The Map is not the TERRITORY
Every cubic metre of air in the Northern Territory’s Top End contains roughly 8,132 flies. I know this because I am in it, at ground level and 160% humidity, the flies feeding on the sweat of my face and arms and legs, with the backs of my hands and the tops of my thighs already blistered by days of sunburn. I’ve seen this place before at 1:500,000, down off the Reynolds River 4WD Track and another 100km east towards the no-horse settlement at Grove Hill. But then it was all academic, studying the map back home with anticipation and thinking, “Ah 115km isn’t too bad for a day.” But that was the map, and as Polish scholar Alfred Korzybski’s famed dictum states (perhaps more literally in this case than he ever intended it), the map is not the Territory.
It’s 38 degrees in the shade. I rode the bike until I couldn’t bear it anymore and the sun was an oppressive force looming from the sky, like the rictus of a malevolent god. Almost all the streams and rivers are bone dry here now. It’s the end of the dry season in the Top End
