Riding a camel must be about the most monotonous form of entertainment in the world. they walk along at their two and a half miles an hour with a rock and sway and jerk, backwards and forwards and from side to side. They follow the tracks of the camel in front accurately and chew the cud to keep themselves amused. The whole days journey can be seen in the morning if there is good visibility across the flat plains. The scenery hardly changes. After hours of this sort of thing one drops into a contemplative mood, then smack comes the camel calf through the nose line and it's 'Hoosta, Hoosta' to the camel in front who gets down and squats like a giraffe swallowing a pill and bubbles and belches and protests while one ties up the nose peg again, then up again and sway, sway, sway till lunch time when the everlasting unloading and loading starts again.
As it is summer here, travel in Central Australia is generally limited to the early morning and evening. The practice is to rest in the middle of the day, at least the hot part, from half past one to three thirty.
During the day our camel boy came up on a good riding camel and brought with him a telegram handed in at the station the morning before concerning the films.
