What happened to that friendly wave exchanged on country roads?

These customary signals were a cherished part of my childhood. On long family road trips, between those countless games of "I Spy" in the back seat, my sister and I would take bets on what sort of wave the driver of the next passing vehicle would give dad. Would it be the index finger raised lazily from the steering wheel, or a full bush salute with the whole hand?

These genuine gestures were as Australian as Vegemite on toast and the Hills Hoist. They were also widespread throughout parts of our country. And I don't mean travelling down William Hovell Drive or cruising along the Federal Highway - the domain of this wave was almost exclusively the network of highways that criss-cross our vast country with little or no traffic.

"It's reserved for roads where you don't see another car more than every 10 minutes," was my late dad's unwritten rule. "You don't want to get RSI from waving to every Tom, Dick and Harry," he'd add laconically.

I agree. On busy roads you don't expect a wave but on backroads a wave is welcome. Call me old fashioned, but I'd say it's more than welcome, it's almost expected.

It's thought this "outback" or "desert" wave began out of authentic sociability along with a fanciful insurance policy that if you broke down, hopefully if the same car you'd waved to earlier came back the other way, they'd stop and help you.

And as one fanatical waver once advised me, "If someone waves at you, you can breathe a sigh of relief if you encounter them, it means they are unlikely to be a mass murderer."

There's also an art to the wave. You don't wave furiously as that might imply the surfboard on the roof rack of the passing car is about to topple off. Likewise, the wave needs to be noticeable enough that the driver in the other vehicle notices it, and hopefully reciprocates.

Dr Adrian Pearce, an Australian anthropologist who studied the wave back in 2013, concluded: "It's simply an expression of, if you like, 'Hello, how are you?' That kind of fairly ephemeral greeting that we use all the time."

Well, not much anymore it seems. Today, with modern cars that rarely malfunction, motorists wind the windows up, turn the music to full blast and drive as if the road belongs to them. And them only. The prevalence of the desert wave appears to be waning.

Over the last few months, I decided to test the contemporary currency of this wave.

Firstly, on roads within a few hours' drive of Canberra, in response to my friendly gesture, in almost every instance all I received in return were blank stares, or in a few unfortunate cases a middle finger purposefully pointed in my direction. Lovely.

Fearing these results may have been skewed by widespread Y-plates jealousy (let's face it, who wouldn't want to advertise that you are from Canberra in rural NSW?), I take my research to a new level.

I hire a motorhome with Queensland plates and set out on the 2700km drive along the Stuart Highway between Darwin and Port Augusta, widely regarded one of the loneliest stretches of highway on the planet, and more importantly "desert wave" heartland.

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Leaving Darwin's metro confines, my passenger confesses he never waves. Never. That's a good thing, at least for this trip, for a genuine wave must be delivered by the driver. A wave from a passenger should be reserved as a hello that you are passing someone you are familiar with. Either that or directed to the radar-wielding officer hiding behind a roadside termite mound (about 5km out of Daly Waters, in case you are headed that way).

Besides, there's not much else for the driver in these parts to do but to scan the radio for Ray Hadley's latest gibber-fest on some Back 'o Bourke station or listen to repeats of true crime podcasts about the Peter Falconio murder case. Turns out some hardened crims wave too.

And the results? Disappointingly, less than 20 per cent of drivers reciprocate my wave. Curiously, the majority of these are driving motorhomes from the same hire company as ours. Perhaps they are mistakenly of the belief it's one of the rules that you must abide by to ensure you don't lose your $1000 bond.

Noticeably, those driving their own motorhomes rarely wave back. Clearly, in the pecking order of outback drivers, those who hire their vehicles are firmly at the bottom. Perhaps I should I have brought along the Y-plates after all? It also corroborates the theory that we feel more compelled to wave to those where we have a common interest.

Tellingly, less than 2 per cent of people driving towards me instigate a wave. Although my passenger reckons most of them were actually shooing away flies. Either that or grooving to the latest Taylor Swift track.

Foolishly, despite being warned by fellow travellers not to bother, I attempted to induce a wave from a couple of Road Train drivers.

"They see themselves as the kings of the highway and aren't going to stoop so low as to wave to a motorhome driver, a hired one at that," predicts one Grey Nomad at Barrow Creek campground.

Of course, he was right.

Like many, over the Christmas break I've been out walking the tracks around Canberra. It's been busy, especially during the morning with people squeezing in their daily constitutional before those afternoon storms roll in.

But something is amiss. For many years I've wandered along Canberra's bush tracks, not just for a gulp of fresh air and to keep the body moving, but also for the friendly faces you see along the way. You know, the lady with little white chihuahua, whose name you don't know but who you see every day. Or the old fella who wears the same T-shirt and shorts on his walk whether it be mid-July or the height of summer.

When passing another walker, it's always been common practice to exchange a polite hello or at least wave at each other.

But over the past 12 months or so, I've noticed a distinct shift away from this tradition. On the One Tree Hill walk above Hall which I traipse along more regularly than most other tracks, many striding out on their daily constitutionals don't even bother to make eye contact, let alone say g'day.

What has caused this decline in courtesy? Is it because the tracks are now much busier, so people are weary of saying hello to a stranger? Or is my new deodorant? My kids have claimed before that it must be laced with skunk pheromones.

Or perhaps it's part of a broader trend in society that we are becoming less friendly to each other, just as with the decline of the desert wave. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, there was a renewed sense of community and a feeling we were "all in it together". However, in the space of a couple of years that sentiment seems to have vanished quicker than cheap tickets to Bali.

Rating: Easy

Clue: There was once a whalebone seat here!

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday 30 December wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

Last week: Congratulations to Andy Hogan, of Bonython, who was the first reader to identify last week's photo as the huts at South Era in the Royal National Park, photographed in 1953 by the late Bill Tomsett. Andy, who answered the quiz while bobbing up and down on a ship off the Western Australian coast, recalls visiting the Royal National Park "in his youth" to fish at Garie Beach and swim at Wattamolla Beach. "I'd get the train to Waterfall and ride my push bike to Burning Palms (Era Beach)."

Many of the beach shacks date to the 1930s and the Depression years when out of desperation families created them from flotsam, driftwood and other repurposed materials, surviving on fish, wild rabbits and home-grown vegetables. With no road access, over the years some of the shacks have been abandoned, while others were deliberately demolished under a National Parks and Wildlife Service policy, where shacks were removed if an owner died, or rent fell into arrears. In 2006, a 20-year licensing agreement was established where owners pay rent to the NPWS, but the shacks remain owned by the families.

Meanwhile, regular contributor, Alan Hume, of Burrill Lake, reports, "It's uncanny or eerie, but I was at the exact spot south of the Kiama blowhole a little over a week ago but didn't relate it to the 'Where on the Coast' item as appeared in this column on December 16. It appears as if the stone building that appeared in the 1953 photo has long gone," explains Alan, who sent in his recent photo for comparison.

Happy New Year to all readers and please don't forget, I love to receive photos of unusual or quirky observations in our region, especially over the holiday season.

CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, GPO Box 606, Civic, ACT, 2601