No thumps of raindrops are hitting the canvas roof when we wake. It’s 6:30am and we decide to get an early start. We pack up, eat breakfast, and by the time we’re heading back to the highway, the sun is lighting up the Two-Up Club. It’s built like a cock-fighting pen, a circular concrete pad lined with handmade benches. The patchwork of corrugated iron siding is covered in graffiti.
Laverton is the official start of the Outback Way. A quaint dishevelled town, heavy black fellas loping around, women pushing prams. Johan fills the tank and chats with them while I sit in the car for another hour of work. Before they wander off they ask for cigarettes or money. I can’t do that, Johan says. But all the best.
The lady in the Visitor Centre recommends the White Cliff Road over the Great Central Road – less mining trucks, fewer ruts. Thirty kilometres in there’s a great camping spot, she says, near some breakaways. Since we’ve already done the Central Road, we’re keen to explore new things. We head out the White Cliff way.
The sun shines at last on the red craggy rocks that circle the camping spot we’ve chosen. The view all the way around is worth the wet 3-day wait to get here. And silence so intense it almost hurts the ears.
I'm enjoying your blog as much as expected! Congrats on getting the jab!
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen that NF film--disturbing indeed. Recently watched a contemporary one about Alice Springs Aborigines coping with the White World, focused on a charming kid who's not fitting in. He's keen to learn A. ways and he's supposedly inherited his grandfather's healing powers. The perspective on his family and community are more upbeat than in the film you saw. I remember taking in a retrospective in Sydney years ago on A-Euro history following colonization. A devastating experience.
Hope the rain has stopped, and you can get those airbags installed. Stay safe and take in the journey through every pore!
Noreen