indirectly, that somebody had left the rally and maybe they weren’t coming back and that their partner was driving alone, and liked it better that way, or maybe didn’t like it at all. Also, that a certain buddy group wasn’t getting along, or somebody wanted a new group. It occurred to us for the first time that maybe we were on a school camp, with all the personal turmoil, rumour and strain that entails, but a school camp for people in their 50s who are also drinking a lot. This hadn’t occurred to us at all; our group was reasonable, harmonious and relaxed, and also we were so distracted by our obvious capability gaps and out-of-sync costuming that we hadn’t had time to consider the relationship aspect of what was going on around us.
Also, most of the men today are wearing wedding dresses, so that tends to offset any genuine discussion on the human condition.
The theme was ‘white wedding’, which had been enthusiastically, and rather gloriously adhered to by most rally participants. This was another theme for which Fauce and I had planned to shop in Melbourne, but ran out of time. Also, we had misread it as simply ‘white’ and Fauce had procured a white body suit for the purpose and we had thought maybe I could just wear white undies all day because I am quite pale. But, knowing what we now know about the driving and the weather and the public interaction and so forth, we thought that might not be tenable.
Fauce put on his Fem-Bot outfit, which we had loosely thought we would use to match my Dr Evil costume later in the week, and I put on the wig from my German weight-lifting ensemble, plus a Teen Wolf singlet, for which we had no real other plan, and some shorts. We went with ‘white-trash wedding’, which most people to whom we explained it found amusing. Everybody else just seemed confused, which was quite reasonable.
This morning at the briefing two or more groups were subject to public derision and hoola-hoop humiliation because their vehicles are not, well, shit enough. We feel that hoola of shame is coming for us too. Our replacement CRV is really quite comfortable. It even has an electric sunroof and carpet on the inside of the doors. We are trying to keep those luxurious facts secret but simultaneously trying to circulate the contextual story about the demise of our Kia Carnival. It doesn’t seem to be working. People are noticing our comfortable car with its functional wing mirrors and reliable ignition. We didn’t bring any logs for the fire last night so our credibility is already hanging by a thread. Also, Fauce is dressed like a Fem-Bot.
You might be surprised to read that we had quite a long drive today.
About 550km through Quilpie, which doesn’t seem to have any Give Way or Stop signs, to Windorah. At some point during the drive we were required to pour in our first every Jerry Can of petrol, which was quite the moment. It was made even more special because Fauce did it whilst wearing a pink negligee and matching bright pink gloves.
I took the last driving shift today, which once again concluded in the dark. We had the opportunity to test the brakes very late in the day, when a very large black cow, which was inconveniently the same colour as the night, sauntered out onto the road. It was a narrow miss. Perhaps we were self-conscious about our car’s lack of shitness at the beginning of the day, but we were certainly grateful for its functioning breaks by the end (and the carpeted doors, which are a delight).
Tomorrow our journey takes us through the classic outback pubs of Betoota and Birdsville.
I woke up with ice on my forehead and white face paint on my sleeping bag. Despite my best efforts in the camp shower last evening, there was no soap and no mirror, and so actually I hadn’t washed off much of the white paint at all. Yesterday I looked ghoulish, today I just looked confusing.
Like aged, disinterested, quite soft crocodiles, we wrestled our mattresses into the car, then ate breakfast and ultimately we were ready to depart about 10% faster than yesterday. As Fauce and I say to each other every morning; soon we’ll be ready to start this rally. Our key learning from this morning was; yes, tuck your tomorrow trousers into the swag with you, but go one step further and pop them into your sleeping bag. That way you don’t have to pull on wet, semi-frozen trousers to start the day. That’s pro-camping.
It came as a great surprise to us at the morning briefing that today we would be driving a lot, and lots of it would not be on very good roads. We mouthed things to each other like “did you know we would be driving this much?” and then shrugged our shoulders theatrically while looking around at our fellow rally-ers who seem wholly aware and supportive of it.
So today we journeyed from Silverton through Broken Hill and Wilcannia to Hungerford. We are still on our 1500km, 48 hour detour to avoid the wet road, so Hungerford, and perhaps also the route there, felt hastily arranged. I can confirm, however, that you can buy paw-paw lip balm at the Ampol in Wilcannia, which feels like real progress to me.
This was our first real stretch of relentless dirt road for the rally and at first it was a great thrill, not particularly stressful, and afforded wonderful photos of red dirt and opportunities to spray vast waves of muddy water everywhere through the dips and culverts. Wonderful stuff.
As the sun slipped lower, slowly melted away and then completely gave up on us for the day, we realised however, that the sticky cloud of dust in which we had been driving all day might prove to be something of an obstacle at night.
The cloud enveloped us. Our tepid headlights threw out just enough light to rattle around between the dust particles, this way and that, but not enough to cut through. And so the whole convoy slowed to a walk, each of us floating in our own ethereal dust bubble, guided only by the blurry pricks of red tail-light bobbing about in front, which were in turn guided by their own red tail-light, and so on and so on. Each of us under the flimsy presumption that at the end of this long chain of tail-light reliance there was a car that knew where it was going.
For an hour or more Fauce and I lost our tail-light safety blanket and so drifted through the outback alone, in a dream-state, listening to Simply Red, not always sure we were on the road; occasionally running through a small patch of spinifex and so then turning away from that spinifex and back onto the bumpy, gravelly bit which may have been the road, but may also have just been ‘the outback’. We never hit tree nor shrub, which we thought was a good thing, but then again when the sun had set it didn’t seem as it there was much to speak of in the way of tree or shrub.
Just as we had submitted ourselves to the fact we were 300km off track in the middle of a thankless desert, a tiny pin-prick of red light sprang for a moment above the horizon. We yelped with joy and accelerated ever so slightly towards it, and ultimately rejoined the snail-paced convoy as it lurched and jolted through the desert.
And so, in this way we all finally reached camp at the Hungerford showground, or rodeo ring, or marketplace, and quickly set up in the dark. After a very tasty dinner put on by the very fine residents of Hungerford, we set up near the fire to watch the triage tent crank into action; the road today had claimed many a victim.
The fire began as a very pleasant affair; warming, invigorating, but not imperiling. Then the logs began to arrive. At the morning briefing ‘those with utes’ were instructed to ‘pick up some firewood’ during the drive. Now, if you want an instruction to be enthusiastically carried out, tell a group of ute-driving men to out-firewood each other.
Wow. Some of the logs looked like whole trees, hewn from the earth with bare hands. Ute after ute pulled up and triumphantly disgorged their bounty, building enormous piles of timber all around us, as if we were preparing to build a new community centre. And once the wood has been collected the wood must be burned!
And so on it went, trunk after trunk. None for later. All for now! And so what started as pleasant campfire quickly became pagan sacrifice and we were forced to retreat a good 50 meters, lest our polyester trousers catch fire.
Before bed we added one more item to the list of things Fauce and Jupiter cannot do, but I can’t even really describe it, it was a partial conversation we overhead during the pagan sacrifice and it was something about cutting up a star picket and welding it into some or other part of the engine, or engine-adjacent area. Wild stuff.
Tomorrow we are back on schedule and on our way to Windorah.
We awoke on the morning of day 2 in a freezing swamp and wondered if sleeping in a swag in the middle of a racetrack in central NSW during winter is really for us.
Each day we are adding something to our list of basic things not to do. This morning it was don’t leave your shoes outside when you’re sleeping in a freezing swamp during winter.
We pulled on wet, crispy boots and went, shivering, to breakfast and the morning briefing. It turns out the whispers about the Astra are true; not only did it tragically pass away yesterday, the owners seemed to have locked the doors and disappeared, taking the keys with them. How this was achieved without a car in the middle of the NSW desert I am not sure. What I am sure of is that such behaviour is frowned upon by shitbox organisers. The drivers of the Astra, whose identities remain unknown to us, were the subject of quite some derision. It seemed that somebody was going to salvage their wheels however, which was a silver lining.
We also learned during this briefing that recent rains in central Australia meant that one of our key unsealed roads was unsafe to drive upon, which meant a two day diversion from our original itinerary; because, in central Australia, a washed-out road takes two days to drive around.
So we returned to our makeshift camp and tried to forcefully squeeze our enormous, not-at-all-shrink-wrapped mattresses into the back seat of our car. We eventually managed this, although the situation as it stands is untenable.
We then turned our attention to the dress-up theme of the day; ‘punk’, for which we were very unprepared. We have been about 22 hours behind schedule ever since our Carnival incident, and so our window to procure punk outfits in Melbourne had evaporated. We had some costume elements of Voldemort, white face paint, flamboyant renaissance painter, medieval peasant belts and a lavish, faux-velvet Dracula jacket. We did our best but ended up far closer to ‘modern vampire’ than ‘punk’; very, what we do in the shadows – Fauce like one of the well dressed ones, and me more like the emaciated 1000 year old ghoul in the basement. These outfits did, however, provide nice juxtaposition to the red dirt and country pubs we toured throughout the day.
We covered about 550km today; Hay via Ivanhoe, Menindee and Broken Hill to the gorgeous remote town of Silverton; famous for camels and Mad Max. We saw wild roaming cattle, goats of all shapes and sizes, birds of all colours, a huge golden sunset, kangaroos and wild emus. My wild emu count at the start of today was zero, now it is 37. This was a real treat.
We spent most of today again on sealed roads, due to the aforementioned diversion, so the fabled ‘triage tent’ remained without many patrons. But one feels this might change tomorrow, with about a million kilometres to cover on the dirt.
Oh, also the shitbox rally attracts a rather handy, practical genre of human. I am not saying Fauce and I are not without our skills and talents, but we have been keeping a list of the many things we have seen going on around us that we don’t know how to do. I’ll start that list now:
Open a beer without access to an implement specifically designed for this purpose;
Roll up a swag into any reasonably sized package; and
Get a ‘carby’ started with a small plastic cup of petrol that still had some red wine in the bottom.
Today we were wearing tie-dyed coveralls and orange stakhats and the only comments we received were about our tyres. They are admittedly very nice tyres, but that gives you a reasonable idea of proclivities of our fellow shitboxers.
Today was a smooth ‘introductory’ day, mostly on sealed roads, 425km from Melbourne to Hay via Heathcote, Echuca and Deniliquin.
We’re getting to know our buddy group, the members of which all seem to have their eccentricities, as do we, I suppose. There seems to be a genuine interest in helping one another. For example, we mentioned the weird slow acceleration thing our new shitbox goes in for from time to time. A fellow driver sought to help:
“Does your transmission have a dip-stick?” he asked me
“Ah yes” I said “the gear lever? It’s just to the left of the steering wheel.”
He could have shamed me in front of my new colleagues, but did not. Instead he just popped our hood and had a look. Of course he was referring to a dip stick for our transmission fluid, to check our level, who knew that was a thing? Well, as it turns out we don’t have one, so the mystery remains.
The day went quite smoothly really; we lost one car very early and news of its demise travelled like a whisper on the breeze.
“An Astra, did you hear?”
“Ooh yes, the Astra. I heard it was a tyre, or the engine, or the transmission fluid. If only they had a dipstick.” Anyway, they weren’t in our buddy group and we never met them so it all still seems rather theoretical to us. Like a tragic flood in a country we’ve never heard of.
Otherwise, the number of bakeries in rural Australia is truly astonishing, evidence that a meat pie will survive any cost of living crisis. And they are so confident in their product they will unashamedly offer up ridiculous concoctions, like the ‘spaghetti pie’ we spotted in Echuca. Unfortunately it is so popular that they had sold out. An experience missed.
We made it to Hay before sunset and set up quickly for us, but objectively very slowly. Our swags are brand new so we had to drag them out of their original plastic – a classic way to identify yourself as a seasoned professional. Our swags contained these shrink wrapped mattresses that expanded like microwave popcorn as soon as we released them. They are, between them, now about the same size as our car. Not sure what we’re going to do about that tomorrow. We don’t have any means with which to re-shrink anything.
There are some truly spectacular set-ups around us however. One team across the way casually set up an almost full-sized basketball hoop, which emerged from their car somehow, and there were all manner of contraptions and home comforts disgorging from tiny vehicles in every direction – dudes playing darts over there, ladies wearing LED robes over here, and a fella sitting on his roof with an electric guitar.
We have already heard legendary tales about what happens over night at the ‘triage tent’; like a frankenstein’s laboratory that fuses 40 year old Corollas and battered Datsun Sunnies together in an unspeakable alchemy of rust and flame. It sat quietly this evening because the poor fallen Astra was either long gone or a myth all along.
Anyway, we hit the dirt tomorrow, so quite likely by the evening we will see smoke and steam begin to billow from the triage tent, like Mount Doom in the heart of Mordor.
So, today some good things happened and some bad things happened. Most of the bad things happened in the first 15 minutes.
Firstly, Damian from Murphy’s Mechanic and Scrapyard had a quick look at our now no-longer-smoking engine and said a word that made it clear our beloved Carnival would not be leaving Euroa.
“It’s fixable” he said “but the cost would be many, many, many times more than the car is worth”. We thought the number of times he used the word many was indelicate, particularly within earshot of the car.
The second piece of bad news from Damian was that none of the cars on his lot were for sale; not the Bedford, not the battered Merc, not even the former taxi (which we learned later was just a taxi – Damian also runs the Euroa Taxi company, and some other things).
It was about 0900hrs and we hadn’t had coffee or food, only bad news.
So, following the principle that you can achieve most things with some internet, a phone, a credit card and a positive attitude, we found a café with wifi and set about trying to find a new shitbox. Our first one took six months to find but today we had about 6 hours.
We started with local dealerships, which was not profitable. Seymour, Echuca, Shepparton… well-meaning used car sheisters just couldn’t bring themselves to sheist quite so shamelessly. “we have cars like that” they would say “but they’re not really road worthy. Or safe. Or registered”; it was always a variant on that.
Autotrader and Facebook Marketplace next. Gone were our days of only pursuing Taragos, Carnivals or other 7 seat leisure wagons; anything with a whiff of registration, in the price and geographic ballpark we went for; Astras, Lasers, Hondas, Wagons, Sedans, Utes, anything. Lots of non-replies, a few “yeah she’s sweet except for the complete lack of suspension, or windshield, or wingmirrors, or transmission”. Very few roadworthies, even less registration and not much time left.
So, late into the morning, and on our second coffee we spotted a Honda CRV with 268000km, alarmingly cheap, three weeks of rego, 30 minutes drive away with the magic words listed on the ad “must leave the country. Need sell now.”
So we made contact with the seller, confirmed it was still available, and yes those precious three weeks of rego. So we called a cab, which was when we realised Damian ran the tow truck, the mechanic, the scrapyard and the taxi company. Full life cycle.
Minutes later we were picked up by one of the mechanics who had diagnosed our poor Carnival earlier that morning and we were off heading north, with an envelope of cash, to Shepparton. We bid our taxi (and only means of transportation) goodbye and threw our lot in with the Honda CRV.
The seller, let’s call her Sammy, met us enthusiastically and gestured for us to hop in. “Does it drive?” we asked. She looked at us quizzically and said “yes” and asked whether we wanted to have a drive. We were satisfied by the answer but thought a test drive might be a reasonable bit of due diligence.
We drove around the block, and because the car didn’t immediately burst into flames we agreed to the sale. She seemed pleased but also confused “you don’t want to check anything?”
“Should we check anything?” we retorted to which.. “no, no but most people who have looked have wanted to check things”.
This gave us three pieces of information; more than one other person had inspected the car, those people had ‘checked things’, and based on those things checks (at least in part), had decided not to pay the, admittedly very modest, price for the CRV. We had no time to consider the second-order ramifications of those observations and reiterated our enthusiasm to confirm the commercial arrangement.
This was not as easy as we might have hoped.
Given Australia has in no way achieved Federation despite declaring Federation 124 years ago, if I live in the Northern Territory and wish to purchase a vehicle in Victoria, I may as well be from Mozambique. We tried and tried to navigate the internet and hard copy versions of the transfer forms and then ultimately decided we needed to drive to the Vic Roads office to work it out.
Sammy, leaving the country on Sunday, was delighted to take this journey with us to finalise the sale. Time was ebbing away.
Arriving at the Vic Roads office we were dismayed to see a large, milling, disgruntled crowd all waiting to get an eye test, or dispute a fine, or offer their organs up for donation. We took a number and I sized up each of the tellers, trying to decide which was the best demographic to explain this slightly out-of-the-box transaction that we wished to complete. Women aged 55-59 are usually my best demographic with which to build early rapport, so I hoped for Lynda at Counter 4.
After the setbacks of the morning we felt our spirits soar when the number 4 popped up on the screen and Lynda gestured us over with a forced smile “How are you?” she asked “how can I help you?”
“Lynda, we’re great” I responded “we have a slightly difficult challenge and would love your assistance”. Sammy stood smiling bemused, wondering how she had found herself in this situation.
Anyway, Lynda was great. She explained that because I was from the NT (and Fauce from miles away) we would need a ‘temporary’ garaging address which could be Sammy’s. And, no problem about the Roadworthy Certificate, we have 14 days to complete that. She would transfer into my name which is all legal and excellent and once that certificate is available the transfer would be complete, and if by then I am back in the NT I could transfer the plates etc etc. All sounded great and irrelevant given at the end of this week we will cancel the registration and mail the plates back to Victoria (if the CRV lasts that long). Sammy explained again meekly that she hadn’t had time to get the Roadworthy done, but it was becoming more and more apparent to us that perhaps Sammy had the time, but not the inclination.
No matter – a glorious victory, thanks to Lynda’s generosity of spirit, and expertise within her own bureaucracy, we had our second shitbox!
So we bought a few more essential provisions, learned that our hotel in Melbourne had cancelled our room because we didn’t show up the previous evening, and navigated that particular issue via a ‘shift manager’ named Simon who was the least helpful person we encountered today, and drove the 30 minutes back to Euroa, and Murphy’s Scrapyard.
It was now 3pm and we were still at least 2 hours drive from Melbourne (pre-rally briefing at 6pm).
Damian and his crew greeted us warmly, although we had to wait a few minutes while he finished with some customers. We learned at this juncture that Damian is also responsible for Euroa’s rental car market. King of the town.
As a parting gift our now vanquished Carnival yielded up her high spec dirt tyres which Damian’s team transferred onto our new CRV. “looks much less sissy now” he said and shook our hands.
Damian offered us $100 to receive and dispose of the Carnival, which had now been stripped of all fixings and dignity, which we immediately offered back to him for the labour on the tyres and his general good vibes and assistance. A gentleman’s transaction.
With one last defiant gasp of energy, our Carinval sprung to life just once more, long enough to spit out the Best of Simply Red CD, then closed her pale green eyes forever. Rest well old friend.
So, with a heavy heart but a renewed hope, Fauce pulled out of Murphy’s lot as we both waved furiously. The CRV was momentarily stuck in 3rd gear and then wouldn’t accelerate, or really drive at all, but then it seemed to hiccup and come to life and off we went. So maybe we’ll hear more about that, and maybe we won’t.
It’s Thursday, the rally starts in Melbourne in two days.
Started bright and early on the South Coast having made it safely from Sydney. Feeling smug. Car driving well enough. Some of the doors don’t open, the clutch is smooshy, first gear is pretty elusive and there are strangeish quirks with the locks, but in general things are looking bright.
We purchased Simply Red Greatest Hits and Love Songs 70s, 80s and 90s on CD from the Braidwood Vinnies, found a roof rack and installed it poorly, then purchased the incorrect tie-down strap for the spare tyre but it seems stable enough. Fashioned some flag poles from PVC piping and bought an over-spec’d esky and hundreds of cable ties. Procured five bumper stickers from Milton, Braidwood, Yass, Gundagai and Holbrook.
All day we’d been saying things like ‘woah that clutch doesn’t smell great’ and ‘geez, smell that burning oil? Oh well. That’s what you get for $1500’… and then just around Wadonga, with misplaced hubris, we started congratulating ourselves on our fine preparation and very very foolishly declaring pre-emptive victory. We’ll be in Melbourne in no time!
And very, very shortly thereafter… Oh, we’re slowing down, Fauce said. Oh no, we’re overheating. Oh, yup, the engine has cut-out.
By the time we had rolled to a stop on the shoulder there was alarming smoke/ steam/ smoke stuff billowing aggressively from all sorts of places. We bounced out of the car with our tiny, single use fire extinguisher at the ready. Pointing it this way and that.
After a minute or two, when we were slightly more confident our car was not about to burst into flames, we approached it with caution, like one might a caged tiger. We gingerly popped the hood then looked in. Yup, it looks really hot and smoky and not driving, we confirmed.
So, after eating a banana each, we used the power of a mobile phone and a credit card and before long Rhys from Murphy’s Mechanical and Scrap services in Euroa was with us. He confirmed the engine was really hot and smoky and not driving and then hoisted us and our shitbox onto his truck.
So now we are drinking nice red wine and eating a chicken curry in a lovely country pub in Euroa and wondering what tomorrow might bring us. Rhys has a wide selection of very shitty looking cars in his scrapyard so it may be possible that by lunchtime tomorrow we will be cruising in a very beat up Mercedes, a battered Bedford Wagon or a clapped out Euroa taxi, all of which we spied in his yard.
Our search for the perfect shitbox continued for months; a Toyota Tarago or similar 7 seat family cruiser for $1500 is not easy to find, if you are picky and want things like an engine.
Here are few more examples of the types of vehicle advertisements one encounters when scraping through this ‘market segment’. You can read the first installment here.
1997 Saab 900S
Blends both performance and luxury into one irresistable package.
Roof doesn’t open. Clutch needs replacing. Front seats are munted. Radio antenna broken. I’m selling it because maybe someone wants to repair it and give the old girl a new life.
Use of the past-tense verb ‘munted’ was truly wonderful.
Daihatsu Pyzar
Unregistered, no plates. Selling as have upgraded to a car that actually runs. Buyer will need to tow away (at buyer’s expense. NOTE the sale does not include towing costs. The buyer must pay for and arrange to get the car towed away.)
I sent a private message to confirm who would pay for towing but didn’t receive a response.
2006 Holden Astra
Solid and reliable – hell yes! I bought this car from a friend last year after my Subaru wagon was written off. I needed something fairly quickly and this was perfect. I paid him $1000 and spent $2000 getting it cleaned, serviced and roadworthy. He bought it new in 2006 and always had it serviced and maintained. The kms are now high but the engine is in great condition. It had never skipped a beat and runs perfectly. Cosmetically however it is showing sings of age! My friend had a dog and for the life of me I cannot get all the dog hair out! To be honest it is a bit of a grandpa car! If you want quick off the mark then this isn’t it. If you want great mileage then this certainly is it. The cons: The rear left passenger door doesn’t lock and the electric window on it doesn’t work. I’ve bought a new car so keen to just get rid of this one. It’s cheap and reliable but don’t expect any class or style. It’s had a life and many stains will never come out. And dog hair…!
One must also navigate numerous Facebook Marketplace conversations like this:
(18 January) ME: Hi Rafat, how are you? Is the vehicle currently registered and if so when does the rego expire? Thank you very much.
(18 January) RAFAT: Yes, are you interested?
(19 January) ME: Hello thanks very much. Yes, maybe. How long does the rego go for? The car runs doesn’t in?
(20 January) RAFAT: No rego car stop long time. Good for parts or mechanic to start it.
(20 January) ME: Oh, OK thanks Rafat. It might not be the car for us.
(21 January) RAFAT: Thumbs up emoji.
But after much searching we have now secured our beloved 2003 Kia Carnival, only a little munted, and ready to set sail next Wednesday (12 June) for the first segment of its unlikely journey from Sydney to Melbourne, and then Melbourne to Alice Springs via Hay, Silverton, Tibooburra, Windorah, Bedourie and Tobermorey. Internet-willing I will send updates from the bush…
For most Australian kids, even bookish chess-oriented ones, backyard cricket in the summer is a wonderful experience. And so it was for Milo this past summer. For weeks we played every evening with the cousins. Lots of bowling, lots of swashbuckling, care-free batting, lenient umpire-uncles, a little bit of fielding, usually a zooper-dooper appears or a sausage on a piece of bread. Heaven.
The warm cricket experience carried through to our return home, and the start of a new school year. We played in the driveway until late in the evening, and when the days got shorter we installed a flood light which made it wonderful to bat, but impossible to bowl. I could even see Milo starting to modify his game to suit the conditions, as all backyard (or driveway) cricketers do; gallant over the offside to the short boundary on the other side of the cul-de-sac, but cautious off his pads to the shorter boundary with the tall pointy fence and the dog on the other side.
One evening, as I walked in my crocs once more across the road to fetch one of my dispatched pies, Milo asked me “could I play for a team in Darwin?”. I was surprised, pleased at his interest in trying something new, but simultaneously apprehensive because actual cricket is pretty shit to play, not very sun-smart and really very shit to be administratively associated with in any way. But I answered as any semi-decent parent would; “I’ll google it”.
And so before long Milo had received some long nylon trousers and matching long-sleeved shirt, perfect for the tropics, a floppy hat, and in a mystery that I am sure will remain unsolved, I found myself on a team whatsapp group stocked with parents and administrative types.
After early introductions the club manager got right to the point, requesting volunteers for a coach and a team manager. Well, there her message sat, unashamed, unyielding, but also unanswered, for at least 36 hours, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I sent a private message to just the club manager saying I don’t know much about cricket and couldn’t commit to being a coach, but I would be happy to take on the noble burden of team manager, whatever that is. Within moments she had responded to the full group congratulating me on my appointment as co-coach.
Well played, I thought, and immediately ordered ‘Cricket Coaching for Dummies’ on Amazon.
So Milo and I arrived at his first training session, a balmy Monday evening, feeling bewildered and unsure about our recent choices. As we walked over to a group of adults who looked like they knew slightly more than me, I whispered to Milo that I was feeling as nervous as he was. He seemed to like that.
We followed their semi-instructions and soon found ourselves at one end of the nets, surrounded by small cricket enthusiasts, with balls pinging this way and that. A smiling other-parent introduced himself as the coach and said he was glad to have me with him this season. I think he believed me when I offered similar salutations and words of enthusiasm for what lay ahead.
Now, a ‘net session’, as it is known in cricketing circles, essentially entails one person putting cricket-armour on and the other 6 or 7 people (or whatever it is) taking it in turns to hurl cricket balls at you. When the batter is bored, or bruised or belittled sufficiently, they waddle back out of the net, take off their armour and commence hurling cricket balls at the next person. Milo had never seen a ‘net session’ before, and he didn’t much like the look of it.
He looked at me with those half-closed, suspicious eyes that he is fond of deploying and said; “do I have to put that stuff on?” Now, I know my child. Most kids facing this situation for the first time might be concerned about the isolation of it, or the potential to be hit in the many soft areas of the body that the armour neglects, or simply the daunting challenge of facing so many new ball hurlers he had never met before. I knew immediately what was on his mind. Sweat. And more specifically, other people’s sweat.
“Yup. But what you need to do is put your hand up to bat next and the gear will still be fresh and sweat free.”
His withering look remained; “but that girl is already wearing it.”
“Yes, true. But there is usually 2 or 3 sets in the kit and most of these kids will have their own. Go and tell the proper coach you want to bat next.”
So he did, and he did! And he batted pretty well. Although some of the older kids were quite brisk, nothing like Uncle David’s loopy left armers that are supposed to turn out of the rough but never do. Most importantly he avoided soft tissue damage… and sweaty gloves.
This luke-warm training session did, I must admit, make me somewhat nervous about our first match, which took place three days later. I was right to be nervous.
The 0730 arrival time did not please him, nor did the heavy, flammable uniform. The floppy hat was ruled out immediately. But it wasn’t until he learned that the game would take three hours, and that for most of that time he would be doing nothing but stand around in the hot sun with insects buzzing around him that he really started warming up his scowl.
Fielding first also didn’t help. In Milo’s age group the field basically cycles like a merry-go-round. After each over the fielders move around one position, clockwise, until they arrive at the bowling end, have a bowl and then keep rotating. So, for the first over Milo sat down at point, where everybody yelled at him to stand up. During the second over he sat down at gully, at which time everybody yelled at him to stand up. Then backstop where he sort of lay down and nobody said anything to him, and then around to square leg where he squatted and then kind of rolled down onto his forehead. He was quite excited to discover that his team had too many players so after square leg he rotated off the field for an over.
He ran off the field and straight over to me where I was sitting in the shade trying to figure out how to score the game with a very confusing iPad app. He arrived, looked wordlessly at me for a moment, shook his head as if to say WTF is this? then asked me for his book. I handed it over and he walked off to sit in the grass next to the boundary and commenced reading.
Milo’s one over respite was over quickly but when the next player came to take his place he waved them off and kept reading. They were very pleased to rotate around to mid-wicket and so did not argue.
This was not going well.
After one more over the real-coach realised what was happening and beckoned Milo back onto the field. He complied, but took his book with him. The real-coach advised him that wasn’t a great idea because he might be hit with a ball if he read at mid-wicket. Milo thought about this for a moment, placed his book on the ground and walked slowly, very slowly, to mid-on. Later on he had a bit of a bowl which was okay, and then recommenced cycling around the field, sometimes sitting, often distracted and always displeased.
The great thing about cricket is, once you are done standing around (or sitting) inside the field not doing much for an hour or two, you then get to stand around (or sit) outside the field not doing much for an hour or two. Milo wasn’t sure whether to be confused, disgruntled or enraged. He settled on disgruntled and loudly advised the real-coach he wasn’t going to bat. The real-coach did a very nice job of coaxing and encouraging Milo who remained unmoved on the issue for the best part of 15 overs until his cousin convinced him to ‘pad up’, as they say, and waddle out to the middle; no mean feat, and a fine demonstration of the true power that cousins possess over each other.
So he batted, was non-plussed by the whole thing, ate some grapes, received a Happy Meal voucher for ‘player of the game’ (again the real-coach did absolutely everything he could to enamour Milo) said goodbye and we drove home.
Of course on the drive Milo said he never wanted to play again, and he seemed more baffled than anything by the whole experience. I chose not to play my hand while Milo still had other people’s helmet sweat on his brow, but later in the week I picked my moment to tell him that he would need to ‘give cricket a proper go’ before he could quit ‘to make sure he was making the right decision’. Two games and two trainings was the arbitrary number I came up with. Why? Why is two the right number?
I must have caught him off guard because he agreed, and the following Monday we found ourselves back at the nets. Once again he didn’t bat and patted dogs for most of the session, and on the way home he said he didn’t want to play two more games or in fact any more games of cricket. Ever.
Trying my best to parent, I explained calmly that he had made a commitment and that he ‘owed it to himself and his teammates’ to give it a proper try. Unsurprisingly this approach was not well received but I shut the conversation down, not wanting to have the final showdown so early in the week.
Before I get to the last part of this story, I think it important to reflect on the fact that he doesn’t want to play cricket and nor do we want him to play cricket. Cricket is an odd, slow, boring sport that, if allowed to develop unchecked, will consume our weekends and then our lives, and then give our child basal-cell carcinomas in his 30s.
And yet…
I chose Friday evening to remind him that the following morning he and I would be going to cricket. He was playing Nintendo and, although he did not look up and arguably thought I asked him if he wanted a slice of toast, replied ‘ok’. I took this as a small win. It was not.
Saturday morning I woke Milo just after 0700 and reminded him of his solemn commitment to the cricket Gods, and finally it all unraveled. Once in full flight Milo is something to behold and he and I were flying high together.
There were pink faces and clenched fists and squinty eyes and lofty statements from me and tears and mucous… and finally, I slammed the door and drove by myself, to umpire a game of junior cricket in which my child was not playing, for three hours, without enough water.
I arrived home around lunchtime and we were both feeling far more relaxed about the whole thing. He asked me, with a slight grin, “what are you going to do now dad?” I explained that I had made a commitment to the team so I would continue pseudo-coaching for the rest of the season which is about 10 weeks, I guess to demonstrate good behaviours to my children?
So now, each Saturday morning I fill my giant Yeti water bottle, apply sunscreen, wave goodbye to my family at around 0720, and head off to some patch of grass somewhere or other to stand around not being all that useful to anybody. My family, comfortable in their pyjamas, look up from their breakfast, wave back and wish me luck. And just to demonstrate how ludicrous this situation has become, this week Kuepps was interstate so we paid a babysitter $125 to look after the boys for the morning, which is more than the cost of the entire season’s registration.
So here’s the thing; when I look back at all the individual decisions that led us up to this point, they all seem quite reasonable. And yet, the sum of those many reasonable decisions is well, quite unreasonable, and I haven’t even been on orange and grape duty yet.
Sometimes it does get tiring to be so constantly reminded how much we still have to learn about parenting.
When cricket could be played in 20 minutes, and in pyjamas
Clearly parenting is baffling. We are making it up as we go along for the most part; building the plane as we fly it, as they say. But I always thought there were a few fundamental planks upon which we could rely. For example:
Broccoli is always good;
Screen time is always bad;
Dogs licking your children in the face is good or bad, depending on tongue length and intent, and whether you prioritise a strong immune system or an absence of bum worms.
Recently, for us, this second plank has been thrown into disarray.
Milo had a brief foray into basketball a few years back; enjoying a memorable season with the Hellratz (you can read about it here). Monty has steadily chipped away at Aussie Hoops; perfecting his dribble handoffs, bounce passes, and absent-minded dancing during layup drills, but with minimal ambition to actually play a game, or bump into anybody, or be involved in any aspect of an ‘alley-oop’. Milo (who is an all-in or all-out kind of human) has also exhibited zero basketball ambition in recent years; seemingly leaving basketball in his rear-vision mirror in order to turn his attentions towards other worthwhile pursuits.
However, this year, things have changed.
Summer means cousins; and cousins mean new games, new rules, new horizons, and new zooper dooper flavours – like blue raspberry, which for me seems a dangerous manifestation of consumerism and a waste of chemical lab research funding. This past summer our boys enjoyed a lot of cousin time, and their cousins are basketball fanatics. Of course, the outcome of this was numerous games of 3 on 3, and 4 on 5 and 7 on 6 and other permutations; but the most impactful outcome was an introduction for our boys to the classic console game NBA2K – in this instance, 2K24.
For the uninitiated, NBA2K is a popular basketball series that let’s you play as any NBA or WNBA player from history, or even invent your own improbably proportioned player and lead them through a ‘career’ that spans carrying the team kits bags as a rookie, All Star fame and fortune, and finally the twilight years spent in the Taiwanese professional league playing for a beer company (like a real life Boogie Cousins).
It took no time at all for Monty and Milo to start quoting the stats and relative merits of Bob Cousy, Hakeem Olajuwan, John Starks and Kevin McHale. For some reason Monty has a real affinity for the Minneapolis Lakers legend George Mikan, who plied his big-man trade between 1947 and 1956. And of course, we have now prosecuted the Lebron vs MJ GOAT conversation from every angle, a topic that was simply not on the agenda before the summer.
So that’s fine, and quite predictable. But what happened next surprised me. Of course, once we returned home from the summer spent with cousins, we purchased NBA2K in the post-Christmas sales. Monty and Milo built their own players, Abdul Cicaman and Nikheil Gronko respectively (falling into the age-old trap of making their guys waaaay too tall with improbable wing-spans and then becoming disgruntled that they can’t run or dribble) and then began to play together during most weekend Nintendo sessions.
But, once Nintendo time was over they would not mooch around wondering what to do with their lives, they would instead almost always drift outside to the driveway hoop and shoot free-throws like Steph, or dunk on the trampoline hoop like Vince Carter, or snatch blocked shots out of the air like Shaq, or set precise screens like Nikola Jokic (it is odd to watch them practice this skill).
The driveway has also now led to Milo rejoining a basketball team, training and playing weekly (I am considering re-introducing a Hellratz style match-report for his new team ‘Thunderdome’, stay tuned for that in coming weeks) and Monty graduating from Aussie Hoops to the local half-court league (which he calls ‘Crazy Apes’).
They are running, and sweating, and playing together, and meeting new people, and trying new things, and grazing their knees, and jarring their fingers, and losing balls over the neighbours’ fence and making me turn on the car headlights after dark so they can keep shooting.
And what do I make of it all? I really have no idea, and to be honest I am a little lost. Clearly NBA2K is a dangerous gateway to exercise, and new skills, and wholesome activities. Maybe we should ban broccoli? Or open the flood gates on Kandy Krush and see if they become confectionary moguls? Or remove all restrictions on Cookie Clicker and, I don’t know, see if they invent some cool new cookie.
Or maybe we should just hand in our parenting badges and motivational sticker charts and just accept we have no idea what we are doing, that parenting is really hard, and be grateful for the small wins when they materialise, even if we have the Nintendo corporation to thank for them.
A big chess tournament is a glorious homage to nerdy excellence and drab fashion. The tournament Milo and I attended in January, although largely overshadowed by our adventure with Lucky the Lorikeet (read here), delivered magnificently on both counts.
A tournament of this size requires a big venue; a school hall, basketball stadium, something of that nature. The folding trellis tables are laid out in rows and rows, each with its own chess timer and board. Adjacent each of these tables can be found a pair of children, each with a neat haircut, oversized dark coloured or grey t-shirt (Adidas or ‘chess themed’), plain shorts or long trousers in quick-dry material, white socks at medium ankle length (not high or low) and white sneakers (Adidas or New Balance). There is an occasional baseball cap in navy, white or bottle green.
Given the tournament includes 100 or more players, each participant will only play a small proportion of the possible opponents. To keep things fair, and to confidently identify a true winner, the pairings are constantly evaluated based on their last result. So, if a player wins they will move ‘up’ a table and if they lose they will move ‘down’. The top 3 or 4 players are usually pretty stagnant and consistent. These players will set up their residency on tables 1, 2 and 3 – personalising their spaces with framed pictures of their mothers, Magnus Carlsen bobble-head dolls and packets of supermarket-bought jam-filled sponge cakes. For everybody else there is quite some variability; a win rocketing you up 10 tables or so, and a loss doing the same in reverse. There are lots of intricate, tournament-specific, rules which I won’t trouble you with (mostly because I don’t understand them all), but players need to keep track of each move via a baffling, coded shorthand, written in hard copy on a score sheet. This becomes the permanent record of the game, and the outcome.
Parents and other spectators cannot be within earshot of the games and are therefore generally separated by a pane of glass, or an invisible barrier of societal judgement, or both. The parental behaviour is generally highly cordial and supportive, but also quite odd. The weirdest among that cohort stand and watch every move, sometimes pressing their faces up against the glass and then leaving little steamy halos of chess expectation behind when they step back. Despite my pre-tournament predictions and hopes to the contrary, I found myself in this cohort.
Match 1
The preamble to Milo’s first game is already well documented. With lorikeets on his mind instead of gambits named for obscure Eastern European villages, he was no match for a pint-sized, baseball capped ball of chess fury. Even from 30 metres away I could feel the intensity. Milo would think awhile about his move, make it, stop his timer, and before he had even written down his aforementioned baffling, coded shorthand, the counter-move was already made. The moves were made forcefully; there was no placing, only ploughing, and whenever one of Milo’s pieces fell, I felt genuine remorse for it. It looked painful.
Milo was unfussed about the loss and his only non-lorikeet related comment post-match was that the other chap refused to talk to him. What a pro.
Match 2
Milo slipped down a table or two and thus came face-to-face with an entirely different profile of opponent. This fellow did have a chess-pun themed t-shirt (‘Knight to meet you’ with a picture of a Knight taking a pawn, or similar) but he bucked the fashion trend with a yellow bucket hat. I liked it. Even from my distant, elevated vantage point I could tell he was chatty, and fidgety. He stood up, he sat down, he tried to engage the table to his right, he tried to engage the table to his left, and at one point he had clearly lost his scoring sheet. How he managed this on an empty one square metre table I cannot tell you.
The game ended reasonably quickly and I could tell by the smile on the face of my returning son that he had enjoyed a victory. Unlike round one, Milo had a full report for me; he had told his opponent about Lucky the Lorikeet. His opponent had then tried to tell the amazing story to the adjacent tables, and had been shooshed. He had also employed an interesting mind-game on multiple occasions during the match, saying to Milo “I bet you don’t know what I am thinking.” Milo had ignored him two or three times but then had eventually said “No, I don’t know what you are thinking!” to which his opponent had quizzically responded “Wait, I don’t know what you are thinking either!”
It all seemed like a curious, but not unpleasant interaction.
Match 3
Milo was emotionally and physically drained by the time round three arrived on the afternoon of day one. We had walked the streets looking for a vet, scoured the internet for information on Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome and carefully drafted our email to the University of Sydney Professor. And he had already played more than two and half hours of chess.
Milo’s final opponent for the day was tiny, even among a cohort of nine-year-old chess players who are not renowned for their bulk. He sat at the edge of his chair and still his feet dangled. His chess-themed tshirt swam on him, and he looked like his little head might become irretrievably lost in his baseball cap at any moment. But in junior chess, perhaps above all other pursuits with the possible exception of professional hide-and-seek, a slight frame is no impediment to glory.
This was Milo’s longest game of the tournament. His tiny opponent seemed completely still throughout, or perhaps his clothing was so loose that the movement of his limbs had no bearing on the fabric. Milo became distracted and occasionally smiled and waved up at me. Although very sweet and heartwarming, this is rarely a recipe for victory in a game as concentration-dependent as chess. It seems unlikely that Garry Kasparov ever waved to his mum… although a quick google of ‘Kasparov’s mum’ yields a number of articles suggesting they were quite close. So, perhaps he did.
Anyway, because the game was so protracted, I started to study the parents around me, the vast majority clearly chess enthusiasts themselves (t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Rook You!” alongside a Rook dramatically knocking over a Bishop tipped me off). Several of them were in fact zooming their camera phones so tight that they could photograph the boards of their playing children, allowing them to analyse the moves. This analysis then precipitated mutters of satisfaction or sighs of despair, or both, but also light-hearted conversation between these parents, many of whom seemed to know each other already.
I stood quietly by myself, and once the match had come to an end, walked down the stairs to give Milo a little cuddle. It was clear he had lost and so I didn’t even ask him about it. We did a quick circle of the surrounding bushland to spot any other distressed birds and then walked together back to our hotel after an extremely eventful day.
Match 4
Readers of this blog will know that Milo doesn’t really fit the oversized grey tshirt, athletic trousers and New Balance sneakers mould. On day one of the tournament Milo had been rather demure in his attire; chess tournament tshirt and black tights (although he did wear bright red crocs with rainbow coloured fluffy jibbitz exploding out all over the place). On day two he felt a little more comfortable with the environment and so leaned in a little more to his instincts. We have an expression in our house which we use often… ‘weird is interesting’, and everybody is encouraged to be weird in whatever way brings them joy. It is a philosophy very much open to individual interpretation and on that day Milo interpreted it as leopard tights, Tournament of the Minds tshirt, red crocs and his signature giant pink floppy hat. I expected him to remove the hat once play began, but he did not, which made him very easy to spot, and probably somewhat distracting to play.
The match was short and sharp and I could tell from his bouncy exit from the gym that he had won. A great start to the day.
Match 5
Match 5 was also reasonably short, but with a less victorious outcome. The pink hat came bobbing out of the gym once again, but this time in a more languid, dragging manner suggesting disappointment or calf injury.
When we arrived together at the meeting point Milo had a wry smile on his face, which seemed a little paler than usual. “That guy was like the Terminator” he said “I knew I was going to lose as soon as I saw him. It was a scary game.” (for those movie censors at home Milo knows of The Terminator but has not seen The Terminator – at least none of the good ones). According to Milo the Chess Terminator had only spoken twice; once to tell Milo to be quiet, and a second time to tell Milo to be quiet and also to confirm it is a tournament rule to be quiet.
Match 6
The final opponent for day two wore a COVID mask and a flannie, so he too was breaking with the general norms of attire. There was no point me zooming my camera in tight to analyse the game; I would have learned nothing. However, even from my distance I could tell it was an animated game. The two of them were chatting and pointing and thrusting their hands up to ask the adjudicators questions from time to time. Both boys looked focused and alert and the game stretched beyond the hour mark again. Really quite remarkable for nine year old boys who had already played 5 intense games of chess in two days.
Eventually the match ended and Milo bounded out victorious, a stream of words and phrases and energy bubbling out of him “so my rook broke free, but then I was stuck on the back rank, but then we did an exchange to my advantage, then I spotted a winning solution, I checked with my Bishop, he blocked with two Bishops… daddy? daddy? are you listening? Then I saw I could pin him and then I did a back rank check mate.” Awesome.
We went out for burgers and ice cream spiders.
Day 3
George Flopsy joined us for the final day of play. George is a pretty awesome little dude, a stuffed monkey with long arms that hold together with velcro; so he can cling onto the handrail on a bus, or the back of a schoolbag, or around your neck.
Milo wore George around his neck all day, positioned such that he was staring directly, unblinking, at each of his last three opponents. Milo also wore his giant pink hat, so by day three had completely leaned into his weird. We checked the rule book but found nothing precluding the wearing of inanimate, long-armed monkeys around one’s neck, and the adjudicators let it slide.
As I reported in the Lucky story, Milo lost his first game of day three but then, buoyed by the wonderful news of Lucky’s survival, managed to win his last two to finish 5-4 for the tournament, and about 25th out of 100 pretty intense little chess people.
Shortly before being check-mated, Milo’s last opponent for the tournament asked him;
“Why do you have a monkey around your neck?”
“Because he’s cute and I like him.” Milo replied.
The boy nodded and agreed “Yeah, he is pretty cute.”
Jupiter & Sons 