The salt is a frozen waste
In a place too hot for its own good
-- "Pillars of Salt", John Kinsella

Ozzie: Those people down there look like ants!
Daryl: They are ants. We haven't taken off yet!
-- Hey Hey It's Saturday Morning

Out beyond Nhill, going from Horsham towards the South Australian border, the landscape comes apart, the long and flat but neat order of the middle Mallee giving way to scrub and lost roads. Here, the towns are now a few houses gathered round empty shops and stores, their roofs sagging Dali-like into the verandah, the whole place slowly giving up.