Catherine Jinks TheRoad by Unknown Page B

objected.
    ‘I thought we were.’ Noel was muttering again. ‘It’s probably best to be on the safe side, though.’
    ‘When are we going to have ice cream?’ Rose queried, and Peter gave her a nudge. ‘What?’ she said, as he pulled faces at her.
    ‘We’ll get ice cream, sweetie.’ Linda sounded very tired. ‘As soon as we reach an ice cream shop, we’ll have ice cream.’
    ‘But I wa-a-ant one!’
    ‘Rose!’
    ‘It’s okay, Rose,’ Louise said quickly. ‘We can play “Fish”. Do you want to play “Fish”?’
    ‘Yeah!’ Rose’s face brightened. ‘Now?’
    ‘Right now.’
    Peter heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that he was excused all card games while travelling, in case he threw up. (Rose, like Louise, had guts of iron.) While Linda reached into her bag for playing cards, Noel turned his key in the ignition and hauled at the steering wheel. The car swung around in a wide U-turn before starting off down the road.
    Peter found himself looking towards the electricity pylons rather than the creek, and it occurred to him that on their trip up to Broken Hill a week before he must have viewed the same scene from the same angle. If only he could remember more about it!
    ‘We should have bought one of those topographic maps from that army disposal store in Oxide Street,’ he remarked. ‘Those maps had everything on them – all the creeks and ridges and tracks and everything. I bet if we had one of those we could tell where we are.’
    There was no reply. Recollecting that his parents had scoffed at his suggestion that they purchase a set of such maps, at eight dollars each (when they had already spent eighty, in the same shop, on an Akubra for Noel) Peter wasn’t surprised that they refused to comment. Peter had always liked maps. He liked drawing his own maps of imaginary kingdoms, and he liked studying the family atlas. His request for a set of topographic maps had therefore been regarded as just another attempt to pursue one of his hobbies, and had been greeted no more favourably than Louise’s request for a new pair of polarised sunglasses.
    Peter thought: So I was right all along, wasn’t I? You should have bought those maps.
    ‘Okay. Let’s see. Have you got . . . an octopus?’ Louise inquired of her sister, and, upon receiving a negative reply, picked up a card from the centre stack. ‘Oh! Two seahorses.’
    ‘Yell if you spot that mailbox, Peter,’ Linda said. ‘It’ll be on your side, and we don’t want to miss it.’
    ‘Those maps had all the stations marked on them too,’ Peter continued. ‘With their names.’
    ‘Yes, well, that’s very interesting, I’m sure. But since we don’t have any topographic maps, it’s not very useful, is it?’
    ‘Do you have a goldfish?’ Rose asked, and Louise nodded.
    ‘Yes,’ she replied, drawing a card from the collection dealt to her.
    ‘Yay! Do you have a crab?’
    They retraced their route, heading north again, as the sun travelled across the sky.
    Chris and Graham McKenzie were following in the steps of
Burke and Wills. For three long years they had planned their trip,
    which would take them north from Melbourne, across the New South Wales border to Menindee, past White Cliffs, through Tibooburra and into the Sturt Stony Desert. They didn’t necessarily expect to get as far as Normanton during the two weeks available to them, but they were hoping that they might see Birdsville, and even Boulia. At the very least, they would be visiting a portion of Queensland’s far west.
    Chris had researched the area thoroughly. He had purchased the requisite maps and guidebooks, and had read almost every available text dealing with the ill-fated journey. He found it a strangely compelling story. In 1861, Robert O’Hara Burke and William Wills had set off at the vanguard of a great expedition into Australia’s heart, with the purpose of discovering a route from Australia’s south coast to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition had ended