7th December 2016

When you don’t have to think about work 24/7, you start to think about other stuff – stupid stuff – like cooking breakfast in bikinis in the middle of the outback.  Miss 12, whilst I was putting on the musical performance of my life preparing the pancakes, thought filming this artistic display and posting it on Instagram would be highly amusing – so I figure everyone else should be just as amused – warning – video contains woman who has had born two babies in bikinis and may offend viewers.

Now that you have had a belly laugh, I am going back two days ….

First day of the frayed nerves – everything was bugging me – bugs, squillions of these incredibly teeny tiny ants that swarmed all over your feet in the evening and morning until the sun scorched them underground (I even stood on the camp table to put the cover on the camp chair so the little bastards didn’t crawl up my leg), the slowest washing machine known to man (but a super cool Christmas Tree) and taking it all too personally when the Husband questioned my memory as I have managed to lose three pairs of swimmers somewhere between Camooweal and Barkly Homestead (it’s the money I’m more PO’d about than losing the actual swimmers). So bearing this in mind I’m having a little hissy fit and as the Husband is driving the next leg he gets to pick the tunes.  First up – Nirvana.  Argh.  Not loving Kurt I’m afraid – think he was a bit of a dick – but it’s the acoustic album so I can live with that.  Next is Pink Floyd’s The Wall album.  For those who know me, they will know I am no music connoisseur – I like my music from the 80’s and sung by glam rockers with long hair and tight leather pants I’d like to rip off – think John Bon Jovi, Sebastian Bach and Brett Michaels.  This is not Floyd.  All I hear is screeching guitar solos which after an hour is like listening to someone scrape their nails down a blackboard.  I almost dance a celebratory jig when the last song is finished … Scoff all you like – my music taste, or lack thereof (coupled with my LOVE of The Bold and the Beautiful) is my badge of 80’s honour and I am proudly off to Adelaide in February 2017 to sing my little heart out at the Guns N Roses concert.

The night before, when we pulled into Barkly Homestead, there was a sign apologising for the expensive nature of the place followed by a long winded explanation as to why this was indeed the case.  Let me tell you, this place was not expensive (the fuel yes, but the food was very reasonable – we even opted to treat ourselves to a pub meal – no cooking yeah!) and why should they have to explain themselves anyway?  Don’t like it?  Piss off to Tennant Creek then – you’ll be running back to the serenity of Barkly Homestead with its green grass, shady campsite, clean loos and $4.00 happy hour because when you see the amount of security screens and grills covering the windows of shops and houses in Tennant Creek, you will wish you had never breathed the word expensive – Tennant Creek is not a place I would be hanging out.  There was a police officer in the bottle shop – just hanging out – to make sure there was no trouble.  From there, start counting the number of abandoned vehicles – the burnt out beasts.  However, I do think I make a particularly cute miner.

It was blisteringly hot that night.  It was a night I needed my mum – and she was there – back in my childhood memory when I grew up in Melbourne and the summers were foul and she would soak a face washer in cold water, wring it out and put in on me in front of the fan.  So armed with this piece of “a girl always needs her mum” memory, I put the memory on steroids and soaked a sarong for the girls and a towel for myself.  Sleep did not evade!  However, it was enough to send us all bat shit crazy the next night whilst camped at Devil’s Marbles – blisteringly hot is an understatement – it was fucking insane!  No amount of wet towels or fans was going to help until 1.30am came together with a squall and blew the bejesus out of the tents dropping the temperature by 10 degrees – we were saved!  Otherwise I think today would have been an “I’m going to punch someone” kind of day.  Perhaps the Aliens at Wycliffe Well would have been a better option – I could have sweet talked them into some aircon.  Mr R – I was going to nick him for you but he didn’t fit into the truck.

The highlight of yesterday was Kunjarra (The Pebbles), a women’s dreaming site used for ceremony and dance, a meeting place since the beginning of the Dreamtime and Karlu Karlu (Devils Marbles), the meeting place of four tribes of men (no chicks) where they would spend three to four weeks dancing and singing to the spirit people so they would bless the land and be given what they need.  Both places were beautiful.  Scarily however, as recent as 1989, the government had given permission to a stinky mining company to dig up Kunjarra for granite.  Eventually, after many protests and negotiations, in 1992 the area became protected.  It really does pain me to think our government is still prepared to dig the crap out of our Earth and destroy our natural past.  We are so lucky here in Australia – we may not have ancient buildings, but we have ancient land – and beautiful, spiritual ancient land at that.

Our camp site for a mere $20.00 at the Devil’s Marbles Hotel -Wauchope Hotel is the other name (again, free camp was going to get the rising sun and smack us in the face at 5.30am) we dipped in the pool, had a muddle meal and paid tribute to DA by watching the adult birds protect the bubbas in the nest above our truck from the marauding magpies – fascinating to watch – did it again the next morning over my coffee and after my breakfast entertainment.

As Miss 12 had finally been able to connect to free WIFI (still refusing to pay for it – needs to learn the lesson!) she began the ritual of looking to see how many “likes” she had on her Instagram posts.  “Stop all the likes, I know I’m fabulous” she says – bahahahahahahaha – as our mate Michael from the Barrow Creek Hotel put it (more on him later) “do you know why people use Twitter?  Coz they’re Twits!”  This man is on my side!   And after the “I swear Google will be the next Skynet and take over the world” at dinner last night, I’m re-thinking Terminator as a History lesson.

Yesterday at the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station and again today at the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station, I sprinted down Tourism Lane wanting to jump in and create something amazing at these incredible historical sites – and they are incredible – the Overland Telegraph connected Australia to the world allowing a message to be sent to London in seven hours rather than two months by snail ocean.   The buildings are amazing and the history inspiring, but little to no info on what you are looking at.  All the rooms are bare, no interpretive signage inside, no artefacts or displays.  I was so sad.  Combined with the fact I was utterly pissed off with some local politics going on back home – I wanted to stay and create something amazing.  But this is not my stomping ground – I have to stomp back home – and courtesy of Facebook I managed a retort of epic proportions to someone who wanted to take away everything natural about Port Douglas that I hold dear and stick in a bullshit, concrete water park because they don’t think their kids have enough to do in town – hey – come out here and say that – we live in Paradise – appreciate it, use it, marvel at it – because these kids out here would be awestruck by it.

       

Enough politics – as Miss T messaged me – “Oi, keep out of local politics while you’re away!” so on to Barrow Creek.   Michael the publican is what it’s all about.  He had the girls in stitches with tales of telling an American tourist he moved Uluru as it was blocking his view and regaling the story of how he lost his licence and doesn’t need it anyway because the Greyhound bus will pick him up from out the front of the pub, chauffeur him to Alice Springs to watch a movie (200 kilometres away), where afterwards he can get – and I quote – shitfaced – and get a ride back to Barrow Creek.  This man is Outback Tourism Gold. BTW – Mr R, can you please print off the “Stupid Questions” poster for the office?

        

So now we are in “The Alice” at Alice Springs and as it is pissing down we have upgraded our campsite to a cabin courtesy of Miss A and Mr J who thought there was no way in Hell we were going to make it across the country for seven weeks without respite.  So tonight we dedicate our bottle of Annie’s Lane Shiraz to them and sit on the balcony listening to the rain whilst the girls sleep peacefully with the air conditioner cranking hiding Miss 10’s tooth that she lost (Outback Tooth Fairy will have to make an appearance tonight).  She’s asleep most of the time anyway.

And by the way – “Who the fuck is Alice?” because I can’t get that damned song out of my head!!!!!   Or the fact someone at Tennant Creek sells Placenta Creme ….