Ghost Story

“The Kid” taught the Galah to talk and named it after Bobbo’s mate, Vigaro. As it grew older the Galah became so restless in his cage that she released him to fly around the town.

He developed a regular visiting pattern around the township. He would visit one camp for breakfast, another for smoko and then arrive at the school in time to come home with "The Kid". On his circuit he would greet everyone he met with a scratchy,high pitched, “Hello darling”.

One day Dave happened to be at the pub after work when a young Danish couple came in looking for somewhere to camp. Lucky the publican in his usual laconic way offered the caravan park at the pub for free. (“As long as you stay and have a drink.”)

However they had all-new camping gear and were keen to camp in the “Aussie Bush”.

The Progress Association had just spent some funding from The Outback Areas Trust (the district council)improving the area around an old dam a few kilometres out of town. The dam had water, trees and was out of the way, so Dave suggested they camp there.

Off they went, only to return an hour or so later pale faced and shaken. They said they had changed their minds and would like to stay out the back of the pub after all.

After a couple of drinks at Lucky's bar they started to relax and open up a bit.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” the young girl finally asked.

Lucky's attitude was as always, “I’m the publican, while you're here buying drinks, I believe in anything you believe in.”

So he said, “Why?”

They then went on to tell their story in their best broken English.

Apparently they had found the dam, set up their camp and were sitting watching the sunset, drink in hand.

The frightened young girl told Lucky,

"We only had a small bit to drink when we heard something calling out in the trees. It wasn’t a human voice but we could hear maybe a ghost calling out, "Hello Darling, Hello Darling.""

"When we looked around, all we could see was a funny pink and grey bird!"

From Ghost Story to more Outback Yarns