The Grumpy Old Doctor, aka GOD, was a solo GP in a small country town for 32 years. He’s now working as a rural and remote locum across Australia. His stories take the form of letters to his daughter, Julia, in Sydney. In this issue, The Grumpy Old Doctor joins fortune-seekers at The Ridge.
Dear Julia
Upon leaving you in Sydney, I flew to Dubbo then headed north to join the Castlereagh Highway at Gilgandra. After lunch across the street from one of Coonamble’s grand Art Deco buildings, I continued on, past the inviting Come By Chance turnoff to Walgett, an unfairly maligned town sitting on flat, unforgiving country.
Sent by The Bulletin to report on the outback, Henry Lawson tramped similarly desolate plains in 1892, further west around Bourke, and was unimpressed by what he found. “You can have no idea of the horrors out here,” he wrote. “Men tramp and beg and live like dogs.”
Driving in air-conditioned comfort, I crossed the Barwon and continued towards the Queensland border and a $2000-a-day job. The rusted carcasses of homegrown mining machinery pointed the way to a town cobbled together with broken dreams. The Ridge, a magnet for misfits and fortune-seekers.
