Tag: australia

Day 7 – Out of the desert

Day 7 – Out of the desert

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 1 Comment

Right. If you just leave the mattress inside the swag and roll it all up together it ends up as a pretty tight little plasticky sausage roll. Much better. I feel more certain than ever that tomorrow we’ll be ready to start this rally.

On our final morning we woke up at Tobermorey Station; hundreds of luminescent parrots and swooping raptors, squawking and battling for the choicest spots in the trees around us. Only Australia could deliver so many vibrant birds in the middle of a desert. Well done Australia.

A chap wandered over to admire our ride. He noted the carpeted walls and sunroof and working clutch, and asked after our intentions for her. Unwanted shitboxes get auctioned off at the finish line and it has not escaped a few rallyers that our car is not, well, a shitbox. Just maybe a misunderstood family car with a patchy history and a previous owner who had to flee the country, for some reason, which was most likely not related to the car.

This inspecting chap, in casual conversation, also mentioned that he had previously owned a CRV and that he had changed it from front-wheel-drive to rear-wheel-drive and that was a good thing to do and that he could do it for us right now if we wanted; in the middle of the desert, with no workshop, before breakfast. I don’t even know where to start with this, but just add it to the list of things we obviously can’t do.

So today was a pretty straight stretch, 500km-ish, from Tobermorey to Alice Springs, along the Plenty Highway. Don’t be fooled by the word Highway here, it is misleading… to say the least. I feel like there should be some sort of universal definition of highway, and some agreed standards, to give motorists clarity and comfort. Something basic like “if your road is made of shifting dust and has enormous holes and the occasional lake in it, it is not a highway.” Something like that.

As we meandered further into the centre, the eucalypt leaves gradually became that beautiful lime colour common in the Territory, and the bark smooth and white more often than not. The landscape began to undulate and bubble out of the flat expanse to which we had become accustomed, as the MacDonnell Ranges slowly roused themselves and then leapt out at us from the south.

As we finally hit the tarmac of the Stuart Highway, and turned left, rallyers began to splinter from the groups that had kept them nourished for the past week. Some drivers, perhaps beginning to revert to their real-world selves, pushed up and through other groups, overtaking in dubious settings, determined to travel at the allowable 130kmph despite piloting cars closer to the scrapheap than the autobahn. The radios began to crackle with anonymous, frustrated men demanding that forward groups travel at the allowable speed or get off the road. The outback UHF version of the modern keyboard warrior.

And so, just before sunset, we emerged from the desert and rolled into Alice Springs like Max Rockatansky, if Max had enjoyed a nice drive through the outback in a mid-sized Japanese car, having encountered very little societal collapse, few if any post-apocalyptic wastelands, and zero barbarous killings. We discussed, and agreed, that Miller had made a fine choice going with a black 5.7L V8 Interceptor for Max’s iconic shitbox, rather than a silver Honda CRV with it’s 1.5L engine, 140KW of power, and carpeted walls.

Then we went out to get matching Stackhat tattoos from Alice Springs’ second highest rated tattoo artist. He thought they were rad.

And so a few observations before I end the story of this rally, for which we were never really ready.

Far Western NSW, South Western Queensland and all of the Northern Territory is SO empty. The dirt is so red. The horizons so wide. The emus so ungainly. The sunsets so audacious. The eagles so badass. The dust so relentless. The bakeries so plentiful. The parrots so sublime. The stars so mesmerizing. The road-trains so unyielding. The fires so blazing. The night so silent. The daybreak so squawky. The highways so pot-holed. The ants so industrious. The wandering cows so serene. The swags so fiddly. The clutches so optional… and the pub-crawls so protracted.

Farewell for now outback Australia, and farewell forever to our dear, unremarkable, Honda CRV.

Our CRV riding off into a typically magnificent sunset

Day 6 – #straya

Day 6 – #straya

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Fauce popped his head out of his swag this morning, his hair all frazzled up like a bottlebrush, and, with a tone that reminded me of somebody figuring out one of those 3D, sail boat, blurry eye posters for the first time, exclaimed; “oooooh, hey Jupes – we’re on a pub crawl”.

It’s shocking that it took us 5 whole days and more than 3000km of driving to figure it out, given all we do is drive and stop at pubs, and the occasional nice looking silo, but he’s right. We are 5/7ths of the way through a very elaborate pub crawl. Everybody else seems completely aware of this fact.

I want to talk a little more about the Coopers Cowmen. They are driving this tiny Corolla with no clutch, but also with no boot space, and most of the boot is full of sub-woofer. Last night that sub-woofer was playing the low frequency bits of The Prodigy until almost sunrise, and not the mainstream Prodigy favourites but most of the B side tracks from the Jilted Generation, which lend themselves very nicely to a sound-system made entirely of sub-woofer, because the B side is mostly low frequency experimentation. Anyway, our makeshift tent city seemed entirely unperturbed by this late-night expression of musical creativity, except for one chap who said he would put a hammer through the front windscreen of the Cowmen’s Corolla if it happened again. Seemed an extreme response but I am confident if they can drive a car through the outback without a clutch, then a lack of windscreen would not necessarily rule them out.

But the sub-woofer has me digressing. My point is, they have no space at all and they seem to be getting on just fine. We have this giant CRV and zero subwoofers, and yet every morning we are shoe-horning our many possessions into every nook and cranny we can find; it is the car version of sitting on your suitcase while your partner carefully and steadily pulls the straining zips together. Needless to say, our mattress situation remains unresolved.

This morning our comfortable car finally caught up with us. Fauce and I were required to stand up on a trailer and hoola hoop in front of 500 people. I was disappointed at how bad I was at this; my hips didn’t cooperate at all. Fauce was quite good and mocked me with his eyes and talent, which I found indelicate.

Today our pub crawl took us from the South-West Queensland outback town of Bedourie, through some wild, empty Queensland countryside, just across the border into the Northern Territory, and onward to a small hobby farm called Tobermorey Station, which is a mere snip of a thing at 1,480,000 acres. The maximum carrying capacity of Tobermorey Station is 15,000 head of cattle, which means conditions are quite squishy for those poor bovines. They only get about 100 acres each, and they are mustered by helicopter.. #straya.

Fauce and I spent the first few hours of our journey today wondering and debating whether our 15 year old selves would think we were cool. We had no resolution on this question, and were unsure whether our very presence on this rally would add or detract from that equation. But it did make me wonder what we have been talking about for the last 50 hours of driving. This journey does have a way of twisting, bending and distorting time and conversation… and spinal alignment.

A highlight from today was seeing 5 wedgetail eagles, with their broad chests and fuck-you confidence, devouring a giant red kangaroo on the side of the road; I say again… #straya.

We also popped $50 into a donation tin at one of the pub crawl stops in deep Western Queensland, for a group of school kids from that town to go skiing next year. It struck us as an evocative and wonderful concept, and we figured it would feel as adventurous and exciting to those kids as wedgetail eagles feel to us.

We made it to Tobermorey in the daylight, which was a wonderful development. I bought a key ring for $10 which was just an ear-tag from one of the cows. Not modified at all, just an ear-tag. I will never use it but I felt good about the purchase. I could also tell I was back in the Territory because everybody was chatty, and friendly, and in no hurry whatsoever.

We had a nice evening with sizeable but not ostentatious fires, lots of whip cracking (add to list of things we can’t do) and an incredible spread of gluten-free options for dinner, without hyperbole perhaps the best I have ever seen. Such an array of gluten-free delights is probably not what one might expect on a 6,000km2 cattle farm as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get, but perhaps I need to say again… #straya.

Apparently there was also a blindfolded dance competition after dark, but I had already snuck off for my favourite part of the day – cozying down into my sleeping bag like a plump mummy, opening the zip of my swag just a sliver so the ants don’t find you straight away, and looking straight up at the brightest soup of shimmering stars I have ever seen.

Ever since ice had stopped forming on my forehead, north of Silverton, this has become a rare treat indeed.

Not where the hoop is supposed to be

Big sky at Tobermorey

Atypical mattress arranging

Day 5 – Betoota and Birdsville

Day 5 – Betoota and Birdsville

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

When we awoke on day 5, some of the soiled and tattered wedding dresses from yesterday’s adventure had been affixed to a set of nearby rugby posts, billowing silently in the wind. They reminded me of the trussed-up dingoes we had seen swinging gently from trees, south of the wild dog fence. It was simultaneously captivating and unsettling.

Our car was an ochre-coloured, muddy mess, and completely drained of washer fluids, after the gravelly beating of the previous evening. Being the experienced outback adventurers that we are, we recognised fluids and some measure of windscreen visibility might be useful, so we set about rectifying the situation.

We had purchased a giant water vessel in Shepparton which we had been carrying around on our roof for almost a week, but so far had not got around to filling it up (soon we’ll be ready to start the rally). Instead, we have remained quite well hydrated via regular purchases of bottled water from outback petrol stations dotted around the place. Fauce prefers sparkling.

So, given there was no convenient tap to assist us with our task, we cleaned our windscreen, headlights, and topped up our various water reservoirs with one and a half litres of filtered, bottled water. About $7 worth. We recognise this is not text book ‘outdooring’, and hoped nobody observed our shameful act.

Our drive today was clearly designed simply as a pretext to take us past two famous pubs; Betoota and Birdsville.

I didn’t know much about Betoota before we got there. My friend told me it has a camel club and a four star hotel. Because I am a middle-class, left-leaning man who only uses the old, non-confusing social medias, my only association with Betoota is its satirical rag, the Advocate. I am not sure what I expected before we arrived; maybe that semi-famous editor-at-large guy behind the bar, or front pages of various editions plastered on the walls, or at least some suggestion there was a symbiotic relationship going on here. I left a bit confused and I am genuinely not sure the Betoota Hotel is in on the joke. Or perhaps it is all so subtle that I am the one not in on the joke. Wikipedia describes Betoota in relative terms to Birdsville, quote “Betoota is a ghost town to the east of the town of Birdsville”. Birdsville is itself not a thriving metropolis, so that gives you a pretty good idea as to what is going on in Betoota. Not much.

I had quite a long chat with a guy I thought was a security guard for the Betoota Hotel; about Betoota, and the Hotel, and whether we could buy some petrol. But it turned out he was just a guy from the rally dressed as a security guard, so that wasn’t very informative. Anyway, we drank a XXXX there dressed in our tie-dyed coveralls, which we have now cut down into tie-dyed dungarees

Gosh, I just need to digress briefly to exclaim at just how empty the outback is. I was expecting empty, yes, even very empty, but, wow, it is just flat and very, very empty. Like, really empty. Heaps of spinifex though.

Anyway, we rolled into Birdsville mid-afternoon and immediately multiplied its population by 5. Everybody drank a beer and then got back into their quasi-road-safe vehicles to drive another 300km on dirt roads in the dark.

As our buddy group was organising itself to depart, one of our teams (the Cooper’s Cowboys) casually mentioned they didn’t seem to have a clutch anymore. Firstly, why are they called cowboys? Was there some sort of child labour thing happening when people wrangling cows became famous and cool? Surely they are more accurately cowmen? Anyway, I’m going to call them cowmen henceforth.

Where was I? Yes, the clutch. So Fauce and I figured that was the end for the Cowmen, because we have no knowledge of clutches and what can and cannot be achieved without one. The Cowmen were almost suspiciously relaxed about this whole thing. We all gave them a bit of shove and off they went, once around the block and then off into the outback. So add that to the list of things Fauce and Jupiter cannot do; drive a car without a clutch, or even conceive that a car can be driven without a clutch.

We arrived in the dark again, half a dozen of us literally pushing the Cowmen into camp. Apparently that’s fine, and everything’s going to be fine. Seems unlikely.

Only 1200km to go.

Captivating and unsettling

Day 4 – Carpeted walls and functioning brakes

Day 4 – Carpeted walls and functioning brakes

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The remnants of our enormous bonfire were still smoldering when we awoke in Hungerford, to a pleasant temperature and a dry swag. We were in outback Queensland, where the dew point is high and the chance of obliterating your vehicle on a wandering cow is yet higher.

There were quiet whispers in the breakfast line that one or more vehicles had not made it through the night. This rumour seemed supported by the battered Commodores and Corollas still sitting on the flat bed trucks here and there. We dropped our heads solemnly as we ate our packet weetbix. We also heard, indirectly, that somebody had left the rally and maybe they weren’t coming back and that their partner was driving alone, and liked it better that way, or maybe didn’t like it at all. Also, that a certain buddy group wasn’t getting along, or somebody wanted a new group. It occurred to us for the first time that maybe we were on a school camp, with all the personal turmoil, rumour and strain that entails, but a school camp for people in their 50s who are also drinking a lot. This hadn’t occurred to us at all; our group was reasonable, harmonious and relaxed, and also we were so distracted by our obvious capability gaps and out-of-sync costuming that we hadn’t had time to consider the relationship aspect of what was going on around us.

Also, most of the men today are wearing wedding dresses, so that tends to offset any genuine discussion on the human condition.

The theme was ‘white wedding’, which had been enthusiastically, and rather gloriously adhered to by most rally participants. This was another theme for which Fauce and I had planned to shop in Melbourne, but ran out of time. Also, we had misread it as simply ‘white’ and Fauce had procured a white body suit for the purpose and we had thought maybe I could just wear white undies all day because I am quite pale. But, knowing what we now know about the driving and the weather and the public interaction and so forth, we thought that might not be tenable.

Fauce put on his Fem-Bot outfit, which we had loosely thought we would use to match my Dr Evil costume later in the week, and I put on the wig from my German weight-lifting ensemble, plus a Teen Wolf singlet, for which we had no real other plan, and some shorts. We went with ‘white-trash wedding’, which most people to whom we explained it found amusing. Everybody else just seemed confused, which was quite reasonable.

This morning at the briefing two or more groups were subject to public derision and hoola-hoop humiliation because their vehicles are not, well, shit enough. We feel that hoola of shame is coming for us too. Our replacement CRV is really quite comfortable. It even has an electric sunroof and carpet on the inside of the doors. We are trying to keep those luxurious facts secret but simultaneously trying to circulate the contextual story about the demise of our Kia Carnival. It doesn’t seem to be working. People are noticing our comfortable car with its functional wing mirrors and reliable ignition. We didn’t bring any logs for the fire last night so our credibility is already hanging by a thread. Also, Fauce is dressed like a Fem-Bot.

You might be surprised to read that we had quite a long drive today.

About 550km through Quilpie, which doesn’t seem to have any Give Way or Stop signs, to Windorah. At some point during the drive we were required to pour in our first every Jerry Can of petrol, which was quite the moment. It was made even more special because Fauce did it whilst wearing a pink negligee and matching bright pink gloves.

I took the last driving shift today, which once again concluded in the dark. We had the opportunity to test the brakes very late in the day, when a very large black cow, which was inconveniently the same colour as the night, sauntered out onto the road. It was a narrow miss. Perhaps we were self-conscious about our car’s lack of shitness at the beginning of the day, but we were certainly grateful for its functioning breaks by the end (and the carpeted doors, which are a delight).

Tomorrow our journey takes us through the classic outback pubs of Betoota and Birdsville.

Red Dirt