Outback road trip diary notes day 3: Port Augusta to Erldunda

Outback road trip with Kiki - written by Michael King (Kiki) & from an outline by Michael King & Mike Regan (I, me)

23 November - 1 December 2014
Trip Diary Notes

Kiki had wanted to get up at 5 am and leave Port Augusta at 6 am for the long drive to Alice Springs.  Although we were travelling in his car & we couldn't afford to dawdle in the Outback (it being able to sneak up on you and kill you before authorities come looking for you), I tactfully rejected this notion out of hand & respectfully asked him for plan B.  I am a man who needs his sleep (note the absence of the adjective 'beauty' here) & more importantly need at least one and a half hours in the morning to prepare to face the day.  It is a routine that has served me well & stood me in good stead over the years & while I am used to the hustle and bustle of Sydney (actually more used to the hustle than the bustle), I won't be rushed in the morning.

I could write more on how I am the pioneer of the slow purposeful commute - whether it be by bullet train or in a traffic jam, on my way to a breakfast meeting or a conference out of town - I can put my mind into an hypnotic, almost hibernating idle, processing deep thought, not distracted from negotiating traffic and those around me, detached from the hurly burly & making my way forth in the world.  As such I am the perfect person to research and expostulate on the driverless car...as I said, I could write more, but I won't. 

So we left Port Augusta at about 8 am Australian Central Daylight Savings Time, heading due north through saltbush, scrub and mulga, passing mesa and salt pan, while making the occasional crossing of railway line.  Very early on on this day's long journey, I insisted that Kiki come to an almost complete stop at rail crossings.  Even though their lights weren't flashing a warning red, I don't trust these intersections between the descendants the creations of George Stephenson and Karl Benz.  There is absolutely no way I want to perish as the victim of a level crossing smash - the tabloids would point out how a road safety expert had been taken by a train & my reputation would be trashed forever.  So it is a matter of necessity that intersections with trains are approached in a hyper vigilant way.  As it happens, Kiki is even more risk averse than me, and quickly fell into my way of doing things, slowing to a dawdle as we crossed the Ghan railway.

Along the way, we paralleled the pipeline that delivers water to Woomera.  As Richie Benaud, the Sir David Attenborough of cricket commentators would say, it is a marvellous piece of infrastructure providing a lifeline to those in such remote dry locations.  At regular points along the pipe, there are stopcocks, which in the soft early morning light resemble raptors, perched on water carrying cylinder.  Or maybe the shimmering desert air was starting to play tricks on our perceptions & we were seeing life where there were only inanimate objects.

At our first rest stop for a leg stretch, I heard Kiki starting to mutter under his breath about something that was obviously getting on his goat.  Profanities spewed from his mouth - I wondered if this was some sort of delayed anger to the rescheduled departure time from Port Augusta.  It turned out that Kiki had found a torn piece of paper, on official Government letterhead, partly adhered to the picnic table that mentioned how the road might be closed about 200 kms ahead due to exercises being conducted by the Defence Department.

While I am a former employee of the Department of Defence, I have not the slightest shred of residual loyalty to them, and while not white with rage at their apparent commandeering  of her majesty's highway, I was dumbfounded by both how the army could close a major road for war games, thus incommoding grey nomads & others journeying to and fro, and also at the inadequate nature of the notice given to travellers like ourselves.  Kiki and I were in furious agreement about our lack of happiness at the prospect of cooling our heels at Glendambo for a few hours, while our troops took pot shots at each other.  However, after a chance to reflect further on the situation, we thought if it saves casualties from from friendly fire in battles on far away shores so be it.

As we pondered what to do about the possible road closure ahead, another odd thing happened.  A young woman travelling alone, pulled up in her four wheel drive and approached us.  She asked if we knew the way to South Hope.  Kiki could not help her despite his many journeys on this road and he remarked to me later that while he was always looking for hope, he really had no idea where South Hope was.  I was surprised that a lone female traveller would approach two men in the middle of nowhere for assistance, particularly as we had just started listening to an audio book about the abduction of Joanne Lees and the murder of Peter Falconio on the same highway we were travelling.  Later investigation of the name 'South Hope' showed no evidence it existed in South Australia, so our advice to her that we had no idea of where it was, may have been the best guidance she was likely to receive, or on the other hand, the whole event may have been a figment of our joint imagination.  The outback does strange things to the human mind.

We passed through the low bush into countryside that looked for all intents and purposes like the Martian landscape.  While I haven't any personal experience of visiting the red planet I've seen shots taken from various unmanned missions & the resemblance is uncanny.  You have to think that if NASA ever pulls its finger out and sets its sights on a manned mission to Mars, the treeless, grassless red rocks and soil around Woomera will figure in their planning, nodd, nodd, wink, wink, say no more.

In the middle of this faux alien terrain, we came across something mankind is unlikely to find on the red planet, a small family of emus, which consisted of one father bird and five chicks.  Apparently roles are reversed in the world of emus and fathers look after their chicks, while mothers indulge in other pursuits, which may or may not include hang gliding.  Four of the young emus were in rude health, but one was noticeably lame and unable to keep up with its avian siblings.  We slowed and stopped to take footage and photos of this heart rending scene unfolding before us.  Kiki was surprisingly moved by this 'red in tooth and claw' tableau and for a minute I thought his choked words, full of emotion were going to lead him to cry.  At the time I thought I might need to have stern words with him, telling him to get a grip, but as we left this desperate scene behind, our minds quickly turned to more practical matters like whether we would be able to get a connoisseur ice cream at our next stop.

Many stops were called for despite the thousand kilometres to be travelled.  We stopped at beautiful salt lakes, some of which were part salt and some water, and others that were 100% salt.  I went for a walk on some of the salt pans.  I am still the weight I was thirty years ago so the thin crust of the crystalline sodium chloride was just able to support my weight, as it crunched and compressed under my feet.  Kiki wanted to follow me, but again, in the interest of risk management, I advised him to keep his 110 kg self at the edge.  It's quite ironic that when filled with salt water these lakes are very buoyant and even a man of Kiki's obesity can be supported. But when the water has gone they are a complete death trap for the overweight, either swallowing up fatties completely or trapping them, their corpulent bodies stuck in the gluey bog, leaving them easy prey for Wolf Creek types or other feral animals.  

Kiki had a steak sandwich at Glendambo. As it turned out, the Defence Department had already shot off and exploded all of their shells & the road ahead was not blocked after all. Kiki was relieved & I was hopeful & happy that he might be able to enjoy some peace of mind till the next bee entered his bonnet.

Half way to Coober Pedy, we came upon the roadway widened so that it could be used as a landing strip for the flying doctor & any other planes that might land in the vicinity.  As Kiki said, this is all very good if there is an accident nearby, like the Defence Department blowing someone up, but we were both at a loss to understand what would happen if someone came to grief 100 kilometres further up the road.  And if a large plane had to land on the road, how would it negotiate a road train?  So as with many aspects of life, there were many unanswered questions, and given this, I was pleased to be able to at least figure out the rationale for the concordance between the colour of nearby stones and rocks and the red surface of the sealed road we motored upon.

Kiki fuelled up the CX5 in Cooper Pedy, which is a town that has adapted an idea of my former neighbours, Nev and Allison Reece of building living space underground.  In Coober Pedy, the houses are underground because it is very hot during a large part of the year, while underground it is a constant 23 degrees.  Coincidentally, 23 degrees was the temperature Kiki preferred to run the climate control car air conditioner at.  I preferred something a little warmer, given my Body Mass Index is not as large as Kiki's.  The CX5 had separate climate control for each side of the vehicle, which seems an idea that can't possibly work given you can't separate the air masses in cars.  So as I could not persuade Kiki to set his temperature to my preferred 24 degrees, I turned my knob up to 25 degrees and let the dual system reach some acceptable (to me) stasis.

While in Coober Pedy I had to pay 50 cents for hot water for my tea bag, which shot out of the dispensing machine, making capturing the jet of water a difficult task. In truth, I was slightly disappointed that I had to pay for hot water, especially as we had purchased petrol at an expensive price, not to mention Kiki buying a cappuccino from the same machine. Back In Cobar we had been able to persuade the woman in the coffee shop to give us the hot water for my tea bag for free, but here in the opal mining capital of South Australia, faced with a machine & not a human, providing the second necessary ingredient for a cup of tea, there was no avoiding the half dollar price on offer.

Up the road about 150 kilometres, which seemed a mere hop, step and a jump in the outback we stopped at Cadney Park, and Kiki had another steak sandwich. Whether he actually needed more junk food sustenance is a moot point, but his rate of ingestion told me clearly that at no time in the near future would he be tip toeing on any salt lakes.

Further on we stopped at the Marla roadhouse. When you traverse the vast empty spaces of Australia, it is a small tonic to find a remnant of civilisation in the middle of nowhere.  However whoever wrote the sign calling Marla as an oasis would be rightly described as using real estate agent terminology.

Later we stopped at a non flushing long drop toilet, just past the Northern Territory border.    We put our time pieces back an hour to Australian Central Standard Time & gingerly opened the door of the outhouse for closer inspection.  Kiki confided that he sometimes has nightmares about dropping his car keys into one of these.  Peering down into them, they are a dark foreboding concatenation of slowly decaying human waste & paper.  While Kiki has nightmares about associations between car keys and long drops, he really is accustomed to the privations of outback privies and quite happy to use them should the need arise.  Later, in what might aptly be categorised as 'too much information', he indicated to me that while the outback dunnies quote "do the job", he would prefer more feedback re. the results of his toilet visits.

I drove the last hundred kilometres and as evening turned into night, almost inevitably, we saw several kangaroos on this last stretch.  Authorities have little meta data let alone actual data on how many roos are killed annually on Australian roads, but the carnage and numbers involved must be truly staggering.  However, as noted earlier, this supports a large amount of activity involving road kill de jour, rescuing joeys and untold amounts of panel beating.

In Erldunda we stayed at a hotel that had note on the door about not leaving the door open because of snakes entering the room.  As neither of us have any tendency towards being latter day Steve Irwins, we kept the door firmly closed and locked.  I even checked under the bed for vipers, with the same level of care shown earlier when I gave the outback outhouse the once over.

Outback road trip diary notes day 2

Outback Road Trip with Kiki - written by Michael King (Kiki) from an outline by Michael King & Mike Regan (I, me)

23 November - 1 December 2014

Trip Diary Notes

Monday 24 November:

After negotiation and sweet talking by Kiki at the local coffee shop, I was eventually given  for free, hot water and a cup, into which I inserted my tea bag. Charm & hard bargaining had won the day again - I can see my influence is starting to make a difference to Kiki & his blitzkrieg approach to inter personal relations.

As we farewelled Cobar we stopped at a sign that announced the outback was officially beginning so we decided to take a 'happy snap' to record the moment for posterity.  Later we thought that Cobar could promote itself as a tourist destination with a 'big' gate thus touting its title as the gateway to the outback.  While on holidays and trying to relax, my mind still works at a feverish pace with creative ideas like this continuing to bubble to the surface - Kiki has tried to tell me that I need to relax and turn my mind off, but when you have had a turbo charged career like mine, living in the cultural firmament that is the centre of Sydney, it is easier said than done.

At this point we looked at each and realised the road trip into the deep heart of the continent was only now truly beginning and there would be no turning back.  Travelling down the Barrier Highway, both of us were surprised at the number and variety of feral goats grazing by the roadside.  Our westwards journey was punctuated by a few stops to stalk and try and photograph these creatures, which are on the menu at Rama's Fiji Indian restaurant, in Pearce, ACT.  Male goats, also known as Billy goats, with their facial hair, should be more chic nowadays given the popularity of beards among Generation 'Y' males.    While possibly obtaining some cachet via their beards, it is doubtful that this will save them from hunters' bullets and or restaurant menus.  Whether further synergies develop between these two beard wearing groups, and young men start adorning their heads with artificial horns remains to be seen, but a return to the Viking look in fashion is well overdue.  Emus were also common along the Barrier Highway and like their fellow Barrier highway foragers were camera shy.  We concluded that both creatures would be almost impossible to get a selfie with.  How you might do this was something we turned our minds to.  Options considered included: (1) a long selfie stick; (2) dressing up as a goat or an emu and taking off the headpiece of the costume just before the photo; (3) using food to cajole the animal; or (4) employing someone like Kevin Rudd as a selfie emissary, having him sidle up to the goat or emu to ask "Hi guys.  Selfie time".

We passed a van that had overtaken us earlier and then hit a large kangaroo. Its front end was badly damaged and it was waiting to be towed back to Cobar, which is not a prospect one would savour.  With all the blood and guts strewn over bitumen and bumper bar, it wasn't clear whether it was a red kangaroo or a grey kangaroo; what was clear was that it was a dead kangaroo.  Kiki and I had had a shared carcass encounter previously on a trip to the snow more than 25 years ago, when we came across the body of a very recently departed animal in the middle of the Monaro Highway.  A quarter of a century ago, steam rose from the dead body, mixing with a fog that enveloped the countryside.  As much younger men, in 1989, we thought the steaming carcass was something a concept artist might use to depict beauty in death. Nowadays, with both of us on the plus side of 50, the death of anything reminds us of our own mortality and the preciousness of life. 

Dead creatures, at various levels of decay and being devoured, festoon the sides of outback roads.  With such a never ending cavalcade of life and death, car journeys necessitate caution and vigilance so as to be on guard against hitting roos, emus, goats, wedge tailed eagles, sheep or even cows.  Kangaroos and goats are attracted to the edge of roads by the grass that grows there, nourished by water that runs off the camber of the surface.  Lured there, the roos run the gauntlet of cars and when they are hit they attract raptors.  The recently killed often lie in the middle of the road adorned with crows and wedge tailed eagles.  When cars approach, crows are quick to move but wedge tailed eagles, the A380 of the bird world, need much more time to make their escape.  While Kiki and I feel bad about the deaths caused cars on outback roads, most of our apprehension is due to a fear of creatures damaging the vehicle and the cost and inconvenience resulting from outback accidents, viz the van making the sad journey back to Cobar.

We stopped at the Emmdale road house where a young woman was sweeping the dirt off the path at the front. Taking care with appearances in an environment often subjected to dust storms suggested it might be worthwhile lingering in this place a little longer.  Inside the simple but tidy road side stop was a French woman with green eyes, who with her partner run the roadhouse.  We both obtained food, surprised by its availability in such a remote place: fresh lasagne for Kiki and a nutritious salad sandwich for me.  What at first blush looked like the road house featured in the start of Wolf Creek, turned out to be an idyll in the middle of nowhere.

Headed to Wilcannia, where Kiki has never stopped.  It is a town with metal grills or boards on many of its buildings' windows. Like the Darling river that runs almost dry through its middle, the town seems desiccated, sapped of strength, ready to give up and be taken over by the surrounding bush.

We both marvelled at how we still had cell phone reception far away from the nearest big town.  So because we could we rang friends and family from our mobile island of civilization.  While we we experienced a sense of awe at the loneliness and peace of mind that being in the outback bought, I was slightly irritated that not once did Kiki offer me a Jatz cracker from the packet he was gorging himself on.  Later he explained his apparent lack of generosity was because he thought I was satisfied with the Sakata seeweed crackers I was nibbling on.  I rationalised his selfish behaviour as being a personality quirk or character flaw consequent upon living by himself for so many years.  "Lucky I have my wife to bring me into line" I thought as I contemplated the edges of savagery inhabited by my travelling companion.

Later on we stopped at Little Topar - we never did find out where Big Topar or Topar were - the place we stopped at was certainly small so the adjective 'little' was quite apt. Always on the look out for humorous curios, even confected ones, we both took photos of a sign instructing pet owners to stop their dogs defecating near the sign.  It struck us that there were probably more pet friendly places in the world than Little Topar. Speaking of pets, soon after Little Topar, I spoke to my good friend Marky Gledhill, whose dog Murph, was not well, and who unfortunately subsequently died after a poor dietary choice involving an inappropriately ingested sock.

Just west of Broken Hill, we crossed into the state of South Australia and took a photo of a large sign welcoming travellers to the State. Interestingly, going the other way on the Barrier highway, there was no similar sign welcoming drivers and passengers to New South Wales.  "Was this disparity a vestige of one State being an ex penal colony and the other being convict free?" Kiki hypothesised.  Kiki comes up with many far fetched theories in his self appointed role as forensic historian, and like the famous stopped clock, he is probably accurate now and then.

Further on we saw a Hills Hoist erected on a mound on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The significance of this artefact went beyond a forensic historical examination into the realm of cultural theory and Kiki was at a loss as to why this Barrie Koskyesque motif might be half way between Cockburn and Yunta.

Later I went through my first fruit fly quarantine point and was rather surprised to be first stopped and then have the car searched by a Crow eater looking for smuggled fruit and vegetables. The official went about the fruit and vegetable detection task in a cheerful way and gave us a friendly smile despite having no teeth.  I guess if you wanted to smuggle a tray of nectarines or the like into South Australia your best bet would be to do so under the cover of darkness.  Onwards we went driving through first through Peterborough and then Orroroo, the town with the longest name in the world consisting of just two different letters.  Peterborough used to be the meeting point of the Indian Pacific and old Ghan rail lines and this heritage of a halcyon rail ensured a critical mass, which seems to have saved it from becoming a ghost town.

We saw beautiful bush scrub scenes going into Port Augusta, arriving there at 7.00 pm.   Port Augusta claims to be the cross roads of Australia, but with major roads running north, west and east is really a T intersection.  Stayed in room decorated like Mrs Lepperts house. We then drove to an Indian restaurant for dinner - called the Standpipe. It had a big Australian homestead kind of feel. Not at all Indian. But excellent food and a nice young waitress. Had a long chat with Kiki about Regan family stuff. Slept well.