So Chumpy You Can Carve It!

Left: Isla Gorge National Park


At 5 a.m., the Moura dump workers showed up. I quickly drove past them, rolling down my window and waving a cheery hello as they scowled back, one worker sarcastically saying "All right, then!"

Haunted by the raptor, I drove into town but found an intense traffic jam at the Mobil gas station. Male workers in some sort of uniform - vinyl jackets with an orange top half and a blue bottom half, with two horizontal white or yellow stripes, and blue pants - were frantically jamming the station. I waited till nearly 6 a.m. before I could wedge my way in. Turns out, the workers were trying to make the morning shift at the nearby, large Dawson Coal Mine.

As I waited, I listened to country music on the radio. I had always been puzzled by reports that country music was very popular in Australia - C/W singer Keith Urban, for example, is an Aussie, if I'm not mistaken - but it wasn't till I got here that I understood why. Urban Australia is a wafer-thin veneer on the eastern and southeastern coasts of the nation. Everything inland is very like the western United States, in many ways. I some ways, Aussie country is more country than U.S. country is. I listened to one woman singer sing the graces of having grown up country, in the Burnett River area. That area is just a few miles west of Bundaberg, on the Capricornia coast. Imagine, if you will, San Francisco being just the way it is, but Oakland being just like Muskogee.

Driving south on the Leichhardt Highway, I passed Theodore, and I was happy to see the Dawson River had more water in it than it did upstream. I stopped briefly at an overlook at Isla Gorge National Park and I ate breakfast at a sandwich shop in Taroom. I stopped at an Internet cafe in Wanoan, but it was closed, despite posted hours: the huge cricket match between England and Australia was underway. The contest to see who possess the 'urn of ashes' was taking everyone's attention.

I stopped at a supermarket. The first supermarkets in the U.S. were just glorified stores like the Curtis Park market in Sacramento: same here. The three aisles of the Wanoan supermarket were jammed with familiar and unfamiliar merchandise.

I saw a can of dog food - the large can signalling the discount variety. The label was blue and featured a terrier, the same kind as President Bush's dog, Barney. The label proclaimed "CHUM - with Chicken." Chum's motto was:

So Chumpy, You Can Carve It!

That's got to be the best advertising slogan ever!

Left: Historic Australian vehicles on display at the Wanoan Historical Site


I visited the Wanoan Historical site, where the original sheep station had been, and finally joined the Warrego Highway again at Miles. Miles, which had seemed like a shockingly-small town on the way out, now seemed like a vital hub of commerce and civilization.

Then east, towards Dalby, Toowoomba, and Gatton!