Quentin Smith is about 5-foot-9, has bright blue eyes with smile creases at the outer corners and a beard streaked with white. He`s sun-browned, looks to be mostly bone and muscle-if there is any fat on him it sure doesn`t show. My wife, Joyce, and I met him on a tour of South Australia`s Flinders Ranges and the Outback. He told us he had a wife who ”sings like an angel and cooks better than Mom. Anybody`s mom.”
We had no reason to doubt him. Quent was the best driver and one of the finest guides we`ve ever met, and full of enthusiasm for his country.
Every time we topped a crest, Quent would straighten up in the driver`s seat and turn toward us, ”Will you look at that, Mates! Isn`t that just about the most wonderful sight you`ve ever seen?”
We had all learned in the first hour that agreeing quickly was the best way of getting him to look back at the road.
”Beautiful! Wonderful! Far out! Eyes front,” we`d yell.
The ”roads” or what passed for roads along the mountain ridges deserve all of a driver`s attention, but Quent was right; the scenery was awe inspiring. Full of every kind of wildlife imaginable and some you can`t imagine. The air was alive with magpies, eagles and wild gullahs (a red and gray parrot) against the backdrop of a mountain range whose age, at best estimate is 1,600 million years.
Everything was special.
So was our vehicle. It was custom-made, baby-blue, held 24 passengers, was all steel, air-conditioned, had three braking systems and looked like a giant ”biscuit tin” with windows being pulled by a truck cab.
On the sides and back, in letters a foot high the word TWIT appeared.
”It stands for `Travel With Intrepid Tours,”` said Quent with a broad smile. ”I use it mostly because it bothers the government people so much. Who knows, if you complete this tour without too much whining and complaining, maybe you and your lovely wife get certified TWITs, too.”
In four-wheel-drive and second gear, Quent edged up a slope that would have required compound-low from most vehicles, topped the summit and parked. He opened the doors and killed the engine.
”Tea time,” he said. ”Tea and bickies. Everybody out.” The rising thermals off the mountains supplied lift for a pair of eagles who were soaring in and out of the canyons below. While the same rising air gave all of us upswept hair-dos, we had our ”tea” from a platform at the back of the bus.
Mine was coffee and just average but the bickies were superb. ”My wife made `em and you better eat `em,” said Quent, ”because if you don`t you`ll be in big trouble with Margaret.”
The bickies, a kind of oatmeal cookies called Anzacs, were made with aged golden honey. Nobody got in trouble with Margaret.
Traveling companions
Probably because we were pushing the season, we weren`t a very large group. There was Sven, a tall, good looking Northern European, in his middle 20s who seemed to greet everything with the enthusiasm and delight of a child. When Quent made a very bad pun out of his name (”Who knows where or Sven?”) Sven thought it was terrific. ”He makes a choke out of my name,”
said Sven. ”I love that. I yust love it.”
”When an Aussie picks on you, boy, it means he likes you.”
”Then,” said Sven, ”you might take a really good beating as the ultimate compliment?”
”You`ll know it `Sven` it happens.”
”I yust love that.”
Max and Heather Martin, who were going to buy into Quent`s company, were in the group as were two girls, one from London and the other from Israel. One of them was trying to get over a romance that had gone bad.
The Haggards from Queensland were along ”just to see how the other half lives.” Haggard said the South Australians didn`t really live any better but they did seem to have a lot more fun.
Haggard confided that part of his reason he had chosen this tour was Quentin Smith, himself. ”Wins prizes as a guide, he does. Brilliant bloke,” said Haggard. ”Probably knows half the roos, euros and wallabies up here by their first names. You`ll see.”
We did. If Quent didn`t know the individual animals personally, he did know everything else by at least one name and sometimes three, English, Latin and an Aboriginal dialect.
”The word `kangaroo,` ” he said, ”is aboriginal meaning, `I don`t know.` When the English first got here one of them asked what that funny animal was; the aborigine he was talking to said `gong-ga-roo,` which means `I don`t know.` We been calling them that ever since.”
He knew how the various species interacted and how to tell us about it.
”The roos and the euros might look the same but they`re different. Euroes have hair instead of fur, pretty faces, prefer the hills and have the posture of the average teenager. The roos have fur, stay mostly on the flat lands and sit up straight. The only thing here that can outrun the roos and euroes is the emmu but they`re not too clever about when or where to run.
”They seem to favor the middle of the night, in front of your car. They`re dumber than chuks (which is Australian for `chicken`). Even dumber than your average politician. Well, maybe not that dumb.”
Not chewing the fat
On early tampering with Australia`s ecology he had firm opinions.
”The early English gentry brought the foxes to hunt and the rabbits to feed the foxes, then they brought goats and cats, which they turned out. Now, we`ve got more rabbits and feral goats than a roos got lice and your wild pussy-cats, have got so prosperous some of them weight up to 35 pounds and will eat anything that`ll stand still and some things that won`t.”
”Yes, I`ve eaten the white grubs. They`re very much like pork fat and fry up quite nice. Pretty crunchy, though, if you leave the heads on.”
Several of the ladies and at least one of us men said ”Eeeyuuu!”
Toward the end of the first day as Quent was driving through a dry creekbed and some River-gum Eucalyptus, there was one beautiful tree that seemed to be wearing it`s bole 20 feet up, at a point just below where it branched out.
When someone asked about it, Quent scratched his beard, ”I`d say when the water does come through here, it must be pretty cold.”
After he`d got his laugh he explained that the false bole was a tree fungus and told us its Latin name. Sven nudged me, ”This man is very funny and he is also a genius. He should be teaching in a university. Most unusual.”
We found out just how unusual during dinner at the Wilpena Pound Lodge where we stopped for the night. As we were having coffee, Sven asked what Quent considered the outstanding view site in the whole of the Flinders Ranges.
Quent scratched his beard for a moment. ”One I hope no other human being ever has,” he said. ”You know what Gelignite is?” For those who didn`t he explained that it was a powerful explosive used in mining.
”Well,” he said, ”when I was about 14, me and my mate pinched some from one of the mines. We were out in a rowboat that belonged to me mate`s old dad. Fishing was slow so we thought it might be a good idea to use some of that gelignite to blow the fish out of the water.
”So, we packed some of it in a billy can, stuck a fuse in and I lowered it to the bottom of the lake on a wire.
”My mate touched the ends of the wire to this old car battery. Next thing I knew there was an awful thump, someone had knocked the wind out of me, and I and this fountain of water were up in the air and I was looking at the mountains from way high up.” Quent started to laugh and used his napkin to wipe his eyes.
”You know how your whole life is supposed to flash before your eyes?
Didn`t happen,” said Quent. ”didn`t see my life at all. But it did seem I was up there for the longest time and I remember telling myself how beautiful the mountains were and asking myself how in the world I ever got up there to see them that well.
”Then, I was back in the water with rowboat planks and dead fish. My mate`s old dad never did find out how we got so bruised and cut up or what had happened to his boat.”
Writing a wrong
Understandably, it was at about that time when he started having trouble with his hearing which, for him, was very serious because it was the only way he had of getting information. He had found out that he had a perception disorder called dyslexia.
My wife jumped on that immediately. ”You mean you couldn`t read or write?”
”Not a word,” said Quent. ”I had always listened carefully and worked so hard at remembering I didn`t forget much. I could fake it a little and some people would read aloud for me but black letters on a white page wouldn`t even hold still for me. They still won`t but all that`s behind me, now.”
He told about being a part of an experimental program for people with dyslexia utilizing colored paper and colored transparent overlays over the printed page. It had worked. As he grew to adulthood he gradually taught himself to read. ”It was hard and I still read slowly but it works.
”Even my brochure is in brown ink on cream paper so I can read it.” He paused for a moment and winked, ”and so maybe other people with the same problem can read it, too.”
On the way to our room Joyce said, ”The man takes every adversity as a challenge. Sven was wrong. He shouldn`t be teaching in a university. He should be running the country.”
The following morning we went to ”Sacred Canyon” where we saw petroglyphs that predated the aborigines; then went through areas that would drive the average rock-hound crazy.
Joyce made me stop slipping specimens into my pockets. She was afraid the weight would be too much for my belt. I was just as glad; one pocket was beginning to go and my arches had disappeared completely. I like rocks.
We stopped at a billabong, which is a pool left in a river that`s going dry, and Quent made us some Billy-tea and a damper over an open fire. A damper is a giant biscuit Aussies make in a dutch oven. When it`s done you rip it apart, pour wild honey on it and fight over it with whoever else is there.
The English girl said it would do nicely for a first meal in heaven.
That afternoon and evening Quent drove us over a road that couldn`t make up it`s mind whether it was a riverbed or a firebreak, to a former sheep station named Arkaroola. There we met Doug Spriggs, astronomer, mineralogist, justice of the peace, naturalists, hotelier, and airline pilot. But that`s another story.
The next day Quent drove us to the Arkaroola International Airport. We all helped Doug push the Arkaroola Airline out of the hanger onto the dirt runway.
Quent gave us all our official TWIT certificates, shook hands with the men and hugged all the women. Then, after checking out the toes of his boots for a few seconds, he hugged all the men, too. ”For an American,” he said,
”you`re not all that bad.”
To Sven he said, ”Let me know `Sven` you can come back. We`ll save you a place, Mate.”
On takeoff Smith, leaning against a fender, looked small and a little dejected. We waved.
”Darn,” said Sven. ”I miss him already.”
I thought, me too.
”Well,” said Joyce. ”It isn`t as if we weren`t going to come back.”
GETTING SET FOR THE OUTBACK
Following is a list of companies that operate tours of the South Australian Outback.
Intrepid Tours, Quentin or Margaret Smith, Box 31, Quorn, South Australia, 5433.
Flinders Ranges Safaris, Brian Dobson, Box 36, Hawker, South Australia, 5434.
Arkaroola Travel, Doug Spriggs, 50 Pirie St., Adelaide, South Australia, 5000.
Pichi Richi Saddle and Pack Horse Treks, Day treks mostly, Box 25, Quorn, 5433.
Tailored Tours, Kathy Cawrse, 335 Carrington St., Adelaide, South Australia.
For the best time and the most magic, you will need four-wheel-drive and a guide.
For further information contact: Tourism South Australia, Suite 1210, 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, Calif. 90067; 213-552-2821 or S. A. Government Travel Center, 18 King St., Adelaide S. A. 5000.
