Observing the Aussies: The Outback...

I've determined that as Americans we have no idea what is meant in Australia by the outback. The first thing that springs to mind of most of my countrymen is, of course, Outback Steakhouse; little realizing that coming to this country and asking an Aussie for a Bloomin' Onion is like shaking a red cape in front of a bull.

This past weekend I had the chance to travel about 4 hours from The City out into South Australia. Now to a person from any normally dense country, this would be an ideal outback. After all, dotted with the towns having names like Elwomple, Meningie, and Willalooka, all having populations of less than 200, a couple of grain silos, and a half-blind stray dog hanging about this would be my idea of an outback. Places where "going downtown" usually means a visit to the general store-slash-post office.

I could swear I saw Sam Drucker waving from the front door of one as we passed it.

And for all that, Australians STILL would not call it the outback. I'm not sure why. I think because you can drive from one town to another on a tank of gas. Or perhaps because you can make the trip without seeing more than 10 wombats in full rigor on the side of the road.

The destination of this excursion was a coastal town named Robe (for a past governor of the state and not a fuzzy garment, thank you very much). Robe rates a post office AND a supermarket so you can tell it's a virtual metropolis. I got a lot of stares when I went into the only hardware store and asked if there was another supermarket in town besides the IGA (every town has an IGA). After an uncomfortable silence there followed such a sonorous "NoOooOOOOOo" it set my teeth to rattling. I felt like such a city slicker.

So just what does make a place the outback? To me, it's any place in Australia where there are more koala crossings than people crossings. Yeah, that'll work.

- Farmer Ted