Free The river is Down by Lucy Walker

Colossus,' Cindie said with awe. In her mind she drew a map of the vast barren north of a great continent, and the road with its tributaries going on and on and out.
    'You've said it,' said Dicey. 'Boggles the imagination, eh?'
    They were running over the loose gravel track through the spinifex, past a group of men here, then another group there. They were surveying the next stretch to be bulldozed.
    'Watch now,' said Dicey. 'You'll see the dust haze in a minute, then you'll know we're nearing the road.'
    The sky was almost white with the heat. The car was running parallel with a broken range of strange mesa-shaped mountains, red striated blocks of rock peaks at the top, then banked with the yellow-green of spinifex growth.
    A Land-Rover came lurching down the gravel track towards them, coming from the work site.
    'Wind up the window your side as he passes, or you'll get us a nice dust-bath in this car. The kind that'll set Nick Brent washing and polishing all over again.'
    Cindie laughed as she vigorously wound up the window. Dicey did the same with the window on his side.
    'No,' she said. 'I can't see Nick obliging twice. Once was enough to surprise me.'
    'You have plenty more surprises in front of you where Nick is concerned, Cindie my girl. You have to know him, and know him well, before you even begin to guess what goes on behind that mask of his. Then more'n likely you'll guess wrong.'
    The Land-Rover seemed to ricochet past them as each car had to run the side wheels off the road into the fragmented ironstone beside it, in order to pass the other.
    The dust lifted like a smoking ball rolling away across the plain on either side of them.
    Cindie looked back through the rear window and was awed to find that they too, in the Holden, raised the same dust behind them as they went.
    'Funny, when you're driving,' she said. 'It always seems to be the other car—'
    'It's always the other car.' Dicey wound down his window again. Cindie did so with hers. 'Specially when there's a smash-up.' He turned and looked at the girl beside him with a knowing grin. 'Haven't you noticed it's always the other fellow's fault, Cindie? If no one's mentioned it before—that's Life. The chaps use that expression up here all the
    time. Same way as in some of those Asian countries they say "It's the Will of Allah". You understand me?'
    Cindie nodded. 'Living like this, out in the Never, they have to be philosophic. That's Life?'
    `You've said it. Stay here long enough and you'll get that way too. There's nothing you can do about the heat, the dust, the emptiness, the loneliness, or the fact there's five hundred miles, and no spare Rovers or utilities, to take a trip to a coastal town. To have a drink or two: meet a woman . .
    `But some of the wives make occasional visits?'
    `Yep. But very occasional and for no more'n two weeks at a time. Those gals up in D'D row right now could be lucky. The river might keep 'em here longer.'
    The haze had deepened to a pall. Over to the right Cindie could see the enormous machines moving relentlessly forward into the sea of spinifex.
    `Is that the road over there?' she asked.
    'That's the new bit they're breaking forward. If it wasn't for the dust you'd see the white survey pegs the paymaster scraper is following as he goes south. The real doings are a bit back along here. I'll turn in a minute. The big feller is the Euclid.'
    True to his word, a minute later Dicey slowed the car, changing into second gear as he moved off the track into the spinifex. He pulled up alongside a row of rust-coloured ironmongery that had to be seen to be believed. Everything was an inch deep in the dust. The wheels of the Euclid—out in front—were as high as Dicey was tall. The enormous tyres could not be seen around. The cabin, with one man leaning out of it, was up in celestial realms that cricked Cindie's neck looking up at it.
    If `Forty quid a week, that bloke gets for driving that thing
    on this particular site!' Dicey said.