Toowoomba to Perth: Section 5

Days Twelve and Thirteen : Mt Isa to Katherine

The next two days are a melted icecream of memories. Camooweal however, I remember distinctly, as it was definitely the last outpost before the Never Never. The visible terrain ahead made leaving Camooweal quite a scary experience for me as all those Important Survival Tips Dad had tried to tell me came crowding back to mind in a flurry of scrambled jigsaw pieces. Lucky I had my bag of nylons with me, now... what to do with them...

The impossibly flat road that disappears into a distant puddle is almost indistinguishable from the stubbly yellow savannah surrounding it due to the blazing malevolent glare of the unobscured sun.

I thought things about running out of petrol, overheating and exploding tyres, dying of thirst, how much drinking and purified water I had with me, that I would sacrifice the purified water to sate my thirst if it came to me or the car’s cooling system, and how good it was that there were lots of people on the road that could help me in an emergency.

Very quickly after those thoughts, as my head hit the ceiling and the car lurched like a drunk camel, came an invective aimed squarely at the apparent disagreement between the QLD and NT governments over exactly how wide the border area was and therefore who exactly was responsible for the road from Camooweal to approximately the next river crossing well and truly inside the NT border. What a shocker, pot holes filling in the pot holes, not a square bit of space on either side of the road to steer your wheels without doing in the alignment.

But, my old girl held up a treat and we got through the rough patches alright. After that, there is a bit of fat-skinny road but not so much, plenty of dry creeks and rivers, then lots and lots and lots of flat, grey, dusty open space.

The extraordinary thing about this part of Australia is that although people say “there’s a whole lot of nothin”, that isn’t true. There is no word in English that adequately captures the magnitude of the vision before your eyes; the words you might use shrivel in The Space, the cavernous Nothing swallows them whole, rendering them grossly inadequate to the task.

However, there are quite distinct sections of terrain like a patchwork quilt; vegetation or the composition of the land repeats itself ad nauseum until suddenly you reach a new patch and something completely different, yet endlessly the same.

For instance, sometimes you may pass through an area peppered with termite mounds like a bizarre cemetery, the trees blackened witches brooms, bristles pointed like flames toward the sky. You will then round a bend or descend into a dip and become submerged in the ossified bed of Australia’s ancestral inland sea.

Nothing special happened between Mt Isa and Three Ways except that I counted 110 unique vehicles towing caravans or trailers between Mt Isa and the Barkly Homestead Roadhouse (448km and the only stop between Camooweal and the Three Ways roadhouse at the intersection of the Stuart and Barkly Highways).

I decided not to fill up with petrol at the Barkly Homestead Roadhouse on the advice of the nice lady who sold me petrol at Camooweal – “most expensive petrol all the way to Darwin” – who also told me you are at the Centre of your Universe for free – unlike the internet access there which was $4 for 15 minutes!!

The exciting part of that idea is that I was on half of a 40L tank with 200km between me and Three Ways. We made 460km on that tank with just a little room to spare.

Three Ways is basically the only sleeping option other than Tennant Creek in that part of the world and they know it. Couldn’t raise a smile from the surly girl behind the counter if you turned her on her head, then later when I asked if I could charge up my laptop in the dining area they asked me to pay $5!!

Better parts about Three Ways were the fantastic but bloody freezing pool into which I plunged that evening in order to clear the road dust from my head and a seventy-year old Flemish/Hungarian (he said so) man called Fredrick who was cycling from Albany to Perth via Darwin. Pretty cool huh?

After we chatted for a bit, I said “I’m Felicity, nice to meet you” and he said “are you Australian?”

“Uh-huh”

“That’s strange. That has never happened to me before”

"What’s that?”

“You are Felicity.”

“Well, yes, that I am. What’s strange about that?”

“You… you, hm, well nice to meet you too, I’m Frederick”

I think he was trying to say that Australians don’t usually offer their name when they greet him but I’m still not sure. Lost in Translation.

Anyway, he was finishing off this tour that he didn’t get to do four years ago because his wife had a car accident and ended up with the whole stationery drawer holding her knee together. End of cycling for her, and she understands that he just wants to finish what he started.

Frederick was of the opinion that if he stopped moving his bits would rust up and that would be the end of the story, but that his bits were of the opinion that they would rust anyway and see what he tried to do about it.

Day Fourteen: Three Ways to Katherine

Our leaving day got up a dusty wind that followed me through to Katherine. Frederick commented on it over my morning coffee and his electric shave (no power in the men’s toilets so he was shaving in the camp kitchen) and I said it seemed to be at his back so perhaps it was a good thing. Yes, he agreed, perhaps it was.

After the stint from Croyden to Three Ways, the drive to Katherine was easier than a topple from the proverbial.

My morning stop at Renner Springs to ensure that there would be petrol at Elliot (300km from Three Ways) was ruptured by a cacophonic willy-willy of about 1000 sulphur-crested cockies swinging, sweeping, swirling and eventually winging their wiggly way into the blue. Such are the beauteous wonders of the untamed Inland.

From Renner Springs northward the evidence pointed to more frequent visitations from the Rain Gods. That is to say, the straggly and stunted trees assumed a confident and solid trunk with expansive brachiation. Tall needle grasses suffocated the understorey, and the river crossings although still dry, were wide and their beds championed deep runnels.

At Elliot I refuelled the car and the body, and was stalked by a resident peacock for my smoko. Not deterred by a murmured “get away” or a flick with the foot, this proud bird aimed to stake its rightful claim of my sandwich and honked in irritation when a tithe was not forthcoming.

Elliot petrol station is also the general store for the surrounding Aboriginal community and the pictures you see on A Current Affair are not made up just for the journos. The service shop at the Elliot servo is security-grilled at door and window and I watched a girl in perhaps her late teens push a pram (with child) toward the shop door. Preceding her by about 5 minutes was a man possibly in his late 20s and she did not hesitate to express with gusto and for all to hear her displeasure at his intended destination.

Both entered the shop and were ejected by the attendant shortly thereafter, with a stern suggestion to continue their carry on someplace else.

He then departed in one direction with his plastic bag full of something and she pushed her baby the opposite way.

The manager shook his head and returned to his inside jobs.

I should also mention that the askance look that I was served when in Renner Springs I questioned the likelihood of fuel further onward should be returned to its owner. There was no fuel at Larrimer and even the makeshift tourist information centre-cum-pub-cum “world famous home made pise” shop had thoughtfully hung a handpainted sign on the fence “gone shopping”.

The stop at Daly Waters for petrol wasn’t too revealing so there isn’t much to share; Katherine though is a doozy.

From its outerskirts to its innerskirts (when coming from South) takes about 40 minutes, and takes one past the Tindal RAAF Airbase. Of course, I didn’t know whether the highway runs through the town centre, I had no reason to be confident that it would be sign-posted at all, such has been my experience with these things, it was after 5pm and having just travelled 1800km in three days I was desperate to stop driving so I was anxious to hit the mark first time around. When you drive by yourself you start to really know your Time to Stop signs and I was having them all over the place.

As is done in the Territory, everyone around was zooming past with purpose and I began to think that there was some Secret Squirrel business going on and the turnoff into Katherine was local knowledge only – slightly irrational thinking: definite Time to Stop signal.

But no, for a change town planning was my friend and the Stuart Highway slices right through the middle. And, Glory Be! A Woolies!!!! See how your expectations change when you get away from the major centres? A sizeable grocery store can bring a tear to the tired driver’s eye.

If possible I would have hugged Katherine, choking red bulldust and all.

Feeling buoyant, I set to sorting my accommodation. Even this was done with a quick phonecall so I thought, right, now that you’re here (at Woolies), you better stock up. It was pretty much a case of do it now before you collapse in an exhausted heap and can’t move.

Bloody hell!

In addition to the usual suspects – tourists by the bucketload, locals, property owners/residents from the surrounding stations, miners and the RAAF contingent, it was payday and everyone had their vouchers. The place was full to the rafters, every till was open and about 12 people deep.

The other striking thing about Katherine was that I immediately felt like an interloper. Gaggles of mainly Aboriginal people spilled into the street, meandered, loitered, chatted, yelled, sang, played, and followed each other waving fists or objects and gesticulating with a laconic flick of the hand.

Now I REALLY felt like I was in the Territory.

When I was at the checkout I got a better appreciation of the new realities the Intervention created for the people out here. A family of mothers were in front of me and the grandmother was having her items priced and then giving them back again if they took her over her voucher limit. The meat and bread in huge quantities went through, the party balloons and bags of lollies were sent back. I could see that grandmother was considering what she needed versus what she wanted to get for her family.

The mother following her grabbed some of the items that the Grandmother had returned, such as packs of salads, and put them with her own goods. When a box of Favourites chocolates went through at $20, she put gave it back immediately. There was a long pause when Mother considered whether floor cleaner was more important than a couple of bottles of soft drink. The soft drink won.

Fighting through the throng I made it back to the car and off to the vanpark. The rock-solid floor of my campsite was no deterrent – nothing a few hearty whacks of hammer upon peg couldn’t solve. And thoughtfully, the caravan park was a mere 500m from the Katherine Hot Springs. What a treat after my walk the next day… but we’ll get to that.

Crawling into my tent, I collapsed and a few of you heard from me!