A SADHU OF THE OUTBACK

I was driving along the Olympic Highway on the way to Cootamundra. Just another motorist on a country road. Inside my head raged an epic struggle between the powerful anchor of home and the lure of a wandering life. It had done so relentlessly for months and was now in its final death throes. Like Spencer Tracy and that fish in The Old Man and the Sea. Finally and completely the road triumphed where it matters most, in the pit of my stomach.

Flushed with that resolution I rounded the next bend.

On the left side of the road walked an old man, his worldly possessions harnessed to his back. I knew in an instant that this was John, Australia's LAST SWAGMAN.

I had seen him on Australian Story years ago. I pulled up and offered him a cup of tea.

Never say no to a hot brew.

John has trekked for 35 years and is about my age. We both look it. After 2 years in a bank job he took a holiday and then kept walking. His family thought he was dead but after the television program they were re-united. He writes to his mother every month now and was on his way to visit his sister. She feeds him up for a week and he is off again.

I asked where he sleeps. He pointed to the side of the road.

I do everything wrong ... he smiles ... I just sleep in the long grass with the snakes.

John has a stoic's simplicity. He carries only a couple of blankets, a tarp, a few clothes and some sheets of plastic.

What do you do at night?

I read or think.

What happens if it rains?

I put the plastic over me and sit under a tree.

What if it keeps raining?

I keep sitting. A second smile.

The longest time under the plastic was in Queensland for 5 days of torrential rain.

John collects coins from the side of the road.

Those gold ones add up. You can get to $5.

His life is totally carbon neutral. He doesn't even make a fire at night. A tea bag is placed in a bottle of cold water and infuses as he walks. He eats from cans of noodles and spaghetti and the culinary discards from passing cars.

My gas billy boils and we have the first of many cups of tea over the next hour or so. I tried not to punctuate the quiet in which he sits with ease.

John isn't going anywhere. He is here. The long grass as good to sleep in as it will be 5 miles down the road.

Time is something I've got plenty of  he said when I thanked him for giving me his.

I tell him that meeting him means something to me. Of the fears of being without my home and family. He nodded and gave me the third in the trinity of smiles. It was deeply kind.

As I headed off I offered him my gas stove.

Can you use this John?

Nope ... A pause ... When you've got nothing you can go anywhere.

People climb the Himalayas to hear stuff like that in Tibetan. I heard it on the side of a road outside Cootamundra in a slow Australian drawl.

How did I meet this man at that moment of resolution? I don't know. Seeking meaning is still seeking a payoff, the accountant's dividend on life's investment. I have no proof but I did see it as a validation. How could I not?  That it came when it did is a splendid wonder that resides in both the unknowable and the immeasurable.

God's Speed John and to the spirits of all the other swagmen who walked the Australian bush like Sadhus of the Outback.