EDGE OF THE WORLD
“I RECKON SOMEONE MIGHT’VE gone through the fibre optics cable on their tractor.” It serves me right, I suppose, for asking the big, bearded bloke pulling beers behind the bar why I can’t get emails on my iPhone. The men all round him – knocking back ice-cold stubbies after a long day trolling for game fish – hardly look the Facebook type. Tall tales aren’t for mates a thousand kilometres away; they’re for the blokes beside you. The ones that slap your back and scream advice as you pull the big one in. The type who’ll back up your bullshit stories, because they’ll sure as hell want you to back up theirs.
“The same thing happened last year.” Oh, the bartender’s actually serious: someone really did run over the internet on their tractor. “All of East Arnhem Land lost their signal for a week.” The sun’s setting outside, a splurge of orange and red so profound someone should be selling tickets; though nobody, of course, can post a single shot. Out in the mangroves and beside the rough sand beaches that skirt the Gulf of Carpentaria – just beyond the safety of my spot here on the deck of Groote Eylandt Lodge – the encroaching dark is full of creatures that would love to drag me down under all that blood-warm ocean.
