Hippie Trail Saga: 12: Going Walkabout
TRAVELS IN MY DISCOMFORT ZONE
It first appeared as a specter on the distant horizon as I sat upon my backpack beside the Stuart Highway. It was something that shouldn’t have been there, but was, I decided. I barely gave it another thought.
When I looked up again about 10 minutes later, it seemed that it might be growing larger. Hmm. Not likely. I kept my eyes open for anything that might amuse me out here in the fine, brick-red soil of Australia’s Red Centre. A few small gum trees were scattered about. Tiny flowering plants clung to the shaded penumbra of rocks. I could always hope to spot a kangaroo or emu. Once, only once, a flock of about a dozen galahs — rose-breasted cockatoos — surprised me as they shrieked and flapped their wings above the arid landscape. Stupid galahs, I thought, echoing an Aussie insult I had heard many times over the past seven months. Fools. Clowns. Hah! In fact, they were a lot smarter than idiots like myself, who chose a solo crossing of the country’s most legendary “highway” with not much more than water, energy bars and disposable novels.
In the 24-odd hours since I had been dropped at this remote and uninhabited junction, 50 miles north of the underground opal-mining center of Coober Pedy, I had seen precisely 10 vehicles kicking up the red dust as they blew past — one automobile, two motorcycles, one tourist bus, and a half-dozen long-haul tractor-trailers, or “lorries,” as they’re known in Australia.
I had been left here by a battered old pickup truck of aboriginal farm laborers, headed for the Mount Willoughby Station — a cattle and sheep ranch that was apparently out there somewhere, though I never saw it. I was just a gubba (a white guy) on a jucka (a long trip). They appeared delighted that I had joined them for as long as I did. Aboriginal folk have great respect for long trips. They’d prefer to go walkabout themselves.
The rust-hued grit had already infiltrated every pocket, every corner, of my clothes. My blue denims were now red, as was my T-shirt, my baseball cap and, no doubt, my underclothing. Also red were the pages of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the paperback then keeping me company. But I was alone, and judging from the lack of northbound traffic on this lonely highway, I had no immediate prospect of rescue. In the Aussie vernacular, I was “back of beyond.” So I gazed longingly to the south with an occasional glance north ...
But wait? What was this? It appeared I might soon have company.
Goodnight, Irene
Perhaps a week had passed since the Boys in the Blue Minx left Melbourne on a 450-mile drive to Adelaide, an affable city of churches and parks. We had detoured through the wine country of McLaren Vale to purchase sufficient shiraz to get us through a stay with Rob English, another Queenstown Yankee, while Bret reconnected with his Australian girlfriend, Anne. And I found a barber who sheared my voluminous golden locks before I made the solo hitchhike north to Darwin.
Then Bret and I parted ways ... for the moment. I would see him again in a month, more or less.
Late July was a good time to be traveling through Australia’s most desolate landscapes. It wasn’t difficult to get a series of rides to Port Augusta. Here the main highway forks: left (west) to Perth, 1,433 miles across the infamous Nullarbor (“no trees”) Plain, or right (north) to Alice Springs and Darwin, 1,691 miles upon “The Track,” through the heart of the sparsely populated Northern Territory.
There wasn’t much traffic heading out of Port Augusta. I got lucky, sort of. Two English rockers in a military-colored Land Rover already had a passenger, an Aussie hitcher like myself, who had claimed the last available seat. But if I wanted to contribute to the petrol (gasoline) budget, I could climb into the back, sprawling upon a load of gear that included spare tires and extra fuel for the road ahead. As I had been waiting several hours, it was a viable alternative.
An unspoken caveat hadn’t previously occurred to me. In 1976, the Stuart Highway from Port Augusta to the border of the Northern Territory was not yet paved, or, as the Aussies say, “sealed.” We had barely left Port Augusta when the bitumen surface became an unrelenting pathway of pain. On a manicured surface, I might have had a relatively smooth ride, even in my semi-reclined position. Now, all I could do was to balance my body between the tire mounts and rims, trying not to hit my head with the bumps on the road.
We had just scooted past the restricted government missile range at Woomera (named after an aboriginal spear thrower) when I was granted a reprieve, if indeed, that’s what it was. With a bang and a boom and a “Goodnight, Irene,” the Land Rover left no doubt it was in the mood for a long rest. Repairs to the drive shaft would require professional assistance. There was nothing to be done but to set up a roadside camp and relax with new friends, smoke a joint, and have a couple of beers.
The next morning, the two Englishmen decided that one of them had to remain with the Land Rover while the other dismantled the disabled vehicle and headed to Coober Pedy, the nearest community, for assistance. Around 10 a.m., he flagged down the day’s first (and probably only) long-distance bus. We boarded together. I didn’t see him or his mate again; my guess is that they were forced to about-face all the way back to Adelaide.
Coober Pedy is a curious community. The name derives from a local aboriginal dialect, and is said to mean “whitefellas’ holes.” It’s appropriate. The temperature is so hot in summer (above 100 degrees Fahrenheit) that many of the 1,000-plus residents live in underground caves, or dugouts, where a steady year-round temperature is unaffected by outside heat or air-conditioning. Opal mining began here in 1915. Today the subterranean community has become a tourist attraction in its own right, especially after the paving of the Stuart Highway was completed in 1987.
I had time for only a quick look around before my aboriginal friends took me to Mount Willoughby ... and possible oblivion.
The Red Centre
So I sat roadside, deliberating on who (or what) might be approaching from the north, briefly wondering if I might be in any danger. It’s a fine time to consider one’s mortality when one is, so far as one knows, miles upon miles from any other creatures, save the galahs and, assumedly dingoes (and perhaps snakes and scorpions). But for more than 150 years, many unsolved murders and mysterious disappearances have taken place along The Track. The nearest thing I carried to a weapon was a Swiss Army knife, which for me served the purposes of opening wine and slicing cheese and sausage.
He was perhaps a half-mile away when I could clearly see a man. It was now clear that I was not looking at a mirage. He was pushing a wheelbarrow through the Outback. Was he crazy?
Maybe. Maybe not. He didn’t tell me his name. I didn’t ask. He sat beside me, pulled a wad of tobacco from the pocket of his well-worn green sweater, and deftly rolled a smoke with one hand. He was of indeterminate age: He might have been 60 ... or 40. Behind his tangled grey beard, his cheeks were streaked with blotches of sunburn and red trail dust. He was thin but robust, and his voice reflected an exuberance that I may not have expected before he opened his cracked lips to speak.
A year and a half earlier, he told me, he had an office job in Brisbane. Then his doctor gave him the bad news. Cancer. Prostate. He might have a year to live. It was time to get his affairs in order. Affairs? He’d like to have one, he said with a chuckle. He wasn’t on speaking terms with his ex-wife. His only child had died in a traffic accident. Better he should take his life savings, such as they were, and go for a walk. A long walk. A walkabout.
He had always wanted to see Australia, he said. The real Australia, not the concrete jungles of urban Sydney and Melbourne, but the broadleaf jungles of north Queensland, the copper-and-lead mining country around Mount Isa, the ancient rock monoliths of the Red Centre. It had taken him 15 months on foot, he said, but it was well worth it. He was still feeling good: “I have my moments,” he confessed. “But I’m not too crook (ill).” Now, he said, his goal was to cross the Nullarbor and continue to Perth. With 2,800 miles already under his belt, how difficult could another 1,800 be?
He had two dogs with him, small, wiry terrier-types, each with a leash attached to a wheelbarrow handle. He had started with three, he said wistfully, but a snakebite in the sugar cane fields claimed one’s life. The other two, he said, were his best mates.
The barrow was piled high with more gear than would fit into the back of a Land Rover, I thought, including guns and traps to make a living off a harsh land as he passed through. A multitude of souvenir pins adorned his sun hat. “They’re from the sheilas,” he said with a blush. “The young tourist girls in the big buses? When they see me walking the road, they ask the driver to stop. I tell them my story, and they give me these pins. And kisses. Lots of kisses. I don’t mind at all.”
The Northern Territory
On Day 3 without a ride, I gave in and flagged down a bus to Alice Springs, the only town of size for nearly 900 miles in any direction. In doing so, I strayed far from the road to Ayers Rock, the mammoth monolith of aboriginal legend now known by its ancestral name of Uluru. I felt sad to miss it, but I had a flight from Darwin to catch and I couldn’t afford to invest another four or five days. (I did eventually climb the Rock, before it was restricted, in the ‘90s.)
If there ever was a place for Gordon Parsons’ “Pub with No Beer,” this was it. It was clear that alcohol was a big problem among the “urban” aboriginals who seemed much less industrious than those I had met in places as diverse as Kurunda and Mount Willoughby. But then, there weren’t many other entertainment options in “The Alice.”
The annual highlight, I was told, would be the annual Henley-on-Todd Regatta. I would miss it by about two weeks. A spoof of Britain’s venerable Henley-on-Thames royal regatta, it is run in the Todd River, which flows through the center of Alice Springs. There’s one catch: The Todd is dry during most of the year. Community members line up in the sandy riverbed to lift bottomless sculls, homemade yachts and bathtubs by the gunwales and race across the finish line. I walked across the main bridge at twilight and imagined the madness that would ensue.
Not to be outdone by Alice Springs, Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, has celebrated its own regatta every June since 1974. This one, however, requires water — and beer. Neither is a problem in Darwin, as the small city on the Timor Sea has the highest per-capital beer consumption rate in Australia, and one of the highest in the world. All vessels entered in the Darwin Lions Beer Can Regatta must be constructed of empty beer cans and chicken wire. It’s a good way to limit litter.
The distance between The Alice and Darwin is about 930 miles. If you’re walking, plan about a month. That didn’t thwart the second walkabout enthusiast I met. He told me his name was Strider — and though that monicker suited his long, loping gait, he said he had taken the name from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, long before it reached the silver screen. “Strider is the name I’m known by in Darwin,” he said.
Tall, long-haired, bearded and beaded, Strider appeared to be in his early 30s. If I needed a place to stay in Darwin, he assured me, his room would be available: By the time he got back from Adelaide (yes, he was walking), a couple more months would pass. “Just tell everybody you’re my guest,” he said. But he warned: There may be some minor complications. A small issue with law enforcement.
Some months previously, he had been arrested for possession of marijuana. He denied the allegation, asserting that he smoked only tobacco. Arresting officers said they had raided the house on a tip and found cannabis leaves scattered on the floor of Strider’s bedroom. What more proof did they need? Fortunately for Strider, the judge hearing the case welcomed cross-examination. By any stretch of the imagination, His Honour began, is it just possible that marijuana could have been on the floor without the accused being aware? “If there’s any house in Darwin where this might be possible,” said the officer under interrogation, “it’s this one.” Case dismissed.
I took a bus to Darwin, where I was welcomed to Strider’s home, no questions asked. I ventured to the marina to inquire about the whereabouts of my friend Lloyd Rein and his trimaran, Mariah. Lloyd’s boat was here, undergoing repairs. Lloyd himself was in Bali. That was my next stop.