Grey Nomads chanting an AFL song send real estate values plunging in the outback as Bulldust Diary author Peter Burleigh and his disturbing travelling companions blunder on through Western Australia before it is dug up and exported overseas and to the new lucrative market on Mars .
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Two members of our group who must remain anonymous to prevent action for libel but whose names are Bob and Mickey, wake and rise at 5am. They slam car doors, rumble their voices, clatter their cups and barely stifle their laughter. They are louder than any six roosters. Everybody wakes up to share the grumpy joys of pre-dawn sleepus interruptus. The two instigators of this torture insist the tweeting of the birds is responsible for our early starts. No wonder we all drop off to sleep around 8pm each night.
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Two members of our group who must remain anonymous to prevent action for libel but whose names are Bob and Mickey, wake and rise at 5am. They slam car doors, rumble their voices, clatter their cups and barely stifle their laughter. They are louder than any six roosters. Everybody wakes up to share the grumpy joys of pre-dawn sleepus interruptus. The two instigators of this torture insist the tweeting of the birds is responsible for our early starts. No wonder we all drop off to sleep around 8pm each night.
Stimulating discussions are rare because the intellectuals among us are dozing or comatose. You might, for example, wish to debate why ice hockey isn’t played in Central Australia, but you can’t. Mr JW, who has asked me to describe him as "no more decent man ever stood up in a pair of shoes" (a donation in a glass was made to the author for the inclusion of this accolade) , has the kind of enquiring mind which wants to ask such questions, but is frustrated by such early starts. Because I am bemused by anything that happens before 9.30am, I cannot describe the contributions to our national wellbeing made by those who sacrifice their mornings’ sleep. The NASA space program has been credited with several technological advances but none have yet flowed from the EMWUP (Early Morning Wakeup Program)
Another of our number has been re-named Bermuda because of his vagueness and habit of being late. He gets lost. Disorientation is no stranger to him. He is in fact the Southern Hemisphere representative of the Bermuda Triangle in Australia. It follows him around like a dark cloud. I watch him carefully and notice a striking likeness to Clark Gable: the hair, the nose, the moustache. He is a mayday call waiting for the Global Positioning System to break down.
At Windjana Gorge our tents are as hot as saunas, but in the magnificent Gorge the walls throw cool shadows around us. Vast limestone cliffs rise above us as we walk up the river. Crocs are everywhere, drowsing in the sun. They seem very passive, but I’m not about to annoy one to test the limits of its passivity. This Gorge and the nearby Tunnel Creek was the setting for a bloody struggle between local Aborigines and the Settlers. Jandamarra, the leader of the Aboriginal resistance, held out in the cliffs and tunnels for over three years until he was shot down in 1891 by a blacktracker.
At Tunnel Creek, a remote extension of Windjana Gorge, we wade through waist-deep water through almost a kilometre of limestone caves. The miner’s lights on our heads show the red dots of a crocodile’s eyes in one of the cave sections. Bats fly above us. They squeak. Do vampire bats squeak? At the far end the cave opens onto a sunlit pool surrounded by green trees full of birds and butterflies. Tiny fish swim around your feet. Magic. Even a Conga Line of Nomads wading towards us singing an AFL team’s theme song can’t break the spell.
Galvans Gorge is further up the Gibb River Road, which is deteriorating faster than a Grey Nomad’s libido. After a 1km walk you reach a sweeping rock pool fed by a lacey waterfall. The cliffs around the falls form a Cinerama scene (Baby Boomers probably will deny knowing about this widescreen technique). Quite a stunning oasis in miles and miles of arid bugger-all.
A further stretch of corrugations, sharp protruding rocks and loose stones mockingly referred to as a road brings us to the Mount Barnett Roadhouse. Its coat of arms should be a red circle with a slash through it and its motto is “NO”.
•NO tyre repairs.
•NO shop after 5pm.•NO mechanical repairs.
•NO credit.
•NO Internet access.
•NO food (that isn’t previously crumbed, battered, re-heated or fried).
•NO beer or liquor at all, at any time.
•NO wet shoes in the shop.
Interpol has kindly supplied the above photograph of a person believed to be Peter Burleigh in a secret foreign hideaway. Hordes of angry Grey Nomads keen to tar and feather Burleigh for making fun of them should follow up this lead with the help of Rex , the wonder police dog.
BREAKING NEWS : In a surprise development , Peter Burleigh has sent Little Darwin a message while floating about OS. In part , it says : While we were basking in the French sun we followed the weather reports from Darwin. Ghastly. No doubt you are all as pale as parchment and as wrinkled as albino prunes...I will be working on a few pieces for Little Darwin which will reveal the truth about French culture, its icons and its future. Like all Little Darwin's correspondents , I have minimal knowledge of such subjects but do have passionate opinions. As George Orwell or Oscar Wilde insisted, "ignorance is bliss".
