Charlotte, Queen of the Desert

17 October 2009

From the Bush they emerge...two Americans with very uneven tans courtesy of driving with one arm out in a country with no apparent filter between the fiery sun and frail human flesh. Have used up all our suncream and already restocked. You'd think it would be cheaper in a place where one-in-four people gets skin cancer.

Met two Irish people who advised us as:re life in a campervan; they've got a year and have taken two months from Brisbane to Mataranka in a van they bought, and which is fortunately free of skulls dripping blood. It's rather usual to have a campervan here, loads of them up and down the roads; it seems like we're more common than kangaroo roadkill, and that's pretty freaking common, let me tell you. Also, really smelly (the kangaroos, not us.) Caravan parks are everywhere, every town has at least one (and these are towns with like 50 people), and most have kitchens with fridges and microwaves and whatnot. After Mataranka, we stayed at the Roadhouse in Threeways. Threeways has: a German woman who runs the campground, a bar adorned with poetry by Outback truck drivers, and yes, three ways to go. While we were parked there having dinner (Cantonese kangaroo stir-fry), an enormous semi hauling a crane or something pulled through the camping area and took out the overhead electrical lines. It was all very exciting.

The trucks out here are intense—monstrous semis called road trains, each pulling at least three full-sized trailers. When they pass you, it's like being sucked into a tornado: the windows rattle and the whole van shakes. Met a bloke at a rest stop telling stories about how he's seen them just plow through cattle on a road, leaving the animals dead and not even pausing. I feel like there's a horror movie waiting to be made here.

Stopped at a bar in Daly Waters on the Stuart Highway, famous pretty much for just existing in such an isolated place. The Irish girl manning the bar was lovely, the $5 for Gatorade was not. The place is adorned with underwear and shirts and random crap left by happy patrons, and was full of Chinese tourists taking photos. An outfit called Groovy Grape or something equally inane was there as well—they tailed us from Darwin down, clearly a second-rate Odyssey sort of deal. It does make me wonder if we seemed like quite such idiots to the Kyrgysz people we met along the way.

Next stop Queensland, and the little metropolis of Mount Isa. Keep in mind, these places are all 500+ kilometers apart...we're doing a lot of driving. The Isa is a mining town, only founded in 1924, and sits on a massive amount of lead, silver, and two other things I can't remember. Unlike the other mining areas I've been to (West Virginia, Wales), it's not depressed or gloomy or mourning the loss of a way of life. The mine chugs away 24 hours a day, the town is busy and quite proud of itself. Camped at Copper City, on the Leichardt River. Personally, I feel like Australians should use another word than “river” or “creek” if there is no actual water in said landscape feature, Fauxriver perhaps. I'm sure that during the Wet season it's lovely, but 99% of the waterways we've encountered look like they've never seen anyone spit in them, let alone flow with actual real water. The excellent little museum at Outback at Isa has a social history of the 80-year old city, with panels even on the Yanks stationed there during WWII—cheeky and underpaid Aussies who couldn't afford the services of a lady of the night would queue up anyway at the local brothel, and then sell their spot in line to a GI for £5. Awesome.

From Isa, we're on to the coast. Slept last night at one of the excellent little rest areas set up along the Flinders Highway (remember, we turned left at Threeways). Ours had brand new picnic shelters, and very posh eco-toilets, all clean and shiny, and best of all, free. They don't want people driving at night—the animals come out and a 130K/H it easier to kill or be killed by a kangaroo than you'd think—so every few hundred K's there's a designated stop to camp for free, up to 24 hours, and with basic facilities. They do know how to do the camping in Australia.