Ten Thousand Campfires

 You have probably seen Rex Ellis on TV. He is constantly turning up on the box with his team of camels and his adventurous urban guests hanging on for dear life somewhere in the sandy wastes of the Red Heart, maybe near Birdsville. Or traversing Lake Eyre full of water and pelicans in his beloved tinny. Rex lives a nomadic, desert life out there that you and I can only dream about. For a desert wanderer he is pretty talkative and has a mad sense of humour, but when he does do his block with a recalcitrant safari guest or a stubborn camel, he gets volcanic.

Ellis has the knack of extracting the ridiculous or the absurd essence wherever he travels. He is an observer of the human condition, and focuses by inclination on the farcical. Perhaps his lifetime of observing outback wildlife gives him an excellent basis for a comparative study of crazy human behaviour. He has always taken paying guests on his outback adventures, and his colourful and varied descriptions of their shenanigans will bring great satisfaction to the superior armchair adventurer. 

And of course every evening there is the campfire. Ellis sees the campfire as the quintessence of the freedom of the outback, the relaxation after a hard day’s yakka, the yarn spinning, the chai-yacking and the camaraderie that develops so easily while you all stare at the mysterious, inspiring flames rather than at a mind-deadening TV set. This is the very essence of outback travelling, and Ellis’s highly emotional introduction leaves no doubt about the way he feels about these magic evenings.

So, folks, it’s still not too late! If you can’t get out there straightaway, then read the book. Ten Thousand Campfires leaves no doubt that there is still plenty of the real, old-fashioned Australia in the Red Heart and it is pretty easy to distinguish it from what the author refers to as the ‘sanitized’ metropolitan Australia.