Before the Sun Goes Down (on Me)
I’ve now settled into a rough pattern for posting my blogs. When I’ve got 3 major topics to cover, with notes taken down in my PDA, I’ll sit down to write the blogs and then post them when possible. This means that you can expect postings about every 5 days – 3 days of experiences, 1 day for writing, and perhaps another to find a way to post them. But this is just an estimate right now, so please check in whenever you feel like it. And I’ll try to adopt a more mellow methodology too, for now this feels about right. After all, I’m not working or anything…
OK, read on, here are 3 new blogs, the first of which is lengthy but should be a good read. It was certainly interesting to live it!!
Iain left me off at a Subway sandwich shop in the soulless burgh of Port Augusta. I had 6 hours before my bus departed, and Subway’s the only place with an Internet portal, so I sat there for 4 hours catching up on emails and posting blogs. The counter girl didn’t mind that I only ordered a single soft drink…particularly as the computer was costing me $10/hour.
Iain and I had a good hug before we parted ways. We’ve known each other since 1992, have met pretty often throughout the years, and have become good at saying goodbye to each other. I suppose we both know we’ll be seeing each other before too long. Port Augusta was probably the worst place imaginable to part ways…at a Subway franchise on a minor highway in a very minor town…albeit one calling itself ‘the crossroads of Australia.’ Perhaps being a ‘crossroads’ is good for business; I’ve known a number of such ‘crossroads’ around the world, and they generally tend to be shitholes solely organized because they offer geographical convenience (or bribes) for the various transport operators – bus, train, etc. Pathankot in the Punjab of India was the worst place I’ve ever passed through – easily topping dozens of other disturbing towns scattered around northern India. If you’re ever up there and you’re told you need to pass through Pathankot because it’s a ‘railhead,’ find another way to go. I mean it.
Even after spending 4 hours on the Internet in Port Augusta (supposedly called ‘Port Aguta, mate’ by the local Aborigines), I had a bit more time before my bus to Alice Springs, so I walked into the Flinders Hotel for a couple. Drinks, I mean…’hotel’ in Oz generally means ‘bar’ and not just a place to sleep, although many pubs do have a few dusty/smoky rooms upstairs if you can stand the noise. Best to fill up before heading up there. At least you’ve got lots of choices – Australia probably has more variety of booze than any place on the planet. Besides all their own beers – Crown (my fave), Boags, Coopers, Cascade, VB, XXXX Gold, Carltons, etc., they’ve got beers from all over, and also a bizarre and wonderful variety of canned mixed drinks. Jim Bean mixers; vodka ‘cruisers’; Woodstock bourbon & cola; Red Bear vodka & raspberry; Canadian Club, Smirnoff, and Jack Daniels based mixed drinks too. I considered trying them all out in alphabetical order, but realized the difficulty in doing so in the 90 minutes before my bus left town. So I stuck with VB’s (Victoria Bitters), a good local beer.
The ride to Alice was long (14 hours) and uneventful. I slept for much of it. We made numerous pit stops, including one in the desolate opal-mining center of Coober Pedy – which translates in the local Aboriginal tongue as ‘white mans’ holes.’ That’s because most inhabitants have underground dwellings to protect them from the 110+ degree (F) heat in summertime. Most hotels and other places are also underground. I only had 45 minutes to wander around the place before we drove off, but it gave me a decent sense of the otherworldliness of Cooder Pedy. This is where Mad Max and a few other Armageddon-type films were shot…you might recognize a few features. I could almost imagine Mel Gibson coming up and firing on our Greyhound bus as we slowly drove out of town.
While at the ‘café’ in Coober Pedy I watched the end of the Oz-Japan World Cup match. Oz was down 1-0 with 10 minutes to go, and then scored 3 times before the end of the match. Japan couldn’t believe what hit them…and the few grizzled Aussies around me went wild with joy for their ‘Socceroos’ (Aussies have a nickname for everything – each other and all of their teams – quite endearing). These fellows were probably not huge ‘football’ (soccer) fans…Australian Rules Football, cricket, and rugby are much bigger in Oz, although things differ state to state. But getting into the World Cup is a big deal here, and I suppose that beating Japan in anything is cause for celebration. Japan did bomb Darwin 64 times, after all. More on that in an upcoming post.
It was damn cold, incidentally. Before heading to Oz I thought it would be a bit chilly, but Adelaide and the desert were both close to freezing in the early morning. You really don’t expect that in the ‘desert,’ and one’s always hearing about the scorching red center of Oz. I guess that temperatures can really go to extremes without the moderating influence of a nearby ocean.
This is getting to be a long post, but what the hell. More to report. When I was awake on the bus ride, I saw the odd ‘roo hopping around. And while I was mentally prepared (and even excited) to see no evidence of man in the Outback, that’s not the case. There are cattle fences in many areas, and the roads, even the unpaved ones, are sign-posted. The land has been tamed, to a degree, all over. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. Then I fell asleep again.
On our final pit stop before reaching Alice, I had a meat pie with the bus driver (don’t read anything into that), and he asked me about my plans. He smiled wickedly as I told him I planned to hop into a car when we reached Alice at 2:30 p.m. that day and drive straight to Ayers Rock. He told me that you can’t drive at night in that part of the Outback – there are huge camels that wander into the road, the cattle do so too, and there’ve been many wrecks and fatalities as a result. He also said that the car rental companies don’t cover nighttime accidents…so if you wreck, you’re boned (dead or alive). I probably should have seen this coming…although when Iain and I were in South Australia we drove a bit at night, albeit on unpaved roads at slower speeds. Anyway, given my very tight timeline for seeing Ayers the next day, getting back to Alice that same night, then flying to Darwin the subsequent day, I was cutting it pretty fine, and knew it. My original plan was to drive from Alice to a roadhouse called Curtin Springs, stop there for the night, and drive an hour the next morning to see Ayers and the Olgas – and then drive all the way back to Alice (5 hours). After speaking with the driver, I though I’d need to adjust my plans and avoid nighttime driving altogether. I’ve gotta say that it always pays to have a chat with bus drivers and people like that…they always know something you don’t.
When we reached Alice I raced over to Avis, got my car, and hit the road right away. I made pretty good time, completely ignored speed limits and warnings of ‘speed camera postings’ on the Stuart Highway, and was soon out of radio earshot. The speeding was stupid considering the risk of large animals on the road – while many are semi-nocturnal, kangaroos seem to be everywhere all the time. The bus driver had told me I could easily reach a roadhouse/truck stop called Mt. Ebenezer before nightfall, so I aimed for that. I’d need to get up at 4-5 a.m. the next day to drive on to Ayers, but didn’t seem to have much choice. I came upon Mt. Ebenezer around 5:15 p.m., as the sun was getting low. I got out of the car and looked around…and didn’t see much. There was a grim-looking Aboriginal Museum which featured 6-7 Aborigines hanging around the front…they looked at me in a way that was difficult to interpret. I managed to glimpse some accommodations out back, but in general Mt. Ebenezer looked like a desperate place to spend the evening – even though I often have a tendency to bottom-fish. I decided to take a real risk and race on towards my original plan of Curtin Springs Station.
So the day became a completely unplanned adventure, one of many I’ve had over the years. As I drove at 1.3x (where x = speed limit), I realized that I may be genetically incapable of following any speed limit – my foot always seems to press the throttle approximately 30% more than the police and insurance companies would prefer. I can probably blame my father for this – when he was driving me around when I was a kid, and speeding as a matter of course, he warned me never to drive like him. Right, that worked out well…
I had one eye on the road and another, indirectly, tracking the position of the sun. I didn’t have much time left, to be sure. Sunfall was pegged for about 6 p.m., I had 100 km (62 miles) to go to Curtin Springs. It reminded me of a Bill Cosby piece in which he had to be home from the movies before the sun went down, otherwise the monsters would come out and get him and Old Weird Harold. In my case, as warned by the omniscient bus driver, massive feral camels, camels, and wedge-tailed eagles (which eat roadkill and look like they could carry off a small car) infest the roadways and can total a car. As I was racing along, I came around a bend and sure enough, there was a 7-foot camel that probably weighed 2 tons, munching a plant at the roadside. I slowed down, and stopped…Cid the Camel stopped munching and looked right at me. We both wondered what to do for a moment, then I backed up, took a wide berth around him, and got out of there. I’ve been told that domesticated camels are wonderful creatures, but the feral variety don’t look so cuddly.
I drove along, and saw two more camels – which were less scary. Perhaps I was become blasé about seeing two-ton beasts crowding the roads. I also saw an unbelievable amount of roadkill – mostly ‘roos. I didn’t think that they were all killed by autos – if so, then I’d seriously need to consider acquiring an auto body shop in the Outback, and perhaps a funeral home as well. Big trucks probably did most of the damage, and rolled right over the ‘roos and even a few camels. There are trucks which pull several trailers and are called ‘road trains,’ and these things are a wonder to behold. When we drive by them in the other direction, the wind tunnel they create almost blows you off the road. Anyway, every few km I’d have to slow down and let the eagles and other birds fly off their roadkill, then I’d drive around it (stench wasn’t that bad, surprisingly) and speed on.
I reached Curtin Springs at 6:15 p.m., the sun having sun but a touch of twilight remaining. I swear I had white knuckles as I pulled it. I turned around to see if a herd of feral camels was tailing me, then pulled into the parking lot and walked into the pub for a series of beers. I told them my story, and they let me know that the previous day a car had flipped over on the road and killed the driver, a young Japanese fellow. He was probably swerving to avoid some roadkill or eagles; that was a little unsettling. The rest of the night was mostly uneventful – I had a camel burger (really), had a few drinks with truck drivers in the pub, endured two power cuts, and finally crashed in my little ACO-room (basically a prefab building with a few rooms cut into it). I slept till 5:30 the next morning, and needed the sleep, given my previous night spent tossing & turning on the Greyhound bus.
Tags: Travel
mbsloney
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