Our first stop after turning off the GRR was the town of Kununurra, where we reconnected to the grid over a flat white and a tea at the Kimberley Café. We also visited a beautiful art gallery, Artlandish, which was filled with astronomically expensive and equally as beautiful ochre pieces indicative of the area. Just outside of town we fueled up and continued east, passing over the border to Northern Territory. By early afternoon we reached Keep River National Park and went for a nice 2 km stroll around some interesting rock formations that resembled the famous rock towers of the Bungle Bungles nearby.
Back on the highway, we noticed a rattling noise coming from the front of the car. The faster we went, the louder it got. We had just finished driving on hundreds of miles of dirt road and we were sure something major was broken, so we decided to stop and take a look. Being the chivalrous guy that I am, I put Lindsay on the job and before long she had discovered the source of the irritating vibration. Part of the inner wheel well had come lose and was flapping around and hitting the tire. A little ingenuity and about 3 foot of twine later, and she tied the car up nice and tight. We never heard the rattle again.
Later in the day we stopped at the famous “Gregory Tree,” where a prominent Australian scouting party set up camp for a few months while exploring the outback back in 1800s. Gregory and his men sailed down the Victoria River, set up camp, and explored the nearby land in an attempt to determine the country’s profitability. Inscribed very clearly in the trunk of a large Boab are the details of the party’s arrival and departure.
We covered a few Kms that afternoon and just before sunset drove through the red rock canyons of Gregory National Park. Along the way we saw a couple more dingos doing their thing near the side of the road. That night we stayed at the certifiably worst campsite on the Australian continent, which was essentially a very overcrowded parking lot 30 meters from the highway.
The next morning we were up and on the road early stopping an hour later at a desolate roadside rest stop for an impromptu brekky of eggs an leftover sausage. Before long we had arrived at the Stuart Highway, the two lane highway that travels 2,834 kms from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south. Ten minutes later and we were in Katherine.
In Katherine Lindsay worked at a picnic table at the visitor's center while I resupplied us with the essentials: mac and cheese, Barossa Shiraz, a log of hard salami and all the other things that make life on the road so painful to the waistline. I then picked Lindsay up and we made our way one hour south to the town of Mataranka. We ate lunch in a vast, dusty parking lot of a caravan park while we waited for main attraction to begin. At 1:00 we meandered over to a large pond and waited in the searing sun for the Barra to show.
Soon enough a nice moustached bloke arrived with a bucket of chum and the Barramundi feeding commenced. Barramundi are large, humpbacked fish that frequent both the fresh and saltwater of the NT, and happen to be delicious. Soon Lindsay became bored with the fish, discovered a tame baby kangaroo, and went to play with it on the grass. I, on the other hand, volunteered to feed the gilled beasts, which I did without losing even one finger.
After the show we enjoyed a dip in the pools of Bitter Springs national park outside of Mataranka, which is basically a natural “lazy river” through a lush, green tropical forest. And much to Lindsay’s delight, the springs happened to be warm. We floated away the afternoon, through the crystal clear waters with no worries save the submerged logs which had a propensity for jabbing one in the crotch from time to time.
Once we were dry, we drove 50 Km to the north and made the turn off to Barunga. Back in March or April as I was making the initial plans for this Australian odyssey, I had come across an advertisement for the 25th anniversary of the Barunga Festival, an aboriginal celebration of culture, sports, dancing, and music held every June on the long weekend of the Queen's Birthday. It just so happened that our plans coincided with the festival and we were jazzed to be able to go. We had seen some of the dark realities of aboriginal life in modern Australia, and we were eager for a window into the other side of the story. Everything was set except for one itsy bitsy minor detail. By this time in the trip we had been living mobile for over 7 weeks. Everything we owned or had picked up along the way was either sitting in a little bag in the Sheraton basement back in Sydney or contained within the 10 X 6 X 6 ft space of our camper van. That included the bottle of cellar door Semillon wine we had planned to have when celebrating the end of our trip in Darwin, a bottle of mead we had picked up in WA for our friend Ryan, and about 10 cans of VB beer (of which only one was visible, but I'll get back to that later). We knew the festival was on aboriginal land and that it was a dry festival (all the posters read very clearly “No Drugs, No Grog”), but what we were supposed to do? On our drive out to Barunga it was clear to see that Lindsay was worried. “What are we going to do with the booze?” I can clearly remember her saying. I also clearly remember replying to her query, “Don’t worry, it's not like they are going to search the car. We'll be fine. Can you imagine a police check point way out here? Ha!” As we neared the festival we saw one more hand painted NDNG sign as we came over the crest on a hill. Just a few meters further was when we saw the police checkpoint. We arrived at the officer waving us down too quickly to come up with any reasonable lie, so we decided to stick to the truth. Lindsay who was luckily driving at the the time (I was very drunk…just kidding) stopped the car and rolled down the window. Here is what happened next.
White cop: Have you been drinking?
Lindsay: No
WC: Breathe into this
L: Pfssssssssssssss
WC: Do you have a liquor in the truck
L: Uh….yes, but its mostly just gifts, that we were bringing home for our….
WC: Did you not see the sign that said this is an alcohol free zone?
L: Well we did, but these were gifts and we have been traveling for almo….
WC: Do you know that I can legally arrest you, impound your vehicle on the spot and fine you up to 15,000 dollars for having any liquor in your person?
L: No I didn’t
WC: Get out of you vehicle and remove the liquor from the interior.
So we got out and opened up the back. I was feeling like a grade A jackass at this point, and sheepishly brought out the mead and the semillion and laid them in the dirt by the side of the road. I then returned to the truck, opened up the fridge and grabbed the only beer I saw, a 2 or 3 Victorian Bitters which I quickly laid next to the other contraband.
WC: Is that it?
Me: Yes sir, I think so.
WC: Don’t you call me sir, I work for a living!
Ahh isn’t it wonderful when things get lost in translation when speaking to a law enforcement officer in a foreign country? Thanks to my father, I have been trained ever since I had a learner's permit to be very respectful to all cops after being pulled over and to always, always call them sir. Not so much here. Just like in the Emergency Department where people get offended if you call them Mr. or Mrs., this officer did not appreciate the “sir” title and probably thought I was trying to be a smart ass.
WC: Do you know that I now have the right to search your vehicle for any additional alcohol and if you refuse, you can be arrested?
DAM (Dumbass Matt): No I didn’t
WC: We are going to search your vehicle now.
So he sent the token aboriginal cop to enter our vehicle and start searching. I was nervous, but not because I thought they would find anything. I had looked and we had offered up all our booze. Or so I thought. Unbeknownst to me, Lindsay had rearranged the fridge putting the remaining seven, yes seven beers under the supplies we had just purchased at the grocery store. So there we were standing in the baking sun on the side of the road with carloads of aboriginals and other festival guests ogling at us, watching the aboriginal cop unload the seven beers which I had said we didn’t have. I felt two feet tall.
At that point, I hung my head, stared at my feet and waited for the handcuffs to be applied. Before the officer said another word, I had already started imagining my impending incarceration. I coundn’t come up with a scenario of a white dude locked up with a mob of (likely intoxicated) aboriginals that didn’t end up with at least some serious head trauma. The officer then called me over to his vehicle and explained that despite our stupidity, he was only going to serve us with a $110 ticket. I did the chivalrous thing and took responsibility for the booze thereby keeping my wife’s Australian record clean. The officer did however warn her that she needed an international driving licence and that if she did not go the motor vehicle department in the next week he would issue a warrant for her arrest and if needed extradite her from the US. He didn’t seem to be kidding.
Our hearts pounding, we got back in the camper and made our way to Barunga. We pulled in, bought tickets, and went to look for a campsite. After driving around to get the lay of the land, we decided on a spot in a big field under the shade of a large tree. We got out and started unpacking the camper and getting it set up for the next few days. Lindsay was inside organizing and I jumped into the back to help her out. Suddenly two things hit me in rapid succession. The first was the overpowering smell of feces in the back of the campervan. The second was the feces that were covering Lindsay's flip-flops and the back of her jeans. Of all the spots we could have chosen, I stopped the van directly over a pile of diarrhus canis. My body’s supply of adrenaline was still running high from our traffic stop so I was able to think quickly and calmly asked her to step out from the back. I knew this had to be handled delicately in order to avert DEFCON Lindsay. We had already had a run in with a similar problem on the top of Kilimanjaro, and I knew that if I didn’t execute a calm, organized intervention, my wife was going to literally lose her mind. I threw the shoes in the garbage, helped Lindsay do a quick change, helped clean up her soiled pants, and moved the van as soon as possible. Once the van was organized and Lindsay was calm, I had to chuckle at the irony of the situation. Between the near arrest and my wife covered in dogshit, If there were EVER a time when I could have used a drink, this was it.
I must say that considering the circumstances, Lindsay did a great job keeping things under control. We soon were settled and Lindsay had finished nesting, so we decided to wander around Barunga. This was the Australia that very few Australians, let alone foreigners ever see: an Aboriginal village with no white people living there. We returned to the van, had a bite to eat, and then walked over to a campfire down by a billabong to listen to three elderly women tell their dreamtime stories. We both felt a bit touristy surrounded by all the other white people watching these three ladies laugh their way through the tales of the dingo, the echidna, and the time before time. That being said, it was a neat experience to warm ourselves by the fire, under the stars listening to these ancient tales. We were pooped from the day’s excitement and decided to hit the hay early. We slowly drifted to sleep to the raucous, bellowing sounds of the all-aboriginal dance party and beat box competition around the corner. To this day, I can't get the overpowering “AW YEAH!!!!" of the DJ out of my head.
We spent most of the next day at the festival just wandering around and observing the various events - football and basketball games, spear throwing competitions, didjeridoo making workshops, art shows, traditional dancing. A concert was held in the evening, and we listened to a few of the bands play. Our favorite band was Zenith from Kuranda, QLD, a few hours north of Townsville.
We spent most of the next day at the festival just wandering around and observing the various events - football and basketball games, spear throwing competitions, didjeridoo making workshops, art shows, traditional dancing. A concert was held in the evening, and we listened to a few of the bands play. Our favorite band was Zenith from Kuranda, QLD, a few hours north of Townsville.
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