They say if you’re stopped on the side of the Birdsville Track, you’ll know when a car coming past is being driven by an Aussie because they’ll slow down, wind down the window, and check you’re not in any trouble.

‘You okay, mate?’

Sure, touring foreigners are likely to feel a bit more uncomfortable doing this in a strange land, but the Australian habit of checking on others is in the blood, a necessity for survival in this harsh land for the early convicts and pioneers of Australia, and no doubt for the Indigenous folk for thousands of years before that.

In this...