Explore "A Backblocker's Pleasure Trip" by Edward S. Sorenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Seasiders, with their alluring wave lapped beaches, were accustomed to consider such places as Boarke and Hay and Booligal as synonymous with heat and dust and flies; to think of the Darling as an unreliable stream that wound along for thousands of miles through monotonous plains; to picture the country as dreary and lifeless, especially in mid-summer, when the haze played weird tricks with all animate and inanimate objects, and mirages mocked the traveller.
Yet scores of families spent their Christmas vacation on the banks of that historic stream. They hailed from farther out--from Tongowoko, Delalah, Thouleanna, Yantara, Marara, Mootwingee, Yungnulgra, Yancowinna, and other western counties. It was only in wet seasons that boating any where in that corner was possible; in fact, a boat of any kind there was a curiosity; while a swim was a luxury to most.