‘I hope the storm doesn’t break until it gets here,’ said Jane through a vast yawn. ‘The shop’s out of almost everything, and if the rains come, the road will be impassable.’

‘We need the rain,’ Hugh solemnly reminded her as he tucked into his breakfast.

‘We need sugar, tea, flour and a thousand and one other things,’ she replied, ‘and if the road train can’t get through, we’ll be living on fresh air.’

‘I miss the days when the Afghans used to come by with their camels loaded up with supplies, their harnesses decorated with brightly coloured tassels and tinkling bells. These modern army trucks that pull up to three nineteen-foot trailers aren’t half as romantic.’

His gaze became dreamy and Becky exchanged a knowing look with her mother. Dad was off on one of his reminiscences, and although they’d heard his stories a dozen times, he still made them interesting and Danny loved them.

‘We called them Afghans, but not all of them were,’ he recalled. ‘Some were from Baluchistan, Kashmir, Egypt and Persia … exotic names of faraway places we could only read about, that brought to mind spices, palm trees, palaces of gold and the long journey of those three wise men who followed a star to Bethlehem.’

He leaned back in his chair, his breakfast forgotten. ‘I remember when I was a boy that we used to run out into the street and watch in awe as they slowly and majestically came into town. They were a strange and mystical sight, those dark-skinned, keen-eyed men dressed in long flowing robes or loose trousers that ballooned to the ankle. In the earlier days they had curved daggers tucked into the sashes round their waist, the jewels on the hilts glinting in the sun – and we boys would have given our eye teeth to possess one, if only we’d had the nerve to ask those fierce-looking men.’

He smiled at his audience and picked up his knife and fork. ‘Some of them wore embroidered caps, others had brightly coloured turbans, their dark beards flowing to their waists. But we dared not go near the camels because they were nasty-tempered and would spit at you and try to bite.’

Danny looked up at him with a knowing grin. ‘You’re telling stories, Grandpa. We don’t have camels here. They’re all in Brisbane zoo.’

‘Ah,’ said Hugh, waving his fork about, ‘that’s where you’re wrong, young Danny. Camels were once used for all sorts of things. They were practical, you see, able to carry heavy loads across the harshest of terrains, and go without water and food for weeks on end. They helped the men build the roads and railways – which was their nemesis, of course, for with the coming of the trains and trucks, the Afghans and their camels were no longer needed. In some parts of Australia there are huge mobs of feral camels roaming about.’