Day 13.15

Ted does his job and waves to all passing traffic. Some do, some don’t wave back. We can almost pick them now. The ‘local’ guys in their utes score the highest. They often accompany their enthusiastic ‘full-hand off the wheel’ wave with a broad smile and a tilt of the head. Close second would be the remarkable men who drive the road trains. A long way behind, I am sad to say, are the ‘visitors’ towing their caravans. Mostly retirees doing what some retirees do. Though in this category the men get a far higher score than the women. However, the lowest score of the lot goes to the women who live locally. At least when driving. “I guess the ladies have got their emancipation. They don’t have to do anything they don’t want to do.” says Chewie, teasingly. I take the bait. I am one of those girls (almost 50 actually) who agrees that women have lost much and gained very little in the last 30 odd years. It’s not feminism that I am against at all. Don’t get me wrong. This sister’s been doing for herself all along. Just ask Chewie. It’s just that I prefer to focus on partnership. Simply put, I share the opinion of ‘Pepe le Pew’: “Viva la difference!”

Ted has his own observations. “ I’m tired of waving my whole arm when they don’t even raise a finger in acknowledgement. It’s disappointing. It’s rude. It’s just not very nice. What’s their problem?” “Maybe their knuckles are too heavy to lift off the steering wheel?” I refer to the general obesity of many a lady traveler out here and recall that on most occasions in the caravan parks, women are seldom seen doing anything else other than sitting around knitting or, when they are not gas-bagging, stuffing their faces. They seldom make the effort, by their own admission, to go for a walk up the jetty with him, their partner. As one of the ladies, while sitting with her knitting outside of her caravan, tea and cream biscuit close at hand, said: “I couldn’t be bothered going with him. This way he’s got his fishing and I have everything I need right here. ‘Don’t care if it takes ten years to get around Australia’ I told him. ‘As long as I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything.’” Please understand that not all women are like that, but a large portion certainly is. (Yes, another pun intended.) “Maybe they are afraid to take their attention off the road, Venus and Mars and all that.” I continue the bitch session. “Come on,” says Ted, “it’s hardly a flicker of the eyes.” We ponder our grumblings for a little and decide that perhaps it is that ‘they do not know’. Maybe we are a little too used to getting our own way, having put in all the effort to rig up Ted’s paw to be able to wave, so we now resent anyone who doesn’t wave back. So there you go, we’re not all that different after all.

We reach the “90 mile straight”, Australia’s longest straight road, just past Caiguna. “What a nice stretch of road. So much smoother than the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne.” reflects Chewie.

‘Not the only bit of straight road around here, mind you, but the longest. Although the others come close.’