Are we crazy doing this??!! Pulling the kids out of school, chucking in perfectly OK jobs, spending all this money (the bank’s money), renting out our newly finished home after six long years of renovating! Kerry had just finished our ensuite... I’ve waited years for that ensuite!! On the upside, this adventure into the unknown or ‘Our Trip of a Lifetime’ as Mattie has dubbed his journal, is bringing us closer as a family unit, albeit somewhat by necessity. A 2.5 x 8m camper trailer doesn’t allow much room for privacy or downtime. Its size also means we have to keep things reasonably tidy at all times. I have just rearranged the cupboards for the third time in an attempt to find the right home for things. Maybe this will help me become more organised....hmmm .....or not.
We are noticing all the great, the not so great and the slightly icky things our children have to offer as time now allows us the benefit of more awareness. Hopefully with our new found excess of time we may overcome some of the more unsavoury traits our possums like to indulge in... like wiping their sticky hands on their clean Tshirts, removing monumentous boogers from their noses and indulging in staring at them and my all time favourite, sitting on the porta potty with their head between their legs in awe of the mighty turd they are giving birth to......charming. In the end though, we hope to come away with the greatest of memories – the good, the bad and the ugly for ourselves and the kids to treasure for our lifetimes.
If nothing else, the kids are learning that the basics of fresh food, water and petrol cannot be taken for granted. The slightest precipitation turns these roads to greasy slippery dips, making traction and steering a thing of the past. It’s not unheard of for towns to be cut off completely for weeks at a time... that means no food coming in, no mail, no fuel supplies, yet miraculously there’s always some brave soul, devoted enough to ensure the beer gets through. We, ourselves, were rained in at Innamincka. Even though it had not started raining yet, the roads were closed to eliminate anyone becoming “stranded” in the middle of nowhere. As the day wore on, more and more trucks and 4x4s arrived at this lonely watering hole oasis, the only outpost for several hundred kilometres. Had Bourke and Wills only known that 50kms to the west lay the Innamincka Hotel, they may never have perished, assuming they could afford to pay the king’s ransom of $9 for a schooner.
After one night of rain, which amounted to about 1mm , the roads remained closed for a further 4 days. Had we dared to venture forth on a closed road and got caught, the fine would have amounted to $1000 per wheel including any spares. We have eight wheels in total......hmmmmmm. So we bided our time swimming in the swollen river, and plucking yabbies by the dozen (the size of small crayfish) from the causeway. The air here however was thick with flies due to the hoards of pelicans that had made the river their home. They would lie in wait to mob us every time we would exit the van. It was the first time we had to use our hat fly screens. Am currently designing an all over body version.
School work for the kids is a necessary evil. They don’t think its necessary and we’re evil for imposing it upon them! As many people told us before we left though, they will learn so much along the way and that they are – as are we. At Silverton, (the setting for Mad Max 2) just out of Broken Hill, we went into The Daydream Mine, an underground silver and gold mine which thoroughly fascinated the kids, in Broken Hill we learnt that it was the humble beginnings of BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), and also in Broken Hill we visited Pro Hart’s hometown gallery. Pro is actually short for professor. He was a former miner himself, alot of his earlier paintings depicting mine life. Further down the track we met a real character (looney) who goes by the name of Talc Alf. Using his blackboard he taught the kids a few of his theories on word beginnings and informed us that the boomerang originated from some aboriginal kids throwing a kangaroo’s leg. It started coming back to them! At Innamincka we drove 60km out of town to the Dig Tree – the tree that last supplies of food were left dug into the ground for explorers Wills and Burke. The instructions that had been etched into the tree for them are long gone but the infamous Coolibah tree still remains.
As I write this, we are nearly four weeks into our craziness. It has taken us that long to adjust to our new found freedom. Even though we have the luxury of the internet to keep in touch, it is sporadic in its reception so we’re rather behind the times in the news of the world..... possibly a good thing. Getting used to free camping is interesting (even though Kerry and I had done it in Europe years ago) . I still can’t sleep properly when we’re not in the confines of a payed up and secure campground. Every little mouse scurrying by or oversized moth hitting the side of the van is a serial killer or crazed outback maniac whose stealthily sneaking up on us in order to slit the canvas and snatch the kids away while we lay snoring oblivious... and I haven’t even seen the movie “Wolfcreek”. Just the other night camping next to a billabong, I lay there in my usual state of awareness trying to will myself to sleep. Not even Kerry’s constant reminders of him being right beside me has helped. One particularly oversized moth kept catapulting himself against the flywire in an attempt to escape the madness of outside. Next thing I knew, we were being dive bombed from the inside....what the?? Moths, particularly large ones, are not on my list of favourite cuddly animals. A girl can only stand so much so, after multiple attempts on our lives, I leapt off our two inch thick inner sprung mattress and headed for the Mortein. Turning on the light however raised concerns as to what we were actually dealing with. This moth was a monster. Honey, I said, it’s the size of a small bat. We’re going need a whole lot more than Mortein! Kerry’s reply shocked and poll vaulted me back into bed and under the safety of a flimsy sheet......it IS a bloody bat! My hero of a husband caught the little nasty in a plastic tumbler and set about taking photos of him. He was kind of cute........ in the safety of the tumbler. This has actually happened twice now, much to the kids enjoyment. They can’t understand why mum doesn’t like the cute little suckers!!
The animal life is fantastic and the kids are marvelling in seeing all kinds of ‘creatures’ as Ella calls them, in their natural habitats. Not a day goes by that we don’t see something new and Kerry has become quite the wildlife photographer risking life and limb to get the shot. Daft lizards lie in wait smack bang in the middle of red dusty corrugated roads for some equally daft tourist to stop and take photos or flatten them. A few km’s out of Cameron Corner, we stopped off for another photo op at a dilapidated yellow bus. We noticed a large nest of falcons in the tree alongside the bus. After eyeing something intently on the ground, the father falcon swooped to collect it from next to a rubbish bin that I had only moments earlier walked passed. He was trying to snare a king brown (venomous) snake much to the delight of the kids. After a few pics we hot-footed it out of there.
Character is a word that is flung around a lot in the Outback, from the old derelict cars on the side of the road to the crumbling buildings, awesome pubs, their publicans and the townspeople. One particular place we came across overflowing with character was Cameron Corner – right smack on the corner of VIC, SA and NSW. ‘The Corner Store’ – really more of a pub, is managed by publican Sandy. She is packed full of life, brimming with stories of passing tourists and full of local knowledge and helpful info. Her ‘children’ Dags the dog and Nanny the goat kept the kids heartily entertained. The amenities block and showers were five star all the way in an old shipping container with aptly titled toilets ‘Drip Dry’ and ‘Flip Dry’. This tickled my fancy even more so when the kids couldn’t understand which one to use! The ceiling of the pub was covered in $5 notes – payment for camping the night, with proceeds going to the Royal Flying Doctors. In fact everywhere we go, townspeople are raising funds for this fundamental service. I am wondering if the government supply any funds at all. There are no local councils in the Outback and on visiting so many towns, its hard to see whether any government funding at all is sent their way.
To date, we haven’t actually laid eyes on the desert. It doesn’t exist at the moment. Due to the immense amount of rain that’s been received its greener than Nick’s back lawn! (And the bogs bigger than Dazza’s place!) In a way, we are seeing something truly remarkable but we wanted to see the desert for all its dryness and red roar arid hostility. What we are seeing is similar to East Gippsland in the middle of winter! We can’t complain though. We did get to see Lake Eyre with water so that’s probably a once in a lifetime occurrence and we’re getting to swim in plenty of waterholes which would otherwise be dry dustbowls. Travelling north on the Oodnadatta Track, after coming through a number of oversized bog holes, we found our path blocked by a what appeared to be a couple of mud people. They turned out to be German tourists who had been stranded for the last 24hrs axle deep in the bog. They were so happy to see us, we thought they were going to hug us. We managed to tow them out and spent the next 10mins trying to ascertain just how we would get through it ourselves. When in doubt drive right through the guts of it we were told – so we did and came out the other end victorious much to the Germans exasperation! No wonder they lost the war (sorry Iggy). Speaking of German tourists, they are the only other people crazy enough to be travelling the Outback this time of year. The season finishes at the end of October as its just too hot. Must be a special on in Germany or something.....
