We’d been out of mobile phone signal pretty much the whole time since we’d left Perth. Some of the tiny towns we’d passed through could boast reception on one mobile network or the other, but rarely both – and once beyond those tin-pot places, there was simply… nothing.
It was liberating and terrifying at the same time.
I made this point to Gill, as we pulled up in the middle of nowhere to take a bathroom break. I mean, it was literally the middle of nowhere. The road stretched arrow straight to the horizon, both in front of us and behind. The same low, scrubby bushes spread from either side of the tarmac, blending into a seamless blanket of brown-green ripples. The landscape was flat in every direction, as far as the eye could see, and there was absolutely nothing else in it.
Well, apart from us.
It made for a dull game of ‘I Spy’.
Roo and Gill scurried off into the bushes, straying far enough from the road that they felt safe from prying eyes. I had to wonder at their caution.
“We haven’t seen another car for over an hour,” I shouted over the van. “Are you trying to hide from low flying aircraft? Because we haven’t seen any of those, either…”
Gill was first back. “It’s Sod’s Law and you know it. The second I try to take a piss beside the road, we’ll have three school buses and the Prime Minister’s motorcade coming through here. I’m comfortable with my arse, but I don’t want to see it on News At Ten.”
“Honestly Gill, you worry way too much about that stuff.”
And to prove my point I stood in the middle of the road, faced away from her, unzipped, and emptied my bladder right along the dotted line.
“Ahhhh! You see?” I called over my shoulder. “I bet there isn’t another human being within a hundred miles of—”
And that’s when I noticed that Roo had emerged from the undergrowth just in front of me. She was frozen in shock – possibly because I was standing there with my cock in my hand, or possibly because I was halfway through desecrating Highway One with my bodily fluids.
Either way, it probably wasn’t something she’d expected to witness.
Poor girl.
It was only going to get worse from here on in.
A couple of hours later we were treated to a spectacular outback sunset. Shades of orange and purple hung in the sky for what seemed like an eternity, before the last sliver of sunlight slipped over the horizon. Twilight came and went; Roo slowed, and we all took up intensive kangaroo watching.
Driving at night hadn’t been part of our plan, but neither was being marooned by the side of the road; the extreme temperatures in the middle of the day had forced the girls to nurse Rusty, keeping his speed down to avoid overheating. Now though, with the ‘roo danger lessened by the darkness, and the air outside cooling, we made a last sprint finish towards the nearest roadhouse.
Roo was peering through the windscreen, striving in vain to see beyond the weak cones of light that passed for Rusty’s headlights. She was tense, hunched over the wheel, well aware of how vulnerable we were out there at night.
Suddenly she yelled, and stamped on the brakes.
Rusty skidded and fish-tailed as he screeched to a halt – and there, not a metre in front of us, was the biggest bull I’d ever seen. Blacker than the night around him, with tiny curving horns, the bull stood motionless, dead centre in the middle of the road. He was so big he filled the carriageway, and as he stared back at us, his eyes gleamed red in our headlights.
“How the hell did you see him?” I asked Roo. I was amazed, as was Gill. Even from this distance, we could barely discern his silhouette; it was like he was absorbing the light from Rusty rather than reflecting it. Only those eyes glinted evilly…
“It was the eyes,” Roo confirmed. “I could see something, but…” She shuddered. “Holy shit. If we’d hit that…”
She didn’t need to finish.
That bull had to weigh at least eight-hundred kilos; Rusty would have crumpled like tinfoil, crushing the girls and pitching me through the windscreen.
Dead, is what we’d have been. For sure.
We sat there, waiting for the giant beast to move, but none of us felt brave enough to get out and try to shoo him. There was something about those eyes… the red gleam, caused by his pupils being dilated in the low light, lent him a certain air of… malice.
Eventually Roo backed up, drove off the road onto the hard packed earth, and went around him. The demon-beast receded into the distance, and only the burning smell from Rusty’s brake pads remained to prove we hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
“I still can’t believe I saw him,” Roo admitted. “We must have been a hundred metres away. But I knew… I knew there was something there.”
“No-one will believe us though,” I told her. “Precognition? Near-death experience? Invisible ghost-cows on the road late at night? What a load of bullocks!”
Beachin’
Travelling up the coastline, we’d been awed by two things: the raw, elemental beauty of the land, and its incredible emptiness.
Broome distilled both of these characteristics into an ambience so poignant you could bottle it.
After hugging the coast since Exmouth, the road to Broome swerved inland, catching up with the road out of Broome. From there we swung back on ourselves, and entered a narrow nubbin of land jutting out into the Indian Ocean – and there it was. A small, sun-kissed paradise of a place, almost entirely surrounded by beaches.
The nearest town of any size was Port Hedland – a mining town with the genius catchphrase, ‘It’s Ore-some!’ – over six-hundred kilometres to the south-west. And such time as we decided to leave Broome, we’d be going the opposite way – slightly north and slightly east – and we’d be driving until we hit the nearest real town in that direction.
Which was Kununurra, a little over a thousand kilometres away.
Between here and there were a few farms and homesteads, the occasional petrol station, a couple of one-horse hick towns – and the vast expanse of the outback.
The campsite was doing a brisk business, between backpackers with knackered vans like ours, and a collection of die-hard Aussie pensioners in shiny new motorhomes – but other than that, the town seemed devoid of tourists.
No holidaying families, no weekend-breakers; it was like every island paradise must have been, a decade before you went there on holiday.
Oh yes – Broome was my definition of unspoilt.
Probably because it was such a bastard to get to.
Only minutes from the campsite was one of the most amazing beaches in the world, which we went to check out as soon as we’d pitched the tent and eaten; fourteen miles of pristine white sand, wide, flat and level enough to play football on. The sea was warm, and the breeze kept the temperature bearable – but for all this, no-one was there.
Possibly because of the weird haze that had descended.
The sun was clearly visible in the middle of the sky, yet it looked like sunset; the stunning reds and oranges I would normally associate with the last rays of daylight were out in force, spreading to the insubstantial horizon.
We were all amazed by the colours, and the girls devoted a fair bit of time to capturing this phenomenon on camera.
“It’s smoke in the atmosphere,” Roo said. Which sounded ominous.
“Smoke as in, fire?” I asked.
“Yeah. They must be back-burning.”
“Eh?”
“Oh, it’s where the local park rangers set fire to all the undergrowth, to burn it away in a controlled manner. So that if there’s a bushfire, it hasn’t got as much fuel, and it can’t spread so quickly.”
“I see. Shit, living with fire is like a daily thing for you guys!”
“Yeah. Because the climate is so dry, fires are inevitable, so our ecosystem has adapted to include fire in its life-cycle. The burning away of the undergrowth is what allows new plants to grow, so most of the native tree-seeds, like the honky nut, can only be opened by fire
. Animals can’t eat them. They can lay dormant for years, and when they open they’re sure of a chance to grow because there’s less competition, and the ground is fertilised by ash. The trees are all fire-resistant – you’ll see if we pass through a burn area – the bark blackens like charcoal, but the tree inside stays perfectly healthy.”
I sometimes fell into the trap of thinking about Australia as like England, only hotter and with more kangaroos, but this kind of insight reminded me just how different it really was.
Evolved for fire.
The animals had clearly got the shitty end of the stick though, having evolved no better defence mechanism against fire than to run the fuck away. Whereas the Australian human male had lucked out – he’d evolved the ability to start the fire, ideally in the heart of a big stainless steel barbecue, and to cook the animals over it.
While drinking a beer, naturally.
Later, we discovered that the ‘MCG’ campsite was a Mecca for backpackers. The surf culture had drawn them here in droves, despite the remoteness – or perhaps because of it.
Over the inevitable box of goon, we got chatting to Richard and Kate, an English/Aussie couple who’d spent the better part of a year backpacking around Australia, focussing heavily on the beaches.
“I fly kites,” Richard explained. “You wanna come to the beach tomorrow and fly my kite?”
Well! How do you refuse an offer like that?
Broome had an internet café, and the following morning I was able to discover that the text files for my book had been saved. There wasn’t much I could do with them, as my laptop still looked like someone had been playing football with it, but for now ‘That Bear’ was safe. I hastily made a couple of copies, and posted one CD home to my parents in England. I’d learned a new mantra: Always Back Up.
After spending the rest of the morning exploring Broome on rented bicycles, we showed up at the beach expecting to find Richard holding a plastic handle with fishing line wrapped around it, and Kate carrying a diamond-shaped kite like you’d see in a kid’s drawing of a trip to the park.
Instead, straining at the leash was what appeared to be a special forces parachute. The curved silken sail was bigger than our tent, and control over it was only achieved by means of two padded, foot-long steel bars, connected to the kite by heavy duty paracord.
Holding it felt like restraining a pair of bull-mastiffs hell-bent on rabbit for dinner; aiming it at the sky with both hands, it was impossible not to imagine I was firing the turret guns on the Millennium Falcon.
Gill had a go, and her low centre of gravity, combined with decent manual dexterity, allowed her to loop it around the sky like she’d been doing it all her life.
Then Roo had a go, and the effect was somewhat different. I’m sure there’s some kind of lesson about levers in here, but Roo’s long, narrow frame was no match for the raw power of the kite.
She took a firm grip on the handles – gave a brief cry of “SHIIIII…” – and was airborne, legs flailing, as the kite dragged her off down the beach.
“ROO!” I shouted.
“My kite!” Richard yelled.
“Let go!” I called to her.
“NO! Don’t let go!” Richard corrected. “Hang on – I’m coming!”
And he raced off after Roo. Not because she was in danger, but because kites don’t heal like people do.
“Hold on!” he called, as he ran.
But Roo wasn’t making those kinds of decisions. A sudden gust of wind ripped one of the handles out of her hand, and in a flash the kite veered back on itself and arrowed towards the beach.
Richard must have seen it coming, but it was over far too quickly for him to turn away – the kite plunged towards him, angling straight for his head – and smacked into his face with the full force of… well, a kite.
It can’t have been that bad.
I think he was just being dramatic – rolling around in the sand moaning, “My eye!”
Still, we decided a retreat was in order.
“Shall we, ah, go for a quick swim?” I asked the girls.
“You can’t right now,” Kate said. “They just closed the swimming beach, ‘cause of a shark sighting. Reckon it’ll be at least an hour before they re-open it.”
“An hour? Why only an hour? What if the shark comes back?”
“If they see him again, they’ll probably close it for another hour.”
“That’s crazy! Surely they should shut the whole place down, for a few days at least! Give him time to bugger off.”
“You can’t close the whole beach all day! Everyone wants to get in the water.”
“Even with a shark out there?”
“Oh, he’ll be long gone by now.”
“But… hello? Shark! What if he’s hanging around, waiting for the beach to re-open? What if he knows it’ll only be closed for an hour?”
“They’re mostly just passing through. If there’s nothing to attract them, they move along pretty quick.”
“I’m… not really sure I trust that.”
“Honestly, most sharks never bother anyone. Giving them an hour is just being cautious.” Then she gave me a cheeky grin. “But if you see one wearing a digital watch, then we’re in trouble.”
Horseplay
A few nights later, there was a treat in store for us; the Broome Rodeo was being held in a field on the outskirts of town, so we bought tickets (and cowboy hats) and headed out in Rusty to see what it was all about.
A rough ring of dirt had been fenced off for the competition, and was surrounded by eager spectators. Surrounding them were the food stalls and barbecues, selling drastically overpriced sausages which smelled so damn good the girls had to physically restrain me to stop me wasting five dollars on one.
The commentator sat in a garden shed that had been raised up on a platform of rusty scaffolding poles. From this rather ridiculous perch he held sway over the crowd – with possibly the worst display of commentating that has ever been heard by human ears.
Some people seem born for their jobs – many of the braver cowboys amongst them. They had the instinctive horse control, the split-second reflexes, the flawless hand-eye coordination; all essential qualities for casting ropes over enraged animals more than ten times their weight. A few seemed less confident, or else their timing was a bit off – and these were the cowboys that, whilst learning, would never be as good as the best. They were also the most likely to be going home in an ambulance.
But of everyone in that competition – nay, everyone in the stadium; hell, everyone in the damn country – no-one was less suited to his job than that commentator.
“This… is… John…” he said, introducing the first rider to tackle the bucking bronco in a drawl so monotone it was like a general anaesthetic. “John is… a local boy…” every word was so drawn out I had time to throw my hands up in despair before he got to the next one. I’ve heard more inflection from the speaking clock.
Even speaking at the same speed glaciers form, he still hit the limit of his repertoire within two sentences.
“John has won… some awards… for his… Oh!” By this point the staff had got sick of waiting and had released the thrashing horse unannounced.
John was clinging on for dear life while the horse unleashed its rage. Bucking furiously, it flung the man skyward again and again; every time he crashed back into the saddle my balls winced in sympathy. John’s chance of having children looked less likely by the second.
“Oh!” the commentator repeated. “They’re off. That’s it, John. Stay on, John. Stay on, mate. Ride him, John. Ride him, cowboy. Ride him, mate. Ride hi… oh, he’s off.”
John, having been thrown violently, was now limping towards the stock fence, as two other cowboys rode in and effortlessly lassoed the rampaging animal. Their job was over in seconds; far too fast for their impressive efforts to be acknowledged in the commentary box, and the next cowboy was already springing onto the back of his bucking bronco.
�
�This is… Fred,” came the commentary, “Fred is… another local lad… Fred is… ah… oh, they’re off. That’s it Fred. Ride him, cowboy. Ride him, mate. Stay on, mate. Stay on, Fred. Stay on ma— oh, he’s off.”
By the time Bill was announced, the three of us were in fits of laughter. “Stay on, Bill!” we called between guffaws, as the commentator found himself with enough time to elaborate. “Bill’s riding a local steer, owned by… oh, they’re off. That’s it Bill. Ride him, cowboy. Ride him, mate. That’s it Bill. Stay on. Ride him, Bi— oh, he’s off.”
And the crowd went wild.
In the wild-eyed chaos of the arena, Bill had been thrown so hard he couldn’t stand up. A bent old bloke in a gigantic Akubra shuffled in and dragged the barely conscious cowboy to his feet. Bill looked dazed and beaten, but he managed to give his supporters a wave.
Screams, hollers and cat-calls erupted from the fence line.
“Well done, Bill,” said the commentator. Flatly.
We decided it was time to go. For one thing, this could never get any better. For another, there were dozens more cowboys lined up to take their chances, including most of the ones who’d had a go already. This was shaping up to be a long event. But most importantly of all, was that there were no toilets here at all. And if I had to listen to one more bout of commentary, I was definitely going to piss myself.
In the corner by the entrance gate, a band was clearly raring to go, strumming their instruments in the gaps between riders. “We’re not staying for the band, then?” Roo asked.
Gill shook her head. “I heard them warming up.”
And so we traipsed back through the mud and sawdust towards Rusty, all the time with one ear tuned to the events in the ring:
Kamikaze Kangaroos! Page 7