Some Katherine people regularly take the 600km round trip to Palmerston to indulge their taste for KFC.
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I'm not sure what police think when they regularly pull over folk they suspect are smuggling grog to get around booze restrictions, only to smell the 10 secret herbs and spices wafting out the car window.
Perhaps in return for a nugget they activate lights and sirens to provide an escort?
Many local residents take orders from friends in a semi-official roster system to take the trip.
We are even aware that some have equipped themselves with warming bags, like those you see with pizza deliveries, to cart the goods.
Even with modern aids, you have to wonder what the KFC is like after three hours travel?
Finger licking good, obviously.
Pizza is quite palatable cold, but burgers are glutinous globs after being in the fridge.
I suppose you can still bung KFC in the microwave, kill off any nasties which may have hitch-hiked along for the ride.
What is it about fast food?
Even salads come in pre-packaged single-use plastic containers these days.
My whole reporting career seems to have been based around a community's desire for junk food.
Katherine has an excuse for wanting KFC.
It lost Subway after all.
But it still has McDonald's, Red Rooster and Domino's and a smattering of other food joints.
In another life, I was editor of the paper at Swan Hill, in northern Victoria.
They desperately needed a replacement for their century-old bridge over the Murray River, and had done for much too long, but that wasn't top of the list.
It was Hungry Jacks.
Swan Hill had KFC and all the others, but really wanted what they didn't have, and thought they were missing out on.
First port of call on any trip to Bendigo, was a pit stop at Hungries.
We listen to the community, it's what we do, so of course we understand Katherine is a much poorer place without the Colonel.
At least a couple of times a year we ask the head honchos at KFC to take time from ladling out the secret stuff, to answer our burning question.
When is KFC coming to Katherine?
"We haven't any plans at the moment, but we never rule anything out," they regularly reply.
Nothing original about that recipe for knockbacks.
I wonder what Jeannie Gunn would have thought?
She travelled through Katherine more than a century ago, crossing flooded rivers and the like on her way to Elsey and that classic Australian novel, We of the Never Never.
It could take months for a shipment of tea leaves to arrive at Elsey from Ktown in those days.
I'm not sure a KFC Bucket would have been top of her list, but who's to tell.
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