I'VE GOT A MAN CRUSH ON BEN HALL

Some kilometers past the New South Wales town of Grenfell; where the alcoholic and roaming poet Henry Lawson was born, is a road sign to the cave of bushranger Ben Hall. I have reluctantly passed it a number of times and did so again, before pulling up a hundred meters down the road and returning.  

Lawson's Norwegian father brought his family to the Grenfell goldfields to prospect. Ben Hall was there to rob the stage coaches. So successful was he that Cobb & Co published their timetables with the caveat 'Ben Hall Permitting.'

Now here is an admission. I think I have a man-crush on Ben Hall. He joins a select group. Paul Keating and Bjorn Borg are the others. You can learn a lot about a man from the men he has a man-crush on. Also about his self-perception. I have always seen myself somewhere between Borg's brooding intensity, Keating's sense of decorum and Ben Hall's boyish charm. With a touch of Oscar Wilde thrown in.

There's nothing serious between me and Ben Hall but just about everything about him thrills me. The way he reprised Robin Hood by never robbing the poor. The way he held up pubs, shouted the bar and then settled the bill as he rode off.

The way he led the colonial fuzz on a merry chase until, ambushed by them at 27 years of age and shot in the back as he made his escape, he shouted 'I am wounded ... shoot me dead.'

They were happy to oblige, 30 times with double-barrelled shotguns and .56 calibre Colt rifles. 

Ben was the classic wronged outlaw. I've written about him more in my book and so, unlike the police, will keep my powder dry.

Under Wedden Mountain where Ben Hall hid in caves, Tommie and I make our first camp. It is as beautiful a place as I could have hoped. Amongst the native pines of the state forest, I get a fire going and cook my favourite pasta. It is bloody cold and gets colder as the night goes on. By 6pm I am thinking about bed. Instead I just load the fire up.

When Tommie jumps into the back of the troopy I ascend into the penthouse. I love it. No more than that. I adore it. I am up amongst the trees and warm despite leaving the windows down. There is a moment of exquisite realization that I am a traveller. The roost has roosted. The bird has flown.

I drift off into western plains slumber. It is so quiet that different gusts of wind play distinguishable tunes on the pines and gums.

In a very manly way I imagine Ben Hall sleeping on a bed of leaves, his virile odour wafting from tight bush-ranging muscles encased in equally tight horse-riding pants as moonlight touches his powerful yet sensitve face. Whoops! That just slipped out. 

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I am hesitant to tell the next story. You might remember Swagman John who emerged on the highway just seconds after my acceptance of leaving my home. On this, my first full day on the road he was packing up camp just near West Wyalong. 

As we share a cup of tea I don't bother to try and calculate the impossible odds of meeting him like this again. 

John could not be described as a 'people person'. Conversation is almost impossible so it is best to sink into the moment. He is deeply comfortable with it while I fight it like quick sand.

'Where you heading?' ... 'Queensland' ... 'What part?' He just shrugs his shoulders. Well it was a stupid question. 

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Three days later and I am within range of Alice Springs. With light fading I turned off the road to find a camp. Amongst the mulga forest a single tree was lit so beautifully that at first I missed the two wild goats that scrambled away, leaving their new born kid. The poor little beast stood quivering with new life, an umblical cord dangling still, Tom and I its first human and canine visions.

It wobbled back to the mob like a daddy long legs on downers as the frantic parents bayed, if thats what goats do, from a distance.

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So we are into the journey.

A desert goat has its life ahead of it. John walks the road in deepest silence. Tom's life is bordered by the narrow but rich world of food and love.

In the morning I turn the ignition key and have a sense that I am living in my life, for better or worse.

Ben Hall is long dead but his legend lives. Henry Lawson's words are always hereabouts:

“Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways,

And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low,

I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not,

And restless and lost on a road that I know.”

c ya

Raymond

PS. I would ask all my male readers, in the spirit of openness, to share their man-crushes.