The forecast for the day we were to leave was rain, continuing through the weekend. We switched gears and made Sunday our new departure date. Light rain in the morning leading to a reasonably clear and dry week ahead.
In Perth on Thursday for the New Norcia Studies journal launch, we talked again about getting vaccinated. I’m gun-shy when it comes to inoculations, so the jab hasn’t been a priority. Still, with quasi-plans to travel to the States later this year, necessity outweighs hesitation. On a whim, with Johan dodging traffic on the busy Perth streets, I check to see if it were possible to get vaccinated that same day. Amazingly, two appointments are available at a suburban medical centre for 9:05 and 9:10pm. “Book ‘em,” Johan said, so I did.
The journal launch finished at 8pm so getting to the medical centre by nine was easy. The doctor on duty was friendly and returned my smile when we entered his inoculation chamber, along with four others. When it was our turn, I expressed my anxiety, not about needles but my lack of trust in vaccines, particularly one that had been developed as quickly as the AstraZeneca. He looked me in the eye and asked if I was a meditator. “I thought so,” he replied to my affirmative response. “So just use your meditation and breathing skills and you’ll be fine, I guarantee it.”
I was fine, until about midday the following day. Harvesting what I could from the autumn garden for our trip, my energy slowly flagged. My head felt thick and my body ached. I went to bed for most of the rest of the afternoon. By bedtime I felt feverish and fluey. Still, the reaction was nothing more than what the media was reporting as “normal”.
Next day my energy rebounded and we finished preparations in a flurry, just in time to relax in front of a Saturday night Netflix movie. I selected Walkabout, a 1971 Australian film by Nicolas Roeg. It seemed a fitting theme on the eve of our next outback trek. And it was.
Set in the era of our youth, we felt nostalgia for that time, which now seems so innocent compared with today’s world. “Walkabout” is a term Aboriginal people have for the initiation ritual used for their youth, when 16-year-old boys are sent into the outback on their own, with only a spear for survival. We were surprised then when the film opened with modern Australia (ca. 1970) as seen through the eyes of the European colonialists: concrete and cars, countless pedestrians pacing the urban streets with glazed-over eyes, luxurious riverside apartments stacked one atop the other. A Volkswagen Beetle (so sweet!) appears taking a typical Australian family to the desert so the father can do his geological research, the 8-year-old son can play his fantasy games, and the 16-year-old daughter can consume the well-planned picnic lunch packed by the absent mum. Alienation and disinterest characterise the family relations, until, in a bizarre twist, the father steps out of the car and starts shooting a real gun at his son, who’s playing war games with his toy gun. Dad discovers the jerry can of fuel in the boot, pours it over the car, sets it on fire and shoots himself in the head. Scared and confused the children disappear into the wilderness.
The rest of the story is about the two kids’ journey into the outback, guided by a traditional Aboriginal boy they meet, ostensibly on his own walkabout, who teaches the city kids the ways of the bush. It’s poignant, disturbing, quintessentially ‘70s in style, and heavy on the message of colonial imperialism and the devastation imposed upon indigenous culture.
This was the “story” I saw ten years ago when we took our first long trek across the centre of Australia: that the core of Australia is Aboriginal, raw, relentless in both beauty and harshness, and spiritual in essence. That the people who inhabited this land for millennia prior to European arrival had a different relation to the land, each other, and life. And that fundamentally it was spiritual and sustainable. And that the culture of these people was crushed to the point of near-extinction, its remaining inhabitants tired, drunk, dazed, and grumpy.
We set off Sunday morning amidst persistent rain showers and a woolly sky. We bump fists to wish ourselves a good and safe journey. We carry a weight of material possessions to protect us from too much discomfort and danger, but it still allows for a mostly outdoor life for the next 6-8 weeks. Our route is due east on the Outback Way, the gravel road that cuts across the red centre of Australia to Uluru, then north from Alice Springs to Darwin, west across the gravel Gibbs River Rd in the Kimberley, and the long southerly trek back home from Broome. Winter in the outback will be warm in the day, cool to cold at night, and stunningly beautiful with golden light kissing the land, wildflowers and water pools. So unlike the stinking hot, fly-ridden journey we took in the middle of summer ten years ago.
Around four in the afternoon we take a dirt road north off the Great Eastern Hwy just past the Yellowdine Roadhouse. Google Maps shows an intriguing cluster of open rock, and a sign points the way to Karalee Rocks. It doesn’t mention camping but when we arrive, a cluster of caravans spread out across a flat makeshift campground. Must be a well-kept secret or a tip on some free-camping website.
It’s been four months since we’ve had the trailer out and our set-up routine is hampered by our feeble memories, which leave out some critical pieces. Still, we have enough time before sundown to explore the rock face, which was used to collect water in a nearby dam in the region’s pastoral past, and enjoy a beer before dinner and an early bed.
Our expected route:
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