There's a corrugated highway leading north from Port Augusta
Lined with ratted cars that didn't rate a tow
Salt plains out of Pimba and your eyes begin to stream
On to Kingoonya huddled dusty by the road.
Romantic notions shattered like the tyres that didn't hack it
This has got to be the country's last frontier
And a sports car's next to useless running cattle grids and river beds
We drove a van from 1963
And someone mentioned walkabout and kiss your job goodbye
Just to see the country shimmer through the windscreen
Drinking beer and telling stories while the laughter filled the night
And flexi-time's behind you like a bad dream
A flat on Anzac Highway and Lawson on your shelf
Its a southern comfort, air-conditioned rage
But a homestead's more than just a cheap print dangling from a wall
And mateship's more than lines upon a page
We went looking for Australia in between the TV lines
'Cause the ABC just couldn't make it real
A colour documentary from a bean-bag on the floor
Never shows as much as it conceals
A stark and blistered Alice Springs and a river runs with shame
And you wipe the sheets of bulldust from your eyes
Another country's uniform, the mirage it falls apart
To the open gap between the truth and lies
"Go and see your country, mate," the travel agents scream
Politicians sell its heart just for a pastime
Signs and high-wire fences hold the land where I belong
It's as if I'm in the outback for the last time
For the last time
I wrote this song after a road trip to Uluru and Alice Springs in 1974, long before the Stuart Highway was sealed. Arriving at Alice Springs after a long, hard drive I couldn't reconcile the scene in Todd River with the US Air Force uniforms and the huge C-141 Starlifters flying in to re-supply Pine Gap. I was outraged when someone told me that the US Starlifters didn't even have to announce they were in Australian airspace until they were 'on approach'. - JS
Lined with ratted cars that didn't rate a tow
Salt plains out of Pimba and your eyes begin to stream
On to Kingoonya huddled dusty by the road.
Romantic notions shattered like the tyres that didn't hack it
This has got to be the country's last frontier
And a sports car's next to useless running cattle grids and river beds
We drove a van from 1963
And someone mentioned walkabout and kiss your job goodbye
Just to see the country shimmer through the windscreen
Drinking beer and telling stories while the laughter filled the night
And flexi-time's behind you like a bad dream
A flat on Anzac Highway and Lawson on your shelf
Its a southern comfort, air-conditioned rage
But a homestead's more than just a cheap print dangling from a wall
And mateship's more than lines upon a page
We went looking for Australia in between the TV lines
'Cause the ABC just couldn't make it real
A colour documentary from a bean-bag on the floor
Never shows as much as it conceals
A stark and blistered Alice Springs and a river runs with shame
And you wipe the sheets of bulldust from your eyes
Another country's uniform, the mirage it falls apart
To the open gap between the truth and lies
"Go and see your country, mate," the travel agents scream
Politicians sell its heart just for a pastime
Signs and high-wire fences hold the land where I belong
It's as if I'm in the outback for the last time
For the last time
I wrote this song after a road trip to Uluru and Alice Springs in 1974, long before the Stuart Highway was sealed. Arriving at Alice Springs after a long, hard drive I couldn't reconcile the scene in Todd River with the US Air Force uniforms and the huge C-141 Starlifters flying in to re-supply Pine Gap. I was outraged when someone told me that the US Starlifters didn't even have to announce they were in Australian airspace until they were 'on approach'. - JS