by Sue Williams
Crossing the border after such a long journey was a distinct anti-climax. The Northern Territory comprises nearly a sixth of Australia’s landmass, six times the size of Great Britain and two and a half times the size of Texas, but has fewer than 200,000 people. Yet there’s precious little on the road to demarcate it besides a road sign telling travellers how much further everything else is, and another sign announcing that the Territory has no speed limit. While this delights many drivers, Peter and Joanne exchanged a rueful look. Their old Kombi couldn’t even reach the South Australian limit of 110 kilometres per hour. Still, they felt the excitement rise in them, and they pushed onwards. They knew that only around 100 kilometres ahead lay the turn-off for Uluru, the vast russet monolith that rears up suddenly out of the desert plains that, together with the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge, is one of the country’s best-known and most-loved icons.
By the time they finally left the Stuart Highway to drive the last 250 kilometres to Uluru, or Ayers Rock as it used to be called by whites, the soil had become a deep, blood red. This was old country, inhabited for the past 30,000 years or more by Aboriginal people, and full of sites sacred to the custodians of ‘the rock’, the local Anangu people. Their major challenge over the years has proved to be discouraging visitors from climbing Uluru which they see as a violation of ‘tjukurpa’ — their system of law and culture which is inextricably entwined with the landscape and its spirituality.
These days, most tourists know it’s highly culturally insensitive to climb the rock and while the Anangu have agreed not to ban people from doing so, there is a sign posted at the base asking visitors to respect their culture and leave well alone. As well as being offensive, the climb is also said to bring years of bad luck to anyone who ignores their pleas. Guides say they regularly receive small pieces of the rock back through the post from tourists who climbed, souvenired a stone, took it home with them and have susequently endured a run of bad fortune. ‘We do not wish it on them at all,’ says one guide. ‘But you would be amazed how often this happens.’
Peter and Joanne had come prepared. They’d brought their climbing boots.
PART TWO
THE BLOOD RED HEART OF AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER TWELVE
TO GO A’STALKING
ELEVEN HUNDRED KILOMETRES ACROSS THE desert as the crow flies, two female backpackers sat in the front seat of a beaten-up old white Kombi. They’d been trundling through the outback for hours, and they were tired and bored. The road stretched out endlessly before them, empty and hazy. With the sun beating down on the black bitumen, at times it looked as though it might even be melting under the fierce heat.
Suddenly, the woman driving saw something out of the corner of her eye in her rearview mirror. At last! A sign of life! They’d just passed through the tiny cattle town of Hughenden, deep in the Queensland outback, heading for Julia Creek, Mount Isa and the Northern Territory border. There was nothing to look forward to for kilometres and kilometres ahead on the Flinders Highway. Instead, she watched as, slowly, slowly, she was able to make out the shape of a big white four-wheel-drive. It was really moving. It was gaining on them quickly.
Their Kombi had known much better days. It was only travelling at around 85 kilometres per hour, not far below its top speed. It was carrying plenty of weight too: surfboards on the roof, a backpack propped against the back door, and clothes draped over a makeshift clothesline inside. All over the body were various stickers proudly proclaiming the towns the Kombi had survived. On the back there was a big smiley face.
The four-wheel-drive was fast approaching. ‘Look at this bloke,’ said the driver. ‘He’s right up my arse. I wish he’d bloody hurry up and overtake me.’ The woman beside her twisted round in her seat to get a better look. She could only just make out the driver. ‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘He’s probably lonely.’ They giggled.
At last, the man in the four-wheel-drive revved the engine and pulled out to overtake. As he drew level, he glanced into the front of the Kombi. The two women were both young and good looking. The woman driving half-lifted her hand in a casual wave but, when the four-wheel-drive didn’t appear in front of her, she glanced to her right for a look at who had been tailgating them. He seemed to take that as his signal to gun the engine, and he roared off in front.
‘DID YOU SEE THAT?’ SAID the woman behind the wheel to her friend. She stared at the road ahead, at the green canvas canopy of the white ute now speeding off ahead. ‘Get a good look, did you? Filthy perve!’
Her friend nodded her agreement. ‘Creepy,’ she muttered.
‘He’d been right on my arse. A couple of times I thought he might hit us,’ she said. ‘Wanker!’
TEN MINUTES ON, THE WOMEN were smoking cigarettes as they drove. They’d put music on the cassette player, but the sound was crackly and indistinct. As they creaked up a hill and got to the top, they both jumped. There was a white four-wheel-drive with a green canopy parked up by the side of the road, and the driver was sitting inside with his door half-open, smoking a cigarette. They could see him looking at them as the old white Kombi lumbered past.
AS SOON AS THEY WERE gone, the man turned the key in his ignition and pulled smoothly away. He was in no rush. He gained steadily on the Kombi and again drew up close behind. The driver was now looking in her mirror every couple of seconds. Her friend swivelled in her seat twice to look at him, to see if he was still there. He pulled out and sped up slightly to draw level once again. Then the two women both looked towards the back of the Kombi, and the man followed their eyes. A young man’s face appeared at one of the windows looking straight at him. They were not alone. The other driver touched the accelerator lightly so he was level with the women, smiled at them, then put two fingers to his head like a gun, and jerked them as if he’d fired. He revved the engine, then sped off past them into the distance.
THE WOMEN FELT UNNERVED BY the man, and scrabbled to find a pen and paper to write down the vehicle’s registration number. They decided to call the police as soon as they reached civilisation. There was a maniac on the road out there, and someone should stop him. But it would not be them. In the event, by the time they arrived in the next town, they’d pushed it to the back of their minds. They didn’t call the police until a few weeks afterwards.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE DEAD CENTRE
THE FIRST SIGHT OF ULURU strikes awe into everyone, and Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees were no different. They were amazed by its size, its stark presence in the midst of the lowlying desert, its sheer magnificence. It was just as they’d imagined it, but more, somehow. Tomorrow, first thing, they’d climb. The sun was close to setting and they went straight to Yulara, the accommodation centre for the national park, and checked into the campsite. There were plenty of people around, and a buzz in the air. At 3.6 kilometres long, a towering 348 metres high, with a base that’s 10 kilometres in diameter, and extending 2.5 kilometres below the surface, Uluru is the second largest monolith in the world after WA’s Mount Augustus. Peter and Joanne knew that climbing it would be arduous and that each year several people died trying, some as a result of heart attacks, some because of heat exhaustion and others because of falls. They agreed to do the climb early in the morning to avoid the worst of the heat, wear hats and take plenty of water. They were young and fit, and felt sure they’d be okay.
It was hard for anyone to stay at the area’s campsite, however, without hearing the name ‘Lindy Chamberlain’. Twenty-one years earlier, at around the same time of year, Lindy and her family had camped near the base of Uluru. She’d been making tea for her children when her son Aidan thought he’d heard his nine-and-a-half-week-old sister, Azaria, crying. Lindy raced over and her next words were to be forever imprinted on Australia’s psyche: ‘The dingo’s got my baby!’
The child’s body was never found, and Lindy and her husband Michael went to hell and back while the nation debated whether or not a dingo really was capable of carrying off, and killing, a bab
y. Lindy was convicted of murder in one of the most publicised trials in Australian history after forensic scientist Joy Kuhl testified she’d examined the family’s car and found traces of foetal blood, which later turned out to be sound-deadening compound. Lindy served three-and-a-half years in jail until the conviction was quashed. The couple was later paid $1.3 million in compensation by the Northern Territory government.
At the time, many people still believed Chamberlain had killed Azaria, but less than a month before Peter and Joanne left Sydney, a nine-year-old boy, Clinton Gage, had been savaged and killed by a dingo on Fraser Island. The dingo then attacked his seven-year-old brother Dylan. After that, many people wrote to Chamberlain, apologising for having doubted her. She said the little boy’s death gave her no satisfaction. ‘The big heartache is that it was avoidable,’ she said. ‘I predicted this, but I hoped with all my heart it would never happen. I’ve been saying for twenty years that dingoes will kill again. And now it’s happened, and this won’t be the last time. If they’d listened in the first place, Clinton would still be alive.’
THE NEXT DAY DAWNED WARM and clear, and Peter and Joanne watched the sun rise over Uluru, admiring the quality of its changing colour as the light struck the sandstone. The infusion of minerals like feldspar gives the rock its red glow at sunrise and sunset, while oxidation gives it the colour of deep rust. The pair set off on their climb, took a photo on the summit, and then wandered back down to look at the caves and paintings at its base. At sunset, they sat on the sandy scrub a short distance away, and watched as, yet again, the rock gradually changed hue to a fierce blood red.
They relished the chance to stop and experience the spectacle, and were relieved to be off the endless highway and among other travellers, even though they generally tended to keep to themselves. Travelling as a couple can be tough at the best of times, but for Peter and Joanne, on a limited budget and covering vast distances through sparsely populated desert, there were definite strains. In addition, Joanne felt guilty about cheating on Peter with Nick Reilly. Peter may have sensed that something was wrong, but couldn’t pinpoint why.
Around Uluru, however, there was plenty to do. Just 30 kilometres away are the Olgas, or Kata Tjuta, a collection of more rounded rock formations, with the tallest standing at a mighty 546 metres above sea level. The hiking trails, particularly through the Valley of the Winds, are astonishingly beautiful. Peter and Joanne spent a few days there and then set off around July 6, heading back towards the Stuart Highway. Just outside Uluru, they noticed another young couple hitchhiking, Canadian backpackers Mark Hladun and Izabelle Jette. Peter pulled over, asked them where they were headed, and when they said they were on their way to King’s Canyon, en route to Alice Springs, the young Britons agreed to give them a ride. One hundred kilometres before the Stuart Highway, the foursome turned left towards King’s Canyon.
The road winds 160 kilometres past the massive meteorite craters thought to have punctured the earth’s crust 5000 years ago, before reaching the Watarrka National Park, featuring the sandstone gorge with its spectacular rock formations, lush palms grouped around waterholes and a walk up to the rim for breathtaking views. The group spent a couple of days there, before retracing their route back to the highway, and turning north once more for the final 200 kilometres to ‘the Alice’. Their anticipation mounted as they neared the town in the very centre of Australia. At the 60 kilometres mark, they came across a rest stop with two picnic tables, packed with four-wheel-drives, and Peter slowed down and stopped, saying the Kombi was pulling oddly to one side. Joanne and Izabelle wandered around, peering over the wire at an area fenced off to give its plant life the chance to regenerate, while Peter and Mark checked the steering. There was a definite problem, and Mark devised a temporary solution, using cable ties to hold the steering rod in place. They set off again and 10 kilometres before Alice Springs billboards started appearing for accommodation. The first was for the Stuart Caravan Park, with its proud boast: ‘Closer To Town’. ‘That’d probably be worth checking out,’ Peter said to Joanne. She nodded.
With the blue and green of the MacDonnell Ranges in the distance, and a welcoming avenue of gums as they reached the outskirts of town, Joanne directed Peter to the backpackers’ lodge where the Canadians planned to stay. The four hugged and said their goodbyes, and Peter and Joanne drove back out of town to a mechanic’s they hoped would be able to fix the Kombi. Peter wanted to get the steering checked before they went any further, but the mechanic said he couldn’t fit them in that day; they could drop it in on the Friday morning if they liked. That night, Wednesday July 11, they parked the Kombi on a road in a residential area and slept in the back. This was to be their last major stop before Darwin, where they planned to double back and then head east towards Cairns in Queensland’s far north, before finishing their epic journey around Australia in Brisbane, on the coast further south. There they intended to sell the Kombi and fly across the Tasman to New Zealand in time to celebrate Peter’s birthday. Their next stop would be Fiji for Joanne’s birthday, then it would be the US and home.
After so long in Australia’s vast dusty interior, they were both looking forward to seeing the sea again. This journey had been the experience of a lifetime, they knew. But neither realised how short that lifetime, for one of them, might prove.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A MANIAC WITH A GUN
ON 9 JULY 2001, a man with straggly brown hair, a greying moustache, a sallow complexion and sunken eyes approached a local magistrate in the West Australian town of Derby to ask if he would lend him his gun. JP ‘Jacky’ Dann refused, and the next day Geoffrey Nicholls returned to ask again. ‘I want to go camping at Udialla Station to go pig shooting with my girlfriend and her two kids,’ he pleaded. ‘I need a gun.’
Dann eventually agreed to lend him his .22 Magnum rifle bolt action repeater, telling him he’d keep the freezer clean in case he returned with some pigs. But Nicholls, aged forty-one, didn’t go pig hunting. Instead, he loaded the gun and two shots were heard from behind the local police station. Then he set off with his girlfriend Judy Rose and her two children, Lance, eight, and two-year-old Marcus, to drive south to Sydney in his white car, on a route that would, a few days later, cross Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees’ path.
Nicholls wasn’t a well man. He’d endured a wretched childhood and was having an even more heartbreaking time as an adult. He was born the youngest child of nine to an Aboriginal mother and a white Australian father, neither of whom cared much about their kids. When their twin boys were taken to hospital to be treated for malnutrition, the mother vanished — and only returned when the police found her and forcibly drove her back to collect them. In the end, the children were separated and taken into care, in both government-run institutions and various foster placements.
‘But all of us ended up being badly treated,’ says Shane Nicholls, Geoffrey’s elder brother. ‘Geoff and I were both abused, physically, mentally and emotionally. Geoff took it particularly hard. I never asked him too much about his childhood. It was all too painful.’ The younger Nicholls battled for years with mental illness, and spent lengthy periods in psychiatric hospitals as well as in jails in WA, SA and NSW. He had a criminal record in every state bar Tasmania and the ACT. He often didn’t take his medication to calm his behaviour and suffered from paranoia, anger problems and depression. In April 1992, he’d sliced 4 centimetres into his left arm in a foiled suicide bid, and in October 1996, he drove away from a service station in Broome without paying for fuel. When he was stopped by police who snatched his key from the ignition, he retaliated by emptying a 20-litre jerry can of petrol over himself and his twelve-year-old son Troy sitting on the front seat. Then he took out a box of matches and threatened to set fire to them both.
‘Give me the fucking key, or I’ll kill us,’ he yelled to the police officer. ‘I’m fucking mad. You just ask the cops in SA.’ The constable, Bruce Wyborn, held the key out but, as Nicholls went to grab it, he took hold
of his forearm and hand holding the match. The two men then wrestled through the open driver’s window until the box of matches eventually fell between the seat and the consol. At that point, Nicholls seized the police officer’s holstered gun and tried to pull it free. As Wyborn felt the securing lip snap open and the revolver start to come out of the holster, he realised he was now fighting for his life.
‘I punched Nicholls as hard as I could to the face to make him let go,’ he said in his statement later. ‘Nicholls released his grip and fell over on his side to the passenger seat. I re-secured my revolver and tried to open the driver’s door. But the door wouldn’t open and Nicholls started to fight again. I reached in and grabbed him by the scruff of neck and pulled his head out of the window. I then held him in a headlock until back-up police arrived one to two minutes later.’
Nicholls was charged with two counts of attempted murder — one on Wyborn and one on his son — in court, but a guilty plea to lesser charges was eventually accepted.
SHANE NICHOLLS HADN’T HEARD FROM his younger brother in years, but in 1998 he received a call from him saying he had nowhere to live, so offered him his caravan in his backyard in Sydney. Tragedy dogged the younger Nicholls however. His son Troy died from petrol-sniffing the following year. His behaviour after that became steadily more suicidal and, in March 2001, he was admitted to hospital in Ceduna, SA, following a car chase which ended when he tried to set his vehicle, and himself, alight with a cigarette lighter. He told staff in the mental health unit at the State’s Glenside Hospital that he had received hallucinatory commands to steal and burn the car the day before.