Latest / Salt of the Earth / Ep 128: Lyall Oldfield

Transcript

Ep 128: Lyall Oldfield · Salt of the Earth

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Well done to Stalls of the Earth.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: So we're sitting at the Marae Roadhouse in South Australia.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: I've just met one of the real characters of the ATAC.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: His name is Lyle Oldfield.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And I reckon he's a hidden gem.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: There was no preparation for this interview, no notes, no questions written down.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: We just sat down and started talking.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: And what came out of it was bloody fascinating.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: His grandparents raised 13 children.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: 13.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Lyle lost his mum when he was just nine years old.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And he tells us about losing both his grandfathers in the Todd River.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Right in front of him.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: What age did he leave school?
0:49
SPEAKER_03: Um 11, 12?
0:52
SPEAKER_03: And uh went driving yet.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Lyle was just 10 when he first went droving.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: He left school a year or two later and headed straight back out with a thousand head of cattle.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Proper droving the hard way.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Meat, butter, and milk had to last for weeks.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: No refrigeration.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: He talks about temperatures hitting 47 degrees and beyond.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And about life in a place where the population is around 70.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And he reckons this is the opportunist country.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: You've got to make things happen.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And somehow, from very little, Lyle has built some pretty incredible businesses.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: But there's something else he said.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Something that really stuck with me.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: You've got to respect the Outback for the Outback to respect you.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And sitting here in MARE listening to this bloke talk, I reckon that pretty much sums him up.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: This is Lyle Oldfield, a cracking story from Maori in South Australia.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Lyle.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: How are we going?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Mate, really good.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: I feel a bit privileged to be able to talk to you.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: You feel like you might be even, you know, nearly the like the mayor of town.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no.
2:10
SPEAKER_03: Um no, but yeah, I lived here most of my life around here, mainly on the Virgil track, but yeah.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: And where are we today?
2:17
SPEAKER_03: As what, as in Maury?
2:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I'm still here in the roadhouse.
2:21
SPEAKER_03: So I've been in the roadhouse now.
2:23
SPEAKER_03: I come in from fencing uh in '83, so and I haven't left the town.
2:28
SPEAKER_03: I've left the town, but haven't left the living out of the town now.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Right, so Maury is located whereabouts?
2:35
SPEAKER_03: Well, most people know where Lake Hare is, is the easiest way to explain it.
2:39
SPEAKER_03: So it's about 100K, just not quite, but around about 100k to Lake Hare.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And where were you born?
2:46
SPEAKER_03: Alice Springs.
2:48
SPEAKER_03: Really?
2:49
SPEAKER_03: So way back in those days with the railway line and the old people that were around.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: My grandfather and grandmother brought up 13 kits along the along the railway track and um finished up settling down in Alice when round about when I was born.
3:04
SPEAKER_03: They actually both got drowned.
3:06
SPEAKER_03: Two of my grandfathers got drowned in that in the Todd River, actually.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: So both grandfathers got drowned in the Todd River.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: How did that happen?
3:14
SPEAKER_03: Well, there's new things called those Land Rovers come out, and they went across one with about a couple of feet of water, and so they come back to do it again.
3:22
SPEAKER_03: And uh we were all standing there.
3:24
SPEAKER_03: I was only a little toddler, and um they stopped them.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: But when you put the Land Rover in reverse, a lot of times you got second gear and then he went in.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: Oh, it wouldn't have been a meter, but the force of the water sucked them in.
3:36
SPEAKER_03: It's that powerful.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, it was powerful stuff, that water.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: And just took them under.
3:41
SPEAKER_03: Took them in the Land Rover, tipped it over, and uh then they were buggered down, yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: So you were there.
3:47
SPEAKER_03: We were all there, yeah.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: Mobber cousins and mum and her sisters were there, yeah.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Right.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: So your grandparents raised 13?
3:54
SPEAKER_03: 13 kids along the along the Gan line.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Now the Oldfield names are pretty famous names.
4:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, the um Oldfields come down from Cloncurry in 34, and uh they were drovers.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: They uh finished up, two of them married two sisters from Urlenny, and we've been here ever since.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And now Viv Oldfield, tell me about him.
4:21
SPEAKER_03: Viv is a second cousin of mine.
4:23
SPEAKER_03: His father Ron was my first cousin, obviously uh Uncle Mick, his his grandfather, yeah.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Now he's possibly the biggest landholder in Australia.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and probably the biggest one with cattle, I would imagine.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's done fantastic, hasn't he?
4:38
SPEAKER_03: So right across Australia, there's various stations that he's yeah, yeah, it's not just here on the Virgil track.
4:44
SPEAKER_03: I think this might be the duel in the crown, though the the uh Clifton Hills, as far as fattening cattle goes.
4:50
SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, he's got the stations all over Western Australia, Northern Territory, and plenty of stuff down the southeast, I think.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: And just cattle?
4:59
SPEAKER_03: Yes, as far as I know, yeah.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and one colour in particular, Angus or red or uh he has a lot of brafts, and yeah, so I'm guessing that yeah it's sort of why they get fat, I think, is the main thing.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's the main thing.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: So going back to your early days, tell me about school.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: Well, we actually went to school in Farina for a little while and we left there in 57 and we went out to Clayton, that's on the Birdsville track, and uh mum died when we were there.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know, seven, eight, nine, something like that.
5:31
SPEAKER_03: When your mum died?
5:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she died.
5:33
SPEAKER_03: Well the health system wasn't that good in Maori in those days, but you know, it is very good now.
5:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, we have the flying doctor in a new clinic, and you know, we're probably better off than Adelaide.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: We've got a nurse basically available 24 hours and a doctor on the end of the phone, so we're pretty lucky now.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: So your dad brought you up?
5:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so he was fencing and droving.
5:57
SPEAKER_03: I think it was we were about 10 when we went on our first droving trip.
6:01
SPEAKER_03: It was a long time ago.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh, what age did you leave school?
6:05
SPEAKER_03: Um, 11, 12.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: Really?
6:07
SPEAKER_03: And uh went droving, yeah.
6:09
SPEAKER_03: We used to go to school, we had to go every three um three months every year, otherwise it'd put you at what take you away.
6:15
SPEAKER_03: So we managed to do that.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: I think it'd be grade five for so many years and grade six for so many years, and that was the end of it.
6:21
SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: So driving horseback?
6:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, no cars, just pack saddles and horses and can you tell me a bit about that?
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Like this is interesting.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: You'd have um how many cattle in a group?
6:34
SPEAKER_03: So anything up to thousand, fifteen hundred, and it depended on how many you had, how many stockmen you had.
6:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, I was 13 at one, so I went to school one, three months and I was 13.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: And uh they put me on a plane.
6:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, I played for a football club in Portagasta called Wilson.
6:56
SPEAKER_03: So anyhow, Dad was there and I was just it was no fee, no nothing.
7:01
SPEAKER_03: So he took these cattle for whatever reason, because he's brother, I think.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: And um yeah, it was in '62 when the Cooper flowed, actually.
7:10
SPEAKER_03: We went up there and we counted the cattle off, and there was a plague of rats.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: And what comes with a plague of rats is a plague of snakes.
7:18
SPEAKER_03: So every night we'd unpack the horses, you had to hang hang your pack saddles in and your saddles, everything in there, but you had to sleep on the ground with the snakes.
7:27
SPEAKER_03: In swags or what?
7:28
SPEAKER_03: In swags, yeah.
7:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well that's what you had.
7:31
SPEAKER_03: That's all you had.
7:32
SPEAKER_03: We could keep butter.
7:33
SPEAKER_03: We used to keep butter for a month in in 49 degrees, but you just knew you had to work on it.
7:40
SPEAKER_03: And you get a milk tin and wrap it up in paper and put it there and put it in the shade.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: No fridges, so your meat had to last you, your salt meat to last easy six weeks.
7:51
SPEAKER_03: Fresh meat three to four weeks.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: You sort of push in a bit, but would you be killing meat on the road then?
7:57
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the variety, what was your what was your meat plant?
8:01
SPEAKER_03: Ma main mainly beef, yeah.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, meat meat only diet.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Meat only, yeah, basically, yeah.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Would you get a coffee or anything like that?
8:07
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, yeah, you can have a coffee or a tea and and we we kids always finished up cooking, so we'd make a a big pot of rice instead of a small, so so we could eat rice cream for the next couple of days at breakfast.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: So you could be gone for like seven.
8:26
SPEAKER_03: Seven or eight months.
8:27
SPEAKER_03: Oh, ten or eight months.
8:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
8:30
SPEAKER_03: So we took one lot of cattle from Palmarara, so that's out from Windora, down to uh uh Udnadana.
8:38
SPEAKER_03: And in 62 we bought those cattle from Montkayra, which is up Bully, down to Mare, down to the Cooper, it actually flowed in the when Campbell was going to do his first run.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: The Cooper actually flowed, which put him off till till 63 or 4, whatever it was.
8:55
SPEAKER_03: We got to um the Cooper at Christmas time uh 62, I think it was 63 or 63, yeah.
9:04
SPEAKER_03: Because two was just gone in in there.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: You say Christmas time each day of the week, it wouldn't matter what day it was.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: No, you got up at six o'clock or he was on the road by six o'clock.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: And you'd be sitting behind them all the cattle, yeah.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: Thousand odd cattle for ten or twelve hours, then you'd get get to camp and put 'em on camp, and the horse tailor always had first watch because you had to watch them then for another couple of hours so they didn't disappear.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: So the horse tailor went first and the cook went second because the horse tailor got up first, the cook got up after went with the horse tailor.
9:40
SPEAKER_03: So then the blokes with the cattle got up one at a time, and you could have went from eleven till two or eleven till one.
9:47
SPEAKER_03: You'd ride, ride, ride around with the cattle all all night.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: So this was just a way of life, but did you feel like you were missing out?
9:53
SPEAKER_03: We didn't know any better.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Didn't know any better.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:57
SPEAKER_03: Really?
9:58
SPEAKER_03: That's how that was just part of it, yeah.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Any memory in particular when you were driving?
10:02
SPEAKER_03: Um, it was just, you know, it was all memories, really, because it was pretty unique that not many people actually did what we did.
10:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:11
SPEAKER_03: So um Viv's uncle Joe, he um came to the convent with the early part, we did go to a little bit of school and we're boarding at the convent in Ellis Springs.
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Joe turned up and he said to the mother superior, it was another cousin as well, my brother and another cousin myself were there.
10:31
SPEAKER_03: I need those boys.
10:33
SPEAKER_03: All these men had pulled out and he was on the road with them all the cattle.
10:37
SPEAKER_03: And so he had them in a holding patigo for one day.
10:40
SPEAKER_03: He was allowed to put them down and come to the convent and got us.
10:43
SPEAKER_03: And Mother Superior said, Joe, I've had you with a lot of excuses, but this is this one beats them all.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: And he said, Well, there's a couple of killers in the back of my youth to say thank you.
10:55
SPEAKER_03: So he said, That's okay, Joe, you can have the boys.
10:58
SPEAKER_03: So we were 10 and my brother was 11, and Kevin, he was 10 as well.
11:03
SPEAKER_03: He was my first cousin, yeah.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: So then you said you went fencing for a while, is that right?
11:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, that's later in life.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: Well, in um late 70s, and um, I put up a thousand mile of fence out there in the Burgel track around there.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: I got the job managing the pub, and I was there for five years, and I haven't left since.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: So I've left a pub, but I bought the little cafe down the road.
11:27
SPEAKER_03: So I've built this caravan myself, caravan park.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: We um built the motel last year ourselves.
11:34
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's yours too.
11:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we built that.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: We put up the shadows in a shop.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So which is the roadhouse.
11:40
SPEAKER_03: Which is the roadhouse, yeah.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
11:43
SPEAKER_03: So we've done most of the building ourselves.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: So uh a lot of success here, Lyle.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, but there's been a lot of hard times too.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sometimes, yeah.
11:57
SPEAKER_03: It's um way of life, isn't it really?
12:00
SPEAKER_03: That's what happens.
12:02
SPEAKER_03: Is it is it drought in particular or is it Well dro drought's a hard time for everybody, but we we learnt to live with it.
12:08
SPEAKER_03: So and it's an opportunist country.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: If you if you don't take that opportunity, that for us it's water in the lake.
12:18
SPEAKER_03: So if you don't take that opportunity, you miss out.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: In the in the case of the pastelers, good seasons like this, if you don't get as many cattle as you can.
12:28
SPEAKER_03: And times have changed a lot and and stuff like that, because a lot of times they weren't in the way that they could get money, you know.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: So buying a thousand head or a couple of thousand head of cattle ain't that cheap.
12:41
SPEAKER_03: So things have changed a bit for them as well because we've had a few not too bad seasons, so it's been good.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And you've seen those opportunities, haven't you?
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Like we talked about your businesses that you've got here locally, but uh another one of them is Oasis Air.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
12:55
SPEAKER_03: We have Oasis Air.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: We actually started as scenic flights back in 1987.
13:00
SPEAKER_03: So we've we've done it, we have been out of it for a couple of years in in that period from 87.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: But actually, we were the ones that started it.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we had a guy called Steve Robinson here, and he uh hired a plane from uh a bloke called Tom Shade in Cootamunra.
13:22
SPEAKER_03: So Steve I was here for a few years, not many, not many takers, and he needed three people, I remember, to fly.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, one day I was in the cafe and a lady walked in and said, Oh, no point asking you to fly.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: I said, Oh, why is that?
13:37
SPEAKER_03: She said, Well, you need three people, and I only travel with my husband, so that's two, and most other people only do that.
13:43
SPEAKER_03: She said, Why don't you put your price up$20 and fly?
13:47
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Lady, you got yourself a flight.
13:49
SPEAKER_03: And she said, Who are you to say that?
13:52
SPEAKER_03: So we did, and and that's that's that's how it's worked ever since, actually.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:56
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
13:56
SPEAKER_03: So it's yeah.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: So diversity is important, isn't it?
14:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, like you've got you've got that covered by the sounds, and and you hopefully get traffic through the roadhouse constantly.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: But there'll be certain months here in the cavern park, it's quiet, and certain months with the planes.
14:10
SPEAKER_03: So I went in with my son and we we built a bakery in Roxby.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: So I went over there for nine months and ran that, but I had to come back.
14:20
SPEAKER_03: So I actually bought myself a bakery and put it over here because I that's not profitable, but it's good fun.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, talking about that, I had a bacon and egg roll this morning at your roadhouse, and someone said you even made the rolls.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was sensational.
14:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, that's a bakery, and that's a it's a bit of fun.
14:37
SPEAKER_03: It keeps you a bit occupied, you know what I mean?
14:40
SPEAKER_03: We make all pies, pasties, and do you cakes and bread and yeah.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Jack of all trades.
14:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, you've got to be.
14:47
SPEAKER_03: Otherwise you're not here.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Mate going back uh to those early days, you found love at some stage?
14:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: And um I went away, I went away, I just came back fancying and that, but I was in Gaula for a while, yeah.
15:03
SPEAKER_03: I got married down there for a while, and then I came home.
15:07
SPEAKER_03: So and I've been here ever since.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: And your wife then did she come back here too?
15:12
SPEAKER_03: No, no, she no, she um didn't.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: So I did get married again.
15:17
SPEAKER_03: I got married on the corner of the virginal track, actually, the second time.
15:20
SPEAKER_03: And uh did you on the corner down here?
15:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, on the corner there by that.
15:24
SPEAKER_03: Um so there were road trains coming along, and the policeman was stopping them and carrying on.
15:30
SPEAKER_03: So it was a good day.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:32
SPEAKER_03: And you've had kids?
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
15:34
SPEAKER_03: So one's uh midnurse in um Por Augusta, and the other one's a dog groomer in Porter Augusta.
15:40
SPEAKER_03: Um my son, he has Red Mulga, Australia, so he's over in Roxby and Adelaide and whatever else, all that high vision you've seen over there, we make that as well.
15:51
SPEAKER_03: What was that, sorry?
15:52
SPEAKER_03: That high vision, that alcohol you've seen in there.
15:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we make that.
15:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
15:56
SPEAKER_03: Who does that?
15:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Chad does that.
15:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I helped him a bit in the early parts, but had to go to Adelaide to get bottled, of course.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, you're a fascinating man.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: The weather here, mate, plays a big part in in your life, like for tourists, for business.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me about perhaps some of the hottest days?
16:16
SPEAKER_03: So we done the readings for 35 years in the for the Bureau.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: We didn't we didn't set the weather, that right, but we we did the readings, they had the gear here and Philip and Steve Stevenson screens and stuff.
16:29
SPEAKER_03: So the hottest, I did one at for 49, and my wife did one for 49, but it was 47 is very regular.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:39
SPEAKER_03: Was very regular.
16:40
SPEAKER_03: So one particular time Shirley went away, and I don't know why she was away for so long, but anyhow, um I started doing it in December.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: She came home towards the end of January, and she recorded 143.9 or something.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: If she no, it must have been 30, 39.9.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: If she hadn't put that down, she would have made it 40.
17:05
SPEAKER_03: It would have been something like 35 or 40 days that went over 40 in a row.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Was that a drought?
17:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was yeah, it was pretty warm, but you get used to this warm.
17:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, 20 or 25.
17:17
SPEAKER_03: We I go to Adelaide and I got a cone on everyone's a bit weird, like but we're used to warm.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And your water supply here, I was talking to your pilot earlier on, he said it's some of the best water you can get.
17:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I had a desalinator, a small one in the roadhouse for since probably 2009.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: But about 20, I don't know, but 22, 23, SA water came in and put a desalinator in for the town, and it's fantastic water, yeah.
17:52
SPEAKER_03: Um it sounds like a lot of waste of money, but I actually thought that as well.
17:57
SPEAKER_03: But we get charged the same as Adelaide, so why shouldn't we have good water as well?
18:01
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, so it's really, really good water.
18:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, hats off to SA water.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh have you spent much time out at Lake Air?
18:10
SPEAKER_03: In lots of different places, like there's a couple of places you can walk out in Lake Air and not get muddy feet, whether it's wet or whether it's drought.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: And most other places you'll get bogged.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's pl there's plenty of people drive out, but then they can't get back.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Is that why we're not allowed out there anymore?
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: To protect it a little bit.
18:32
SPEAKER_03: Uh they made it a national park.
18:34
SPEAKER_03: That's probably the easiest way of saying it.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:37
SPEAKER_03: There was people that there was people that um you're a busy man, mate.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
18:44
SPEAKER_03: I'll call you back.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: So that's my son.
18:48
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
18:49
SPEAKER_03: He just um bought Hall school drink or 60% of Hall's cool drink in Adelaide.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
18:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: He has a crack.
18:56
SPEAKER_03: He has a guy.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: What were we talking about?
18:58
SPEAKER_00: National Park?
18:59
SPEAKER_03: National Parks, yeah.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: So um there was other people that used to float around the blogs runs Bob Backway that runs the yacht club.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: In 87, I think it was the first time I was talking about for someone today.
19:15
SPEAKER_03: I think it was about 87 that he came up with his kids and they floated around.
19:21
SPEAKER_03: It was not a lot of water, not as much as this year, but he floated around there for about six weeks on the catamaran.
19:28
SPEAKER_03: And he used to do that quite often when it got water in.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: But he then he was going to have a regret regatter in there, and he a lot of people didn't like that idea, so they went to court and he won it and they immediately made it a national park.
19:42
SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
19:43
SPEAKER_03: But in 74, they had speed boats out there, sailing boats.
19:49
SPEAKER_03: There was, I did have a a photo of a yacht with um Maury Lake uh yacht club on it, but that was in 74.
19:58
SPEAKER_03: So, but they all had a great time in 74 because it was there, and there were so many young ones around, they all finished up out there skiing and boating and whatever.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: But then when it's dry, there's been some land speed records.
20:12
SPEAKER_03: Donald Campbell still today holds the uh land speed record for a diff gearbox-driven car.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: It has been broke with a jet, but not with a diff gearbox.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: How fast?
20:28
SPEAKER_03: 463, I think, miles an hour.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: Miles.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: That's close.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: It's 6700.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: So so we were here and then and and the bluebird that came into Maori and sat at the end where you go across the road here.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: That smant there, sat about there for two or three weeks, actually.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
20:52
SPEAKER_03: So we all got to have a good look at it.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: So you've got a local government here?
20:56
SPEAKER_03: No, unfortunately, we don't.
20:58
SPEAKER_03: We come under the bureaucrats from Adelaide, which is really sad for any outlet community, because they want us to be better.
21:08
SPEAKER_03: They these are uni students, most of them come out, health inspectors, building inspectors out, and they expect us to be better than Adelaide.
21:15
SPEAKER_03: Not as good as Adelaide, better than Adelaide.
21:17
SPEAKER_03: If it were if there was playing on a fair, fair field, you'd say that's fine.
21:23
SPEAKER_03: You've got to remember if you build something like I built that motel, it probably cost me close to two million dollars.
21:29
SPEAKER_03: It's probably worth five, six hundred thousand if I was lucky to get that.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: Because once you build something here and you want to sell it, it's just there's no resale value in it.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And they won't support tourism out here?
21:43
SPEAKER_03: Well, there's the biggest thing is it's not enough of the tourism.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's getting better.
21:48
SPEAKER_03: It's getting better.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: See, well, this is what this podcast is about, too, I think, is letting those people know in the capital cities that are making decisions for you here to have more respect and to learn a bit more about what's coming.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: On and sometimes I don't blame them for not knowing, they haven't had the chance to understand.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: But we've got to give them the chance to learn about what happens in rural communities.
22:08
SPEAKER_03: It's a little bit like the road saga.
22:10
SPEAKER_03: They want to close it with one or two mil of rain.
22:13
SPEAKER_03: So we had the chipbox rally here the other day.
22:17
SPEAKER_03: Anyhow, about a hundred, it's about 250 cars in this rally.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: Cars, not full rods.
22:24
SPEAKER_03: So about a hundred went through to William Creek, and there was a Bronco branding at William Creek, and probably 50 cars come back from the Bronco branding.
22:31
SPEAKER_03: I don't know exactly how many there was in that, but there was a hundred of the shipbox rally went up.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: There was a couple of pretty bad spots along the road, but there was you well, they never got bogged, so therefore they got through.
22:45
SPEAKER_03: Now, people said to me the other day, that shipbox rally went through and wrecked the road.
22:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, it actually is so wrong.
22:54
SPEAKER_03: If you go up the bird up the in and out of track today, because that rally went through, it is probably the best it's been for the last four years.
23:03
SPEAKER_03: Because all the stones rolled into the ground, the corrugation's been rolled out, and it's just fantastic.
23:12
SPEAKER_03: I went to Roxby in the truck the other day, or yesterday, and come back, and I thought, wow, how good is this?
23:19
SPEAKER_03: What a shame they haven't opened the ballfield road to let a lot of traffic on that to iron that out.
23:25
SPEAKER_03: And that's the real thing.
23:27
SPEAKER_03: Old JC, he does a lot of hard work giving us rain to water those roads, and all they do is close them.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: After a couple of days, they open them, well then they're dried out, and guess what?
23:38
SPEAKER_03: They're dusty again.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: So there's no value in it.
23:41
SPEAKER_03: Then they'll spend another couple of billion dollars putting water on the road.
23:44
SPEAKER_03: Doesn't make any sense when you look at it.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And you look at the rally, the money they've put into these communities as they go.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, yeah.
23:50
SPEAKER_03: So any, yeah, as I said, they closed the road and now they got an exemption to go through.
23:55
SPEAKER_03: The other 150 went through, and they mate, the road is just unbelievable.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: So making some local decisions around here, have you got like a progress association?
24:04
SPEAKER_03: We have a progress association.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: How is that formed?
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think there's a lot of people that get very passionate about the towns, I do for sure.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: And there's a problem.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: So we don't get any funding, and what little bit of funding we did get, there's a place called Outback Areas.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: They held our funding for three years because they didn't like somebody.
24:27
SPEAKER_03: Right?
24:28
SPEAKER_03: So we got one lot that just the other day we got one lot of 40,000.
24:32
SPEAKER_03: So prior to that, we got a playground over here, and it's got a split in it.
24:38
SPEAKER_03: So we can't let the kids come down to the playground because they're going to rip their bums open.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: So we we go to a progress meet and sit there and feel warm and fuzzy.
24:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh, we'll fix that thing and we'll fix this and we'll fix that slippery dip, and we'll do that.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: So you go to do it, and then there's no funding.
24:54
SPEAKER_03: There's no real way of actually maintaining the town.
24:58
SPEAKER_03: There's no land, there's no rates and taxes, there's no water, there's no nothing.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: Like, other than someone like myself watering half of the town to make it a little bit green and looking after it, nobody cares.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: There's certainly nobody outside of Maori cares.
25:13
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
25:14
SPEAKER_03: Oh, of course they'll all say, oh, he's a he's full of bull because we're here.
25:19
SPEAKER_03: Well, they don't do anything.
25:20
SPEAKER_03: They have a lot of yaps, but they don't actually do anything.
25:23
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
25:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it's very hard.
25:26
SPEAKER_03: It's and and this isn't only Maine, this is all the little towns.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: So what's the population of Maori?
25:32
SPEAKER_03: About 70.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: 70.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and 20 kids amongst that, so 50 adults.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And a strong indigenous population.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: A strong indigenous population, yeah.
25:41
SPEAKER_03: And good people, really.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, magic.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: You'd know probably most of them.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: Oh, we all grew up together, yeah.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel isolated at all?
25:50
SPEAKER_03: No.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: Why is that?
25:51
SPEAKER_03: Because it's home.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: It's home.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:54
unknown: Yeah.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: And you've got traffic coming through regularly.
25:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, we all get a bit older and we get a few medical things.
26:02
SPEAKER_03: And I went down to one doctor specialist in Adelaide and he said, Oh, we'll got you booked in tomorrow at 10 o'clock to have a little autopsy.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: And we had a doctor I know very well, Jeff Hyde.
26:14
SPEAKER_03: He said, Do not allow anyone to do that unless you can't do certain things.
26:18
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Well, I can do all that.
26:20
SPEAKER_03: And he said, Well, don't let them do that.
26:22
SPEAKER_03: So I said to this doctor, and I said, Oh, Jeffrey said, No autopsy.
26:27
SPEAKER_03: He knew who I was talking about.
26:29
SPEAKER_03: He knew Jeff Hyde as well.
26:31
SPEAKER_03: Oh, buggy, Jeffrey.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: He said, Anyway, he got the shits a little bit and I run into him, not as in the patient doctor thing, run into him.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: And he said, You come from so far away.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: He said, I thought I'd just gonna do the right thing.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: I said, mate, it's only six hours.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: And he said, What do you mean only six hours?
26:50
SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, you've got in the car, you're there in six hours.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: There's no traffic.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Right?
26:54
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's great to go for a drive.
26:57
SPEAKER_03: I go to Roxby and that I call that my day off.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: How far's that?
27:01
SPEAKER_03: It's 200k over, it's all dirt.
27:03
SPEAKER_03: And you go over and people say, Oh, you're you're stupid, but you're not serving in the shop, are you?
27:10
SPEAKER_00: You must have met some characters come through here from time to time.
27:13
SPEAKER_03: Oh, mate.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: We've had um we've had one of the seekers here playing a guitar one night.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: Really?
27:20
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
27:20
SPEAKER_03: With the you various things, you see politicians, you know, Victoria premiers come here and people who was like, well, you got so-and-so here.
27:30
SPEAKER_03: Nah, I haven't seen them.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: And uh she said, Thank God you didn't tell them.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: This was a long time ago.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Some were in hiding, were they?
27:38
SPEAKER_03: No, she just was on holidays.
27:40
SPEAKER_03: She's she didn't want media chasing her around.
27:43
SPEAKER_03: I can see that point.
27:45
SPEAKER_03: No, I I didn't like her her politics, but I can see her point, you know.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: The Afghan cameleas.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: What do you know about that?
27:53
SPEAKER_03: Well, as I said in 83, I got a job added in the pump.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: But way back as a little fella, we run around here in 57 when the first rally comes through, the first rally ever in Australia.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: Was it the Endeavour rally?
28:08
SPEAKER_03: Was it?
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Not sure.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: We were sitting with a mob of bullocks at um the neton fence you went through today when you went over the neton.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: We were just camp just down there.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: So we'd run up and there was a gate on it in those days.
28:20
SPEAKER_03: We'd go up and open the gate and they'd give us lollies.
28:23
SPEAKER_03: Only to close the gate.
28:24
SPEAKER_03: So there could be two cars there.
28:26
SPEAKER_03: You had to get the lollies, close the gate, go and get the lollies, and then they'd nick up and the neckload, because they're all done on science.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: But yeah.
28:34
SPEAKER_03: So the old cavaliers, you would say to Dad, you know, who's those?
28:39
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's the old, that's the old Afghans.
28:42
SPEAKER_03: So in 83, a lady called Christine Stevens came in, she was doing a thesis of uh on Afghans.
28:50
SPEAKER_03: So she came in, old Willie Mustang was in the bar and she said, Oh, you're an Afghan.
28:54
SPEAKER_03: He said, No, I'm not.
28:54
SPEAKER_03: I nearly fell over.
28:56
SPEAKER_03: So did she, obviously, well, she he said, Well, no, I understand that.
29:01
SPEAKER_03: And he said, No, I'm Pakistan, I'm not Afghan.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: So there was probably more than half were Pakistanis.
29:10
SPEAKER_03: They often could come from Kashmir.
29:13
SPEAKER_03: Right?
29:14
SPEAKER_03: There was Afghans, Pakistanis and Indians or from Bulah Balura something, you know, in the thing.
29:24
SPEAKER_03: So they always that's how they got their thing.
29:27
SPEAKER_03: Oh, they got called Afghans because of the camels.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Ah yeah.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: So they were using the camels for transporting goods.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
29:35
SPEAKER_03: So four people would leave Marae, three on foot, one on the camel, the boss on sitting on the camel, but all the rest on foot.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: So they would walk how far over they went, then that they had to unload 25 camels each, 300 pounds each side of the camel.
29:55
SPEAKER_03: Right?
29:56
SPEAKER_03: So they get them off here.
29:57
SPEAKER_03: 300 pounds each side of camel.
29:58
SPEAKER_03: 300 pounds each side.
29:59
SPEAKER_03: Well, this is what he told me.
30:01
SPEAKER_03: So I sat down for hours when I had the old shop down here, and I've got a photo of Ahmed in the in the new shop.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: I told him that I would, as long as I'm here, his photo would stop on the wall.
30:15
SPEAKER_03: So we talked for hours and hours every day about what they used to do.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: So they walked to Birds within 15 days.
30:23
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: And they would unload camels, 25 each, and then reload them in the morning.
30:30
SPEAKER_03: And one of them would have to sit by the fire and listen when the camels are going to nick off home.
30:34
SPEAKER_03: Because you'd hobble your horses or your camels, in their case, camels, in our case, horses, and they might nick off 60 miles overnight.
30:42
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times you don't have one tied up so that you can go and get them.
30:46
SPEAKER_03: You're on foot, mate, you've got to catch them up, you know.
30:50
SPEAKER_03: So an armor reckon that on a bad night, on a bad day when they were tired, they'd walk right through the night.
30:56
SPEAKER_03: Because it's easier than unloading the camels.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
31:00
SPEAKER_03: So they did it pretty tough.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Golly, I'm I'm trying to fathom that.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And rail was big here too?
31:08
SPEAKER_03: Well, the rail cut I obviously was put in from Maori to Alice in the war because McCarthy said you can't get anything from there to there.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: And then the Bitchman Road from Alice to Laramie, and there was a railway from Laramie to Darwin.
31:27
SPEAKER_03: And uh yeah, so that got pushed through.
31:30
SPEAKER_03: So everything that came in in as I said in 57, we we left Farina because the railway broadgates finished up coming to Maori in 1957.
31:41
SPEAKER_03: So you could lo get on one train and come from Adelaide to Maori then.
31:46
SPEAKER_03: Other than that, you had to change at Copley or wherever you had to change.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: So it came out corn first time, Hawker the next one, Belltown the next one, Copley the next one, and and Freena.
31:59
SPEAKER_03: Actually, they they did have a bit of a rail head at Freena for all the drovers and local pastorists, all the napiers from uh Mumpy How used to bring in their cattle and truck them from there and stuff like that.
32:12
SPEAKER_03: So in 57 they bought the railway line up here, and that's how come those big concrete slabs got there.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: That was for the GAN.
32:20
SPEAKER_03: So on a Tuesday, about 10 o'clock, 9, 10 o'clock evening, the train would come in and people would get off that train and walk over to the other train on the other side.
32:32
SPEAKER_03: And away that train they go and leave here Tuesday night and you'd get to Aller Springs Friday morning.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Really?
32:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: And where did the GAN stop then?
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Did it stop when they changed trains?
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Did the GAN stop here?
32:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, that's when the GAN actually started.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Really, that's when it started.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: So when did it when did Rail finish here?
32:51
SPEAKER_03: Rail finished here, the GAN finished here in 1980.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: Because they had to shift it from here because Lake Here drains one-sixth of Australia.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: So when you get right next to it, like the railway was, it just these years it was close, you know, it was just flooded out, so you couldn't get along there.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: So now they've got a train line going to Perth, obviously, not now when they was doing it.
33:18
SPEAKER_03: So they could go from Tarkoula straight up that way, and I think it was even shorter, actually.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: But if not, it was on the across the heads of the heads of the water.
33:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know what I mean?
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was the Indian Pacific, was it?
33:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well that no, that's where the GAN takes off now.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
33:36
SPEAKER_03: Over there.
33:37
SPEAKER_03: So they took it here, they said they took it away from here, and they kept it open until probably 85, 86.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: They pulled up the railway line from Udnindana to here, and then they pulled the well at first they took the overland telegraph, then they took the um rail, then they took the sleepers.
33:58
SPEAKER_03: That all happened over those things.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what they did there with the rail.
34:03
SPEAKER_03: They bought it all to here and they took it out.
34:06
SPEAKER_03: I I I heard it went to Malaysia or Philippines or something like that.
34:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, it was all narrogate stuff, see?
34:11
SPEAKER_03: It was all things that was worth a fortune, really.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: What's a life lesson you've learned in the outback?
34:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh, you know, don't take it, you don't you never know the outback.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: You you've got to respect it.
34:23
SPEAKER_03: You've got to live with it.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Well said.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, life is very busy for you, Lyle.
34:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Would you have it any other way?
34:31
unknown: No.
34:32
SPEAKER_03: No, I could probably retire now, but what am I gonna do?
34:35
SPEAKER_03: I just thought all I've ever done is work, so I might as well just keep going for a while longer.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, can I ask what age we're talking about?
34:42
SPEAKER_00: 78.
34:43
unknown: Really?
34:43
SPEAKER_00: Gee, you're looking good for 78.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: Very active.
34:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'll be 78 in January, actually.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Good, aren't you?
34:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Lyle, I've got some um off-the-wall questions that is a little bit quirky.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: There's little short answers, like quick fire.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: Sunrise or sunset?
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Sunrise.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Tea or coffee?
35:01
SPEAKER_03: No, coffee, I guess.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: If you could sit down with one person, dead or alive, and have a cold drink with them, who would it be?
35:09
SPEAKER_03: Uh probably my month.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: That is quite moving, mate, because you lost her at nine, eight or nine.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: That's made a tough life for you.
35:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sometimes, yeah.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: If your old workers Lyle could talk, what would they say?
35:28
SPEAKER_03: It'd be a good life, they can tell you.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: It'd been a good life.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: Being a good life.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: What's your favourite tool?
35:36
SPEAKER_03: Uh I I actually like fencing, would you believe?
35:40
SPEAKER_03: Like the footballers are pretty fit, people.
35:43
SPEAKER_03: We were ten times better than them.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:46
SPEAKER_03: You know, you could grab a coil of wire and run up a sandal that's 50 meters high, and you never even hesitated, yeah.
35:54
SPEAKER_03: It was just part of life.
35:56
SPEAKER_03: You know, your hands were just like you picked up pins all day, and they're just like little holes in them, you know.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: No gloves?
36:04
SPEAKER_03: No gloves, no.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: We interviewed someone who was 96, he's now 97, and he was managing our back stations in uh South Australia.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: And he said, if you were caught wearing gloves in my day, you're a pansy of the highest order.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: He said, Nowadays I don't blow my nose without wearing a pair of gloves.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I I I sort of gave them to the guys, but because you'd have they would come and go, but I would just usually your hands just got tough on it, you know, and you just got used to it.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: So you'd like to do it.
36:34
SPEAKER_03: Thick skin.
36:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
36:35
SPEAKER_03: I was colours, you know.
36:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, if your if your mum could look down and and say something to you today, what would she say?
36:43
SPEAKER_00: What would she think?
36:44
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I think she'd been pretty proud, I would guess.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: And rightly so, mate.
36:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we've all done pretty good, you know.
36:50
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of us.
36:51
SPEAKER_03: There's there's actually two sides to the family of Oldfields.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: There's always the rich side and the poor side, and Viv and I come from the poor side, actually.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so really yes.
36:59
SPEAKER_03: We were two leaders now.
37:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we started off with absolute zero.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: So it's a real credit.
37:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: If your life was a song, mate, what would it be?
37:12
SPEAKER_00: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
37:15
SPEAKER_03: Mari.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: You're not going anywhere, eh?
37:17
SPEAKER_00: No.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: No.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Lyle, this has been a fascinating chat.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: You've had no warning of this interview we're going to do this morning.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: I've loved learning about your life, and it's not over yet, mate.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: You're still pretty busy and you've got what to do.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate your time today.
37:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no worries, thank you.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: There you go, Lyle Oldfield.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: What a bloke.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why I love doing this.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: You sit down with someone you've never really met.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: You hit record, and you just never know where the conversation is going to take you.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: There are more Maori stories to follow.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: So stick around.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: This is Told of the Earth.