With many tourists seemingly reluctant to offer the bush finger salute on Cape York roads this dry season, editor Lyndon Keane has dissected popular styles of the art in a bid to make the tradition great again. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
Based on the comments I’ve heard around the traps this dry season, I haven’t been the only one to notice a trending absence of friendly fingers being raised off steering wheels to acknowledge passing motorists on our Cape York roads.
The bush salute is a time-honoured tradition on rural and remote roads, especially up this way, but it seems like many in this year’s tourist cohort are simply refusing to play the game, whether through a disinterest in basic traveller etiquette – “I’m from Toorak and we just don’t do those sorts of things down there” – or confusion about how to offer a single-finger greeting at 80 kilometres per hour or more. In the event the finger wave drought of 2024 is being caused by the latter, I thought I’d dissect the six most common styles as an unofficial reference point for our southern visitors.
Style 1: Index Excellence
The OG bush salute and the telltale style of someone accustomed to greeting random drivers. This style is identified by the effortless lifting of the index finger from the steering wheel as an acknowledgement to the vehicle coming towards you. If your finger goes anywhere north of 45 degrees from your grip on the wheel, you’re doing it wrong and likely to appear to the passing driver as though you’re performing a mobile finger puppet show.
Style 2: The Salute
The calling card of the newbie, this style involves the driver lifting their entire right hand off the steering wheel and gesturing towards the oncoming vehicle with a straight hand. Unfortunately, this style bears a horrible resemblance to the sorts of salutes made mandatory in certain European countries during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as those living under a communist regime. It’s probably best you leave this one in the kit bag.
Style 3: The Grip and Glare
For reasons known only to exponents, this technique involves staunchly refusing to offer a greeting and instead gripping down on the steering wheel while glaring menacingly at the poor bastard whose only crime was to acknowledge your existence on some of the remotest roads in the country. It may just be an amusing coincidence, but the Grip and Glare types tend to be those piloting four-wheel drives that could pass for a prime mover and towing caravans big enough to accommodate all the roadies on the Rolling Stones’ last tour.
Style 4: Nothing to See Here
This style is a distant cousin of the Grip and Glare in that there is no bush salute offered, however, fans of the Nothing to See Here will not even make eye contact as you drive past, preferring instead to lower their head and focus on a point at the end of their bonnet in a method not dissimilar to the If-I-can’t-see-them-they-can’t-see-me mentality adopted by four-year-olds. The theory is these individuals listen to way too many true crime podcasts and assume every motorist who calls Cape York home is the person they based the Wolf Creek franchise on.
Style 5: Put Your Body Into It
Whether it’s due to consuming too much caffeine and three bags of red frogs between Lakeland and Coen, or just an odd and unnecessary ebullience, this style transforms the humble bush salute into a whole body production. Not only does this style involve acknowledging the passing vehicle with a huge grin of Cheshire Cat-esque proportions, you have to offer a wave that would make the Beverly Hillbillies proud. I’m talking about the sort of enthusiasm you’d use to flag down a passing vessel after you’ve been stuck on a deserted island on your own for six months.
Style 6: The Finger Flagpole
This style is technically a single-finger salute, but not in the way you’re thinking. It’s only rolled out in response to an Index Excellence going unrequited. It involves raising and waving your middle finger angrily in the direction of the motorist who’s ignored you. It takes a special, practised skill to be able to transition to this style quickly enough for the intended target to see it. If you hesitate for even a second, you’ll be flipping the bird at an empty road.
