Day 4: Techno Campers

18 November 2010

Camping has always been an exercise in simple living for us. We pack a few things; the rest we do without. Our standards rose somewhat earlier this year with the acquisition of a camper trailer, a box trailer with a fold-out canvas tent, queen size bed, handy external kitchenette that swings out the back and plenty of space for storage. Not only can we take more stuff, we can organize it all so much more efficiently than throwing it all in the back of the car like we used to do. But with more stuff comes more complexity, and our experience of simple living suffers.

Still, when I look at how most of our peers do it – big air conditioned caravans fitted out with all the mod cons to ensure you stay safe and entertained, tucked away in your aluminum and plastic bubble – and I’m grateful for our lighter, more rustic version. One of the foundation rules of good writing also applies to camping: KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid.

This journey contains a new element, however, heretofore scrupulously banned from outback travel: technology. Along with a laptop fitted out with a mobile Broadband stick, we have an e-gadgets box. Here are its contents: digital camera, eTrex hand-held GPS, Navman GPS, iPod, 2GB Flashdrive, Projecta 120w power converter (allows us to plug things in using the car’s cigarette lighter), battery charger, cords to attach all these units to the computer, more cords to charge all the gadgets when their batteries get low. Egad, what have we done?

While one of us drives, the other is often found clicking away on the laptop. If we’re in mobile range (which mostly we have been this side of the Outback Way), we check emails, do the banking, or, my favorite, play Wordscraper and Scrabble on Facebook. One night we hooked up the laptop to the trailer battery and watched an episode of Lost Season 2. We borrowed the 24-episode DVD set from a friend before we left. It was fun and a novel way to spend a night out in the bush, but when I stepped out into the moon-filled silent night after it was over, it was clear we’d crossed a boundary and inched two steps closer to our caravan-comforted friends.

So what’s the point of all this technology? It’s a good question, and one we should ask ourselves regularly. Initial answers emerge to justify our technology addictions: our time-frame is indefinite and we’re selling a house and waiting for Johan’s American visa; we need to be contactable. We’re travelling into a remote outback area where people and services are limited. GPS navigation and the occasional mobile connection increase our chances of a safe and carefree journey.

But here’s another thought: outback travel is rare in Australia. Most Australians and foreign visitors cling to the bitumen paths that encircle the edge of the continent. There’s something forbidding about the interior. The harsh, arid land with all its monotony and flatness, the sparse towns, infrequent and unadorned with all the dazzle and trappings of modern western civilization, remind you that this country belongs to a simpler, tougher people, more compatible to this rough and inhospitable land. The dark faces of indigenous Australians seem to glare at me in the small outback towns we pass through, raising feelings of fear and guilt, a sense of “Us and Them”. I don’t like this because I think I’m a progressive, liberal minded wadjala, white person. But the deeper we go into their country, the stronger the sense that we’re the Visitors, the Invaders, gawking at them as though they’re the exotic natives of some far-away foreign land.

Technology keeps us connected to Our World, embedded in a reality that is safe, measured, secure. Logical. Rational. Technology keeps us from merging too deeply with that raw, untamed Heart of Darkness of a more primitive existence, a pulse that hums in the dry, hollow winds of Australia’s interior.