Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Elephant's Child and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. camel 2. bone 3. carving 4. application 5. river 

and/or: 

1. journey 2. shock 3. family 4. crown 5. colours

Charlotte's colour of the month is Clay Brown , but I didn't manage to fit that in this week.

Here is my story:

I had my job application forms filled out and in envelopes ready to be posted the day we got back from our holiday, but for now, Chris and I were busy packing, repacking and re-re-packing as we tried to fit only the absolute essentials into the spaces delegated to us by Dad in his new RV motor home. We would be living in it for three months so I considered a good supply of batteries an essential, until Dad reminded me most of our things charged off USB cords, so I ditched the batteries idea and packed extra socks in their place. Mum and Dad were both taking their long-service leave and we were about to embark on a long, long journey around half of Australia.

Beginning in Adelaide, we planned to drive across the Nullarbor to Perth, then follow the coast line up to Broome, or maybe a bit further to Derby, depending on the available roads, and then cut across to Darwin, where we would stay a few days with Dad’s Aunty so Mum could restock the dried goods and cans of soups, before we headed down through the Red Centre and back to Adelaide, with a two day stop in Alice Springs along the way. Our Uncle Simon, for whom I’d been named worked in the Casino there. We hadn’t seen him since I was five! He’d get a shock seeing how tall I’d grown since then. At six feet I was now taller than anyone else in the family. I was pretty sure Christopher would catch up to me soon though. Mum wanted sunset photos of Uluru, the jewel in the crown that is Australia.

Dad said our first stop after Perth would be the wildflower areas of Western Australia, Mum wanted to take plenty of photos, she’d heard the colours were amazing and wanted to try her hand at painting them after we got home again. We finally had everything organized in the RV, said good bye to our neighbours who would water the garden for us and headed to the nearest Service Station to fill up the tanks. Filling up the tanks would take up a fair sized portion of our holiday as we soon found out, since Mum would worry that they’d be empty just when we were in the middle of nowhere, so Dad had to stop a few more times than he would have if driving alone.

Christopher and I had long passed the bickering teenage years and were now firm friends at 19 and 17. He did continue to tease me about Joanne though. The driving part of the trip got to be boring after a while, so on straight stretches of road Dad would let Chris and me take turns driving for a short while. He said learning to handle a “big rig” would come in handy one day, while Mum sat in the back and pretended not to worry. Mum was keen to stay overnight at licensed caravan parks the whole way, but Dad insisted a few nights here and there out in the wild would be good for us, and he was right! Somewhere in the Pilbara area, or close to it, we chanced upon a river bed. With trees either side of it Dad said there surely must be water and drove towards it. We parked on a big flat area and walked to the banks of the river where we found it to be dry as a bone.

Not only dry, but there were bones in it! Mum was despairing at the lack of water, though we had plenty in the RV and out from the shadow of a tree stepped an old man, so darkly coloured we hadn’t noticed him. “G’day” he said, “you lookin’ for water?” “We did hope there might be some,” said Dad, “ because of the trees, they need water right?” The old man said, “water here but not close, come to the rocky part and I show it to you.” We followed him along the river bed until it became more rocky then he stopped and gave us each a digging stick. “Now you dig,” he said. “dig deep, then wait,” he said. He began and we copied and when each hole was about a foot deep we rested and were amazed at the water seeping into the holes. “Not drink right away,” said the old man, who told us a white man had named him Jacko, many years ago. “Let the water settle or you be drinking sand!” he cackled quite loudly.

We managed to get a conversation going and learned the bones in the riverbed were from a camel that had been butchered and eaten quite some time ago, the carcass had been left for the ants and dingoes to clean up and now the bones were ready, he said. “Ready for what?” asked Mum. “We carve them and make things we need,” said Jacko, “or just pretty things for the girls in the tribe. Not many girls left now, they go to the stations and learn with the station kids from School of the Air, then sometimes they go to towns and get proper jobs. The boys too, not many want to learn the bone carving anymore. They want the money and the modern things.”