Archive | April, 2011

DAY 242: Jumping the border

30 Apr

WE’VE hit three deserts in three days, and the tip of the furthermost desert, the Murray-Sunset National Park, stops just short of Mildura, a country city on the Vic/NSW border.

Mildura’s a hell of a weird place. It’s an agricultural epicentre, a fruit pickin’ town, but American in design: wide highways, numbered streets on a grid, outskirts that stretch on into oblivion with the biggest Bunnings I’ve ever seen, endless motels, three drive-thru McDonalds within five minutes… all lined with palm trees. The larger district’s known as Sunraysia – so named when the ‘prince of ballyhoo’, local entrepreneur Jack De Garis, launched a competition to name the area’s dried fruits in 1919. Thrashes ‘Orange County’, I reckon.

The town centre itself is nearly swallowed whole, but eventually we find it – a mall and a strip of souvlaki joints jumbled up with fancy restaurants.

We’re here to see the Murray River, though, which doesn’t disappoint. We follow it out of town, as the bush pirate’s cortisol levels are going through the roof here, and hook up with it again the other side of Robinvale.

The Murray River acts as the NSW/Victoria border, so by jumping in I’ll be crossing into my third state in three days. There’s a beautiful sunset going on, which makes whizzing off down the river in a rip at least very scenic. Eventually I manage to engage some kind of a front crawl and get back to the bank. Stunning.

Keeper? Would definitely do that again.

DAY 241: Bothering bees

29 Apr

AS we approach the Little Desert on our road trip, we pass this unmanned platoon of beehives, and the bush pirate bid me run through them.

They’re pretty passive bees it has to be said, zigzagging through the air drunkenly. A few try to nest in my hair, but I’m not chased back to the car, so there’s little comedic value.

Keeper? No.

DAY 240: Having a good old streak

28 Apr

A FRIEND recently told me about a mission he undertook a few years back to streak in every suburb in Sydney – for which he nearly came a cropper in Redfern.

I do like the sound of that mission, but I can’t help thinking it’s ill-advised for a lady, unless accompanied by an escort. So I go for a dry run in the desert.

The desert responds.

Keeper? Yes.

DAY 239: Getting busted by the pumpkin cops

27 Apr

Ha. Ha.

ON the edge of the Big Desert, feral pumpkins roam the land like unloved kids. At first we deduce some must have scarpered under the fence from a farmer’s field and made a break for it, but they’re bloody everywhere.

They huddle at the sides of dirt tracks, make a run for it across great expanses of scrub and freeze when you turn around, so that they’re scattered like so many sinister pods in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

We jump out of the ute and break green globes free from their vines, fired up with joy as though this sudden glut of vegetables has taken on some magical significance. Scattered around are tiny yellow balls with soft spikes, like the useless toys you find up near the till in useless tat shops. We have a baby pumpkin fight and I squash one in my palm to lick it. It explodes like a tomato, but it doesn’t taste good.

I climb up into the ute tray with the vegetable matter and hold on to the rack, ducking low-slung trees as the bush pirate goes chundering down Border Track, quite deliberately exploding rogue pumpkins as he goes.

The main road between Victoria and South Australia is punctuated by a Fruit Fly Quarantine Station, which means the number’s up for our new friends.

“Why is everyone so obsessed with our poisonous pumpkins?” one of the two uniformed women approaching the ute says incredulously. I can still taste deadly cucurbita on my lips. Suddenly we feel foolish for being so excited at our haul.

“Roll them over there with all the others,” she says, pointing at the undergrowth where hundreds of pumpkins have already fallen.

The border cops are nice enough though, looking after the rest of our hoard while we head into the nearest SA town to see what gives. You can’t blame them for being jaded – they’ve seen it all.

The neighbouring town’s a welcoming place, and we’ve a warm, fuzzy feeling by the time we pull up to the fruit fly quarantine station again. And here’s our friend with our cooler bag of dangerous salad leaves.

“We’re going to tell people it’s full of cocaine,” quips the bush pirate as we take her picture handing it over.

“That’s okay, we went through it,” she says, “it’s not in there anymore.”

Cheeky.

Keeper? Gone right off pumpkins.

DAY 238: Spotting my first Australian snake

26 Apr

I’VE been trying to spot a snake ’most every day since I moved to Australia five years ago, with no joy.

Today in the Big Desert we stumble across two – a brown one in the road that looks like it’s been squeezed like a raw sausage until it split its casing, and a black one that’s had its spine broken by a car.

Having expressed remorse, some hours after spotting the brown snake, that I didn’t pick it up and do something interesting with it, the bush pirate seizes the chance to hand me the black snake when when he spots it in the road. Erm, grouse.

Keeper? Ready for a wriggler now.

DAY 237: Pulling a pot in a country pub

25 Apr

The Pinnaroo Hotel.

WE’VE just crossed the border from Victoria to South Australia; first stop Pinnaroo.

Pinnaroo (pop. 900) is a no-nonsense, dusty sort of a town, peppered with railway tracks, silos, and the biggest specimens of farming equipment I’ve ever seen. It’s a town that sees itinerant workers passing through, although since the spud wash* closed a couple of years back, it’s been struggling a bit.

While I charge my iPhone and laptop like a nonce in the games room of the spotless Pinnaroo Hotel, and worry about where I can find a latte, the bush pirate pulls up a pew at the bar. He sinks a bunch of beers with the manager, Phil, who looks a bit like Dennis Hopper.

For a loner, the bush pirate sure can talk. By the time I come out, he’s learned the lay of the land, secured us multiple suggestions of swimming holes, an invitation to the local ATV race, told Phil all about this blog, and persuaded him to let me pull a pot behind the bar of his country pub so that I can add that to my list of things done. I pour Phil and the bush pirate a pot each, and Phil says they’re on the house.

“That’s a fucking great idea, that is,” he says, and wishes me luck on my quest.

“Hoo roo from Pinnaroo” a road sign bids as we leave.

Scuse face - eyes crazed from lack of latte.

Stumpy.

Just having a look.

Keeper? We’ll always have Pinnaroo.

* I freely admit I have no idea what a spud wash is.

DAY 236: Conducting birds

24 Apr

Dawn chorus now, please.

THE birds in the Grampians get up a bit late for our liking – we’ve managed to get ourselves up before five, played “just one more corner” for ages to get the right ridge, got breakfast in one hand and camera all ready in the other for a corker sunrise – yet there’s just one desultory tweet going down.

We help them along a bit by squawking loudly and making some alluring Woody the Woodpecker calls. It soon wakes them up and gets a confused cacophony going.

Keeper? Yes, was great kicking off a multi-species tweetfest.

DAY 235: How to trespass responsibly

23 Apr

Tell the dog to be discreet.

* Make sure your dog is well mannered.

* Do not damage any trees crashing through the bush around locked gates – unless they are already dead.

* Drive slowly to avoid hitting emus and kangaroos – bad form. (Did you know the emu and kangaroo make up our national emblem partly because it’s impossible for them to move backwards? Well, now you do.)

* Make sure fire area is damp and clear of detritus. Scoot dirt over the fire pit before leaving.

* Quickly stamp out any exploding gas cylinders and surrounding fire, including any flames on yourself.

* Pick up your Cougar cans.

* Leave at 5am to save any rangers the hassle of arresting you.

I built this.

Keeper? Unavoidable at times.

DAY 234: Dwelling in the gutter

22 Apr

Before.

I’M dubious about driving this ute; I’m sure it’s all fairly roadworthy and everything, but it’s like steering a sodden mattress that only wants to go left.

Despite his years on the road, I notice the bush pirate is gripping the handhold above the passenger window just as futilely as I gripped the map pocket in the glider yesterday. He’s already skulled a can of Monster so that there’s absolutely no danger of him falling asleep while I’m at the wheel.

My task today is to practise driving with the left wheels in the gutter, partly to stop my habit of hugging the white centre line, and partly so I will know not to overcorrect if I have to steer off-road in an emergency.

Inching into a gravelly trench at speed is as uncomfortable a feeling as deliberately punching yourself in the face, but after a few kays I stop thinking about it. In fact, I notice a couple of dead kangaroos on the other side of the road and automatically veer over to take a look.

“It’s time to pull over,” the bush pirate says tightly, “so let’s go through the stopping… process.” I’m not actually trained to drive manuals, so the stopping process pains us both.

“I’ll assume you indicated and checked your mirror there,” he says, voice deepening an octave in displeasure.

With the bush pirate back at the wheel, we reach the desert in double time and the rain stops abruptly. You could score a line where it starts; wheat fields and earth suddenly giving away to witchy black trees and white sand.

The sight of a sidetrack fills the bush pirate with unadulterated glee, and he gets me back behind the wheel for some four wheel driving. At first I’m hammering along, but I’m thrown when a Land Rover approaches and I veer up a verge sideways, burning rubber on sand. I’m as rattled as the suspension, and suddenly can’t find neutral or work the park brake, and have to do the humiliating slide along the bench seat to let the bush pirate take over in front of our new audience. It takes all his skill to hoik us out of both the sand and my gathering storm clouds, but of course he manages it.

After.

Keeper? It’s really tempting to idle, dribbling and glaze-eyed, in passenger mode forever when you’re in the company of a shit-hot driver. I blame VicRoads and their lack of encouragement.

DAY 233: Having a go on a glider

21 Apr

WE’RE tooling around the Grampians, finding our every route thwarted by recent flooding, when we pass a field with two gliders and a tug plane lined up in a row.

“Let’s ask them to give you a ride,” yells the bush pirate, over the roar of his trusty ute.

By some curious coincidence, getting in a glider has always been fairly near the top of my “I’m never doing that” list – just below hang-gliding. I pretend not to hear at first, then protest that they won’t want me dorking around, but by the time we reach the third bend in the road, we’re pulling a u-ey and heading back. It’s shockingly easy to twist my arm.

Looks perfectly safe.

No sooner have we pulled up than glider bloke Brian is agreeing I should go for a whirl, and signs me up as a member. What luck. I’m strapped in to the featherweight fuselage.

“How do you get down?” I ask the man who’s walking me through the various knobs and dials around my knees.

“Awkwardly,” he hoots. “Oh, and don’t touch this red lever – it jettisons the towrope, which can be really embarrassing. And this yellow one ejects the canopy. Best not touch that, either.”

John is my copilot, and he’s got decades of flying experience, having served in the air force. On several occasions he likens the humble glider to a Porsche in terms of control – which might be his way of admitting he’s driven a Porsche – and insists it’s as maneuverable as a fighter jet; capable of all sorts of acrobatics.

“It’s too rough out here,” crackles someone on the radio, which no one but me seems to be alarmed at. We’re connected to the jolly yellow tug plane by a very low-tech looking rope, then yanked off into the air, surprisingly smoothly.

As the tug plane climbs in front of us like a bandy-legged goose, we hit pockets of air and I cling on to the only thing that isn’t a deadly lever – the little map pocket. John keeps up the bedside manner to make me feel better, but once he releases the towrope we careen off to the right before correcting. We’re much higher than I’d expected, and a few times we have to lurch off at speed to avoid the other glider, which is looping the loop and generally fannying around in a reckless manner. John lets me have a go at steering – there are dual controls – and we stay up for around 20 minutes; enough for my mouth to dry out, but not enough to be sick.

The landing is smooth as butter, thanks to the wee wheels beneath the glider that you can’t see. We touch down and follow the narrow crevice in the grass of previous gliders with total accuracy.

Keeper? Probably not about to become a regular, but I love hearing nerdish enthusiasts talk about their obsessions. Love it.

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