The boys and I have just returned from the Northern Territory. Travelling from Mongarlowe to Tennant Creek via Queensland (3125 km) and back via South Australia (3275 km) gets you through every State and Territory in the country except Western Australia and Tasmania.

Driving all day for days without coming to a hill and hardly a bend in the road gives a bloke plenty of time to remember stories from the desert country. Here are a couple.

In a place where there a few jobs and many people receiving welfare payments you will find coots who come up with creative ways to make a living. There is such a business in Tennant Creek which exists by providing ‘book-up’.

Most people these days have a key card from the bank and a lot of time can be spent inserting the card in the auto teller slot to see if the fortnight’s money is in yet. More often than not the answer is ‘no funds available’ and this means the kids go hungry. Sometimes even a request for your balance puts you further in the red but that is another story.

There is another way to get food though – book-up. If you leave your card (and the pin) with this particular shop you can get supplies on credit. Of course then you’re hooked, can never catch up and the business keeps the card until you pay off the debt – that’s the hard part.

I have seen the owner of this business, late at night, holding his pin number sheet, feeding card after card into the auto teller and pocketing the cash. The bank does not like the practice but it’s not actually against the law to give out your card and its pin number.

So far all attempts to outlaw book-up have failed – the dependent clients are loath to complain and the record keeping is vague and secretive.

The next story is on a lighter note. I know an Aboriginal woman artist in Tennant Creek whose paintings have become hugely popular. Her shows have been sellouts down south and her earnings have at times been way above average, so much so that one year she received a tax bill from the ATO.

An Assessment Notice with tax owing is a rare sight amongst CDEP workers and you’d have to admit the tear-off bit at the bottom does look a bit like a cheque. The art centre co-ordinator did her best to explain that it was a bill to be paid rather than a refund.

However, following the ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ philosophy of dealing with the arcane ways of the white-fella, a small party set off for the local discount store. Here, they had a stroke of luck.

The young girl on the till that day also thought the tear-off Remittance Notice was a cheque and cashed it to the tune of a thousand dollars or more with the usual proviso that half of the money had to be spent in the store.

After choosing some white goods the cashed-up party headed for the Food Barn for groceries and they had just made it to the checkout queue when the owner of the discount store flew in. He had returned to his till to discover his niece’s blunder and was just in time to have all the purchases returned to the shelves.

Modern life in the outback, it can make you cry and it can make you laugh.