I have included this photo not for it’s artistic merit but for it’s content, or lack of it. A couple of years back I had a job to photograph a number of outback pubs. I had just finished photographing the deserted Hatfield Hotel and my next job was the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel at Booligal, my GPS said that I needed to go via Ivanhoe which was over 200 km. I had a bit of forethought and had loaded a set of maps from Tracks4Australia which is a very detailed map without auto routing. It showed me a dirt track between Clare and highway 75 that saved me more than 100 km. The land scape was incredible, about half way along the track I stopped and climbed onto the roof of my 4×4 and took in the barren 360 degree view, a view with not a single tree or building, this is a photo looking back towards Clare.
“And people have an awful downUpon the district and the town –
Which worse than hell itself they call;
In fact the saying far and wide
Along the Riverina side
Is Hay and Hell and Booligal ” Hay, Hell and Booligal
A.B. “Banjo” Patterson
