Gourmet tucker runs out as Bulldust Diary author / illustrator and Grey Nomad baiter , Peter Burley, recently revealed as the Scarlet Pimpernel (he’s everywhere-up a bone dry creek in the Aussie outback , the next moment up a champagne drenched canal in France),becomes an ambulance driver in a dramatic mercy dash , endangering his grog supply while bouncing along the WA Gibb River Road on the run to Mount Elizabeth and the Drysdale River Station.
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An endless 30km of travel up a lower intestine of rock drifts and creek crossings known as the Mt. Elizabeth Road takes us through – not over – crowds of curious kangaroos and we emerge to camp in a field near the Mt. Elizabeth homestead. We cook on an open fire. You can’t do this much these days.
I had two meat pies today, which supplied enough calories to keep 12 Ethiopians alive for a month. Why? Because the alternative was an old sausage roll, an old Chicko Roll (shudder) or a packet of Allen’s Jelly Snakes ( Bermuda’s choice). Even worse, some of our party have underestimated the amount of alcohol we require to maintain a decent standard of living on the road, and are now dry. We’re prepared to share the Jacobs Creek and the Miranda Spumante purchased by our token American, but know that most of us are retaining the better wine for ourselves. Tension is rising. This situation could lead to a Lord of the Flies denouement or at the least a communal delirium withdrawal tremulous.
Mt Elizabeth markets itself as an all-working cattle station, an all-swimming, all-visual-riches operation. The “homestead-cooked dinner” doesn’t eventuate as promised, but a tourist bus arrives and they seem to get fed. Something about the cooks going AWOL.
An expeditionary column from our party sets out for the swimming hole equipped with a mud map supplied by the homestead (a photocopied scrawl on half a page of paper: cost $2). The swimming hole couldn’t be found earlier, but these guys are determined.
The camp ground is a delight. A display of peacocks wanders around in the shade of the deep green mango trees. The males peck at their reflections in a chrome bumper-bar. Kelpies, foals, native birds, chooks, ducks and tame wallabies all visit. Corellas perch in the ghost gums, which shed their bark like pale snakeskin. Some kind of Australian Eden.
Bermuda is sick. He displays two puncture wounds about 10mm apart, but he didn’t see a snake, insect or spider. He got them yesterday and now his leg seems infected; a pink flush is rising in his calf. Luckily we have a doctor in the tent. She issues antibiotics with little effect. Question is, drive him 400km to Kununurra Hospital, call the Flying Doctor or pretend it’s a common cold?
Just as we decide to relocate the Bermuda Triangle to Kununurra Hospital tomorrow, a woman on a bicycle arrives from the homestead. She has urgent news. One of our swimming-hole party has fallen down a rocky slope and can’t walk. They are located in a gorge one kilometre from the end of an impossibly bad road. Could we pick up a stretcher from the homestead, drive down, pick him up and carry him out? The injured man is Mickey. I guess he weighs 120 kilos. He has a pacemaker and, as well as his injury, is apparently frozen with anxiety.
The Pajero negotiates/climbs/slithers up and down the trail, Banzai-ing like the little Japanese champion it is. Many of the rocks bear impact marks from the undersides of other vehicles. I and the others with me are silently sweating over the prospect of carrying Mickey through this terrain for a kilometre, when we get a break –a car comes toward us with a grinning Mickey on board. He was goaded and cajoled onto his feet. Apart from some growing aches and pains and developing bruises from dropping into the rocks he seems fine...but he’ll go to hospital tomorrow, along with Bermuda.
Meanwhile by phone the Flying Doctor prescribes more antibiotics for the Bermuda Triangle and a pressure bandage for Mickey. In the morning they are driven into Kununurra, Bermuda doubtless into the Triangle Ward for bemused travellers and Mickey into Casualty for a checkup on his leg, a grease-and-oil-change for his pacemaker, an attitude tweak and so on. With the loss of Bermuda, Mickey and their support team, sudden attrition has left us with all the beer and wine.
