THE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE

One person ... fascinated me more than anybody i had ever known. And the fascination i experienced was probably very close to a certain kind of love.
- Andy Warhol, on Edie Sedgwick
(From A to B And Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, 1975)

I wake on a wheat conveyor belt in Binnu. It's six o'clock in the morning, still dark, and ferociously cold. There is no moon, and the stars are luminous as spilled cocaine. I take my towel from under my head, and attempt to use it as a makeshift blanket. The rubber belt is comfortable enough - certainly better than sleeping on the ground - but even in my leather jacket and boots i am shaking with cold. I roll over, curl up, and attempt to snatch another hour's sleep. The silhouette of the wheat silo blackens the heavens. Heavens to betsy. I should have stayed in the hotel room.

I left the Priory Hotel in Dongara at 2.30am, after a verbal stouche with the Muse. Arguing over politics, of all things. We'd been drinking tequila margheritas since 10am - no, that's right, we switched to vodka bloody marys at some point in the afternoon. Melinda concocted these bloody hell marys, i'm sure with equal amounts of tomato juice and tabasco sauce. My lips are still burning.

My ears are still burning too.

It's around 150 clicks to Billabong, the next roadhouse. I figure i might as well get up. By the time i get there it should be open, i can get some fuel, maybe make it to Carnarvon and my posturepedic mattress before midday. Joy. I clamber down off the wheat conveyor, stretch, and rummage through the saddlebag in search of water.

The motorbike starts first crank.

Teeth-chattering ride. Depressed. The Art Director-Muse relationship is on the rocks. It's hard working with someone a thousand kilometres away, discussing ideas on the telling-bone. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that strange fascination that overwhelms me whenever i get near her.

Melinda Mayhem, the Muse, kept me sane right through the break-up with the Ex. Well, mostly sane. And now, without Mayhem, it seems i have nothing. I'm attached to her, at the level of the humerus, like some kind of bizarre conjoined twin.

Let's face it, i need to get out more. The past three weekends i have met up with the Muse and it's becoming a very expensive pastime. Flying to Perth for the Australia Day weekend to party with her, flying down the next weekend to eat Korean barbecue with her - and to fix the motorcycle and ride it back, of course, but Korean barbecue with Melinda was always the priority - it's like Obsessive Compulsive Melinda Disorder. Then riding down this weekend to meet with her and Nurse Nikki at the Kitestock weekend in Dongara. Like, i'm interested in kiteboarding? Kitestock is like Woodstock, but without the wood. Hmm, not entirely true - when i was photographing Melinda in her underwear -

A sudden red flash across my headlights. A fox. I shake my head to rouse myself from my reverie. Keep your eyes on the road your hands upon the handlebars.

There is no sign of sun. I close all the vents in the full-face and hunch down over the bike, vainly seeking some warmth from the 650. What with wild goats, foxes and kangaroos i sit on 90, slowing wherever i see signs of roadkill. The last thing i need is a kamikaze kangaroo. The goats, at least, have some road sense, and generally run off into the bush. But sometimes there's a straggler on the other side, who will suddenly break out after the vanishing herd, and belt across the road.

Thinking of goat i start to feel a bit peckish. They fed us well at the Kitestock. Roast dinners. Mmm. And lasagne, my favourite. Breakfast on the beach, all laid out, with fruit, muesli, Greek-style yoghurt, bacon and eggs. We pile up our bowls with goodness.

"What are these?" asks Melinda, pointing to a bowl full of condoms on another table. "Oh, i thought they were the condiments."

We are sitting on the south beach eating breakfast, watching as the buff kiteboarders are attempting to fly, falling out of the sky.

"It's raining men," says Melinda to Nurse Nikki.
Nurse Nikki needs no encouragement. "That one's cute," she says, pointing.
Melinda looks around. "There's not very many women here," she says.
"Imagine how many guys would come to an event like this, if it was girls dropping out of the sky in bikinis."

We ride through the streets, under the arch of Moreton Bay figs, raiding the opshop and the secondhand bookshop. Deciding the fruit and muesli didn't quite cut it, we order pancakes with maple syrup and lashings of fresh coffee. Back at the hotel, we drink the last of the margheritas, and immediately switch to tequila and orange, wandering the old Priory, finding a covered walkway with its green frosted glass, an old chapel. I crank rolls and rolls of film through the twin lens Rolleiflex as Melinda and i have ourselves a fat time, shooting in the rambling old hotel, with its stained glass and wide boards, Melinda resplendent in her $5 opshop dress.

We ride back out across the Irwin River and up the hill to the old police station where Melinda climbs into a gnarled pepper tree, and even into a set of stocks, locking herself in by the wrists and neck. She wants me to tie her to the railway track for a photograph, so we pull down some rope from a tree and cut it into suitable lengths. But the rails are too hot in the midday sun - she would be seared like a rare steak - so it's back onto the motorbike and up the coastal highway to run amok at a ruined homestead with bones, Gigeresque agricultural equipment, and burlesque underwear.

Sitting on the verandah of the Priory at sunset, with the bloody hell marys, there is suddenly the most remarkable sight. The eucalyptus tree in front of us lights up, sparkling with gold. I'm thinking someone has left Christmas decorations in it, golden tinsel, but it is the light of the sunset reflecting off the leaves. Just on this one tree. I've never seen anything like it before in my life, it is spectacular and surreal. And we aren't even smoking DMT.

Billabong. I've made it 228km without switching to reserve. Lucky; last time it ran out of fuel at 210. It's the cooler air. More compression, more power, more legs. I stretch mine. I can't eat the bain marie food. I fuel up and ride the 200km to Wooramel for a bacon and egg toasted sandwich and a cup of instant coffee. Tired. With the daylight, i put the passenger pegs down and with my legs behind me i lie down low, pushing along with the wind at 120. I make the last 125km to Carnarvon in just over an hour, shower, and collapse in bed.

She calls me in the afternoon from the phone box in Cataby. The Greyhound has stopped for a rest break. "Just checking you're not dead on the side of the road," she says.

I grunt.

"You were behaving like a jealous girlfriend," she says. "I mean, boyfriend."

Why does she always confuse me with a woman? It's so emasculating.

You were being unfriendly, i say. I was hurt, and christ knows why we were arguing about politics. Sorry it had to end like this.

It is then that i realise that it has come to an end. The Art Director and Mayhem - those twinned stars, those paired electrons - will electify no more. Suddenly i am faced with the cold reality of total artistic isolation.

Later that night i get a text.

"It was a magical sunset. The trees lit up like diamonds, a salute to a time of infinite possibilities and realms of creative splendor." She's on the DMT, i think. "Neva a shame to end on a golden high, what lastd an instant extends in2 our lives. Il miss u but i do undastand and i respect ur need 2 cut this friendship loose. Goodbye 4 now, ur muse x"

I never did get to tie her to the train tracks in her underwear.

I'm so depressed.