Day 34 - Outside Timber Creek

Friday, 2 July 2021

We can’t stop having Sapiens conversations. Mostly they revolve around pondering whether homo sapiens have enough of what it takes to get themselves out of the mess they’re currently in. While one of us holds out a bit of hope that the 100^th monkey syndrome might just tip us over towards wising up in time, the evidence is pretty heavily weighted in the other direction: we just don’t have it in us what it would take to create a wise and just and sustainable world civilisation before climate change gobbles us up in its rampant spread.

Mostly, these conversations take up time and ensure we’ll get a late start to the day. Just past mid-morning we pack up and head towards the Tuwakam Track, one of many 4WD-only tracks that run through the Judbarra Park. This one seems doable, first because the sign classifies it as “easy, though some rocky creek crossings”, and second because it’s only 20kms before it meets up with the more salubrious Humbert Track, a gravel road which will take us back north to the Victoria Highway.

Twenty metres into the track we meet our first challenge, a creek crossing with a sharp v-shape that doesn’t look good for our towbar. We do a rough patch up with some rocks to help keep the rear of the car aloft. But our first tentative go finds the towbar stuck on the ground, with the prospect that if we go further it might do some damage. We reverse back up the incline and decide to admit an early defeat.

To take our minds off Sapiens, we start up another audiobook, Barack Obama’s Promised Land, released late last year. For whatever inconsistencies or controversies surrounded his presidency, we’ve always admired his optimism, breadth of knowledge, and mature outlook on life and politics. He’s also a great writer and orator, fun to listen to.

Timber Creek is only another 10kms further down the Victoria Highway. Government and media internet pages are still vague about what’s involved in crossing the border. It’s clear there’s a mandatory 14-day quarantine period, but what does that mean for road travellers towing their homes behind them? We hook up with a cluster of W.A. travellers gathered at a picnic table and listen in on their talk. Mostly it’s more of the same – lots of opinions, but no one knows for sure – but we do learn that Mark McGowan (the premier) is giving a press conference at 3:15pm.

We buy ice creams, snag a table on the wide verandah of the roadhouse and wait for the live broadcast. It starts 15 minutes late and we listen for over an hour, but mostly it’s about Perth’s lockdown and what it means for residents in the lower part of the state. Not a word about state border closures or the plight of the poor grey nomad stuck at the Top End.

Since it's now late in the day, we decide to camp for the night and reassess border crossings tomorrow. We tour a small campground on the Victoria River just west of Timber Creek. Like others, it’s crowded, dense, unattractive. The satellite view on Google Maps shows a track further west, just before the bridge crossing. We find it easily, set back from the highway, down an incline, promising. We follow it down to a flat clearing set picturesquely above a wide waterhole. The locals’ camp, unmarked and unpopulated. We’ll borrow it for the night.

Day 33 - Jasper Gorge

Thursday, 1 July 2021

It’s always good to keep in touch with everyday reality while wandering in the wilds, though I sometimes question that advice. Still, there’s a pandemic churning along in the background of our outback adventure that needs attending to now and then.

Four days ago W.A.’s premier closed the state borders between W.A. and the Northern Territory. What that means for W.A. residents pulling caravans around the Top End is anyone’s guess. We intend to cross the border tomorrow, but with no internet access, it’s impossible to say whether that will be possible.

We pore over the maps and come up with a few alternatives should we end up stuck in the N.T. Fortunately, we’re fairly flexible time-wise, and our gear and current stocks mean we can survive in the wilds for a while, if need be.

Meanwhile, let the world do its crazy spin. We go in search of Jasper Gorge, further down the road from the campground. After driving through narrow hills, we arrive upon the Jasper Gorge Picnic Area, a weedy lot next to the Jasper River with no picnic tables, walk trails or other amenities. Not even a sign. Where’s the gorge, we ponder? Perhaps we just drove through it, one of us suggests. If so, we might as well turn around and go back.

Which is what we do. We park ourselves in camp chairs round the back of the camper trailer– only bit of shade in our wide open sight -- and spend the afternoon reading. Late in the afternoon we rock hop up the nearest rise, make it to just below the rocky outcrop, pause to take in the view, then scamper down in time for a sundowner.

View of the rise nearest our camp spot.

View from the rise nearest our camp spot.

 

Day 32 - Judbarra/Gregory National Park

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

A wistful farewell to Katherine and we head west on the Victoria Highway. There are surprisingly few cars, despite the caravan numbers in town. We finish listening to Sapiens. The broad sweep of time the book covers is awesome: from cave-dwellers to robot-makers. The last chapter is challenging, with its suggestion that humans now have the capacity to interfere with “natural selection”. What we do with our genetic technologies could have far-reaching consequences if we end up creating a new species with its own “free will”. That is, able to exist and replicate without our help or intervention. What does that mean for the fate of homo sapiens, currently on the top of the food chain? Supposedly this new form of AI won’t necessarily need to eat us, but maybe worse, they just ignore us, or eradicate us because we keep wanting to mess with their technology. It sounds like sci-fi, but apparently it’s on our doorstep.

Most of us, when faced with the question about where things are heading, recoil into a shudder of horror. Faced with so many complications, showered daily with dire news about the coming catastrophes of climate change, trying to shake off a persistent global virus that has a few tricks up its sleeve about how to survive – it can be frightening indeed.

I have a theory that includes a 3-pronged possibility for where humanity’s heading. First is the one Harari expounds in his book: technology will play a pivotal role in creating a brave new world where human survival has a good chance. We won’t need to change course and figure out how we can live sustainably with nature because we’ll keep creating technologies that shield us from her ever increasing hostilities. Second is the “evolution of consciousness” theory, that we’re on the precipice of a major mental/spiritual paradigm shift that, once we get that hundredth monkey doing the right thing, will result in a more enlightened society that can manage itself and the planet in sustainable ways. Third is perhaps the most prevalent: the pessimists’ view, or, some would say the realist view. We’re doomed like the dinosaurs to be another epoch of earth’s history. Dead as doornails. Planet Earth moves on. In a million years or so it recovers from the damage humans imposed and natural selection continues on its merry way helping to create the next set of earthlings.

I suspect whatever the future holds, it will be a tumultuous blend of all three. Whether one wins out and becomes the new norm will be interesting to see, though none of us will be around to witness it, at least in our current forms. Harari ends his book with the question, “What do we want to want?” and suggests we take a cold hard look at our answer, and do whatever it takes to manifest that reality.

Which outcome do we want for humanity?

The landscape turns stunning around the Victoria River and we weave our way through tabletop mountains circled by rims of vertical red rock. We stop at Joe’s Creek Picnic Area and take off on the 1.7 kms loop walk. No one else is willing to do an afternoon walk in 34C degree weather, so we have the trail to ourselves. It winds up the side of one of these tabletops and skirts just under the edge of an overhanging escarpment, where palm trees flap in the wind and lush ferns drink from trickles of water oozing from the rock. The multi-hued rock towers overhead like a giant curling wave ready to come crashing down on us. We discover a splay of Aboriginal rock art that looks quite genuine, though hard to decipher its age. 

Two hours later we’re back at the hot car, revelling in another peak experience from the many of nature’s free offerings.

Further down the highway we turn south onto the Buchanan Highway (a grand name for a dusty outback road) and into the Judbarra/Gregory National Park. The tabletops thicken and the fences disappear. We’re back to remote country. An hour down the rocky road is the Jasper Gorge campsite. The sun is low in the sky and a ring of campers circle the small grounds. It’s OK, but not what we were hoping for. We decide to check out the inconspicuous dirt track a short ways back – if that’s no good we’ll come back here. We haven’t much time before dusk.

The narrow dirt track circles around a small incline and opens into a wide open, flat area (most likely an abandoned road quarry) surrounded by tabletops, their rocky rims glowing a fiery red in the setting sun. This is it. After nearly a week of communal campground living, we’ve returned to the wilds.