I go for a drive along the river, which winds away from the direction I’m supposed to be heading. By the time I’ve found my way back to the main track, I realise I’ve wasted a few hours. Well wasted, though. I’m calm and as positive as I get.

I take a turn off the highway, even though the faded signposts do not mention Willi. The country gets paler and harder, and I know the farmers here must own an awful lot of land to run enough animals to exist. I haven’t seen any animals other than kangaroos for over half an hour. There is some feed in the paddocks, but I don’t think my cows would eat it. The GPS says Willi is only twenty minutes away, but I know GPS doesn’t always have the right information in country like this. I stick to the track, and see a gravel right-hand turn that has its own sign pointing to the village I’m looking for. On the map, Willi is at the junction of three roads, but the sign makes no such suggestion. Willi is the end of the line.

I reach the village around three in the afternoon. There is a main street and a strip of tar again, so you know you’re in a settlement. There are six houses to my right, and a hall, and maybe eight houses on my left. I drive down the main drag, and look. The houses are okay, their gardens better kept than mine, and there aren’t too many vehicles on blocks in the long grass. At what I think is the end of the street I turn left into a street that takes me past the backs of the houses I’ve seen, and in front of another row of maybe five more houses. These ones have large yards, and one of them has a prime mover parked out the front. I’m guessing the inhabitants are workers who service the surrounding farming district, but I can’t imagine there is much work for them. There will be people on welfare, too, as there always is in small villages. Then again, it isn’t the place I’d pick to be on welfare, so perhaps no one else has.