I taught myself how to play the guitar on our trip and wrote plenty of songs, poems and stories about travelling (as you do). You can’t have a family camp out without a sing-a-long!
Here are a few creative pieces for your amusement and inspiration (mostly your amusement I'd guess).
If you have any travel art from your family wanderings you would like to add to this page please email a copy to admin@familyroadtripaustralia.com.au
One Hell of a Trip
I discovered HELL while travelling around Australia, it’s called the Nullabor. Unfortunately the Nullabor experience is an unavoidable one when circumnavigating Terra Australis via Highway 1. Although described as one of Australia’s great road journeys and no doubt an outback adventure venerated by many, I just couldn’t enjoy it and believe me I tried. After two days of driving, any novelty of being in the flat, barren vastness of the plain wears thin and is quickly replaced by a numbing monotony as you slowly count down the seemingly endless kilometers to your escape at the dusty town of Norseman.
The mighty Eyre Highway is 1660 kilometres long, stretching from Port Augusta in South Australia to Norseman in Western Australia. It boasts a 145 kilometre straight section of road, the longest in the country. It’s hard to imagine being excited by a bend in the road but…
What elevates this experience from one of simple frustrating tedium to one equated with the purgatory of Gehenna? Well, it’s essentially a recipe for discomfort. Firstly, add one part heat - oppressive and dry. The type of heat that leaves the land parched and cracked with a perpetual mirage of water on an elusive horizon. Then it’s a pinch of visual inanity, a landscape, taut, bronzed and naked, a description that does not ignite the same allure as when applied to a human body. There is no deceptive advertising in the name - Nullabor - it’s derived from the Latin term nullus abor meaning ‘no tree’, although I will credit the vista with scrub and just a handful of hills, pockets of trees and bends in the road to prevent you from believing that you’re stuck in a kind of repetitious Groundhog Day. Spirits are intermittently revived by the lofty visitation of a wedge-tailed eagle and glimpses of ocean azure where the plain falls away into the sea.
The next ingredient; the animal carcasses in various states of decomposition that litter the edges of the highway, and the malicious looking crows that congregate around them pecking out the eyes and stripping the bones.
Then the wind, fierce and relentless, tirelessly buffets the car, making it an effort just to hold a straight line. It blows the rotting stench of road-kill through the air vents and directly into your nostrils. At its best it’s behind you aiding your escape; at its worst it’s attacking head on, crippling the power of your car, slowing you down to a painstakingly slothful speed and chewing up all of your overpriced fuel.
Throw in the trucks and road trains, monsters of the wasteland, owners of the road. They incite fear as they roar past you in both directions, causing you to white-knuckle the steering wheel and hold your breath. And finally, the cooking time is determined by the three time zones you travel through, so that if you’re travelling east, the number of hours in the day you have to cover ground is restricted, or when travelling west, leaves you feeling like the journey from hell will never end.
The following 'poem' breaks all poetic rules but it was fun!
From my Deck Chair
I love a busy caravan park when on a holiday,
Whether driving ’round the country or just weekending away.
I sit outside my van with my deck chair, book and cup of tea,
I can’t get through a page however, there’s just so much to see.
Some prefer an apartment, a hotel, resort or chalet,
But I think a caravan park makes an exciting place to stay!
Caravan parks are action packed and entertaining places,
Full of kids and dogs and foreign tourists with smiling faces.
Of reading much of my book, well, I usually just give up,
I don’t even want to go inside to make another cup.
Wealthy folk, in luxury vans, with all the airs and graces,
And backpackers in painted buses, with grinning sunburnt faces.
I watch tents go up, washing come down and gangs of kids on bikes.
And I chat to Gazza who says “come ‘round later and meet Shazza, my wife”.
I sit there all morning, but then around noon, I catch a whiff of BBQ,
I realise then that I need a feed and an urgent trip to the loo.
I’m gone for an hour cos I run into Jen who I’d met at the Great Australian Bight,
Then I make a quick sanga, grab a cold beer and sit back down to take in the sights.
I look around and see, others just like me, taking the time to watch the show and ponder,
Yeah this is the life I say and I give them all a wave. It’s great having the whole day just to squander.
But then a lady trotts by, a frantic look in her eye and stops when she catches sight of me,
“I’ve lost my little boy, have you seen him at all? He was playing just under that tree.”
“Sorry’, I say ‘didn’t see him come this way, have you looked in the playground yonder?”
She runs off to check and minutes later walks back, dragging a screaming toddler.
I glance up from my page when I hear a chirpy voice say
“G’day mate, I’m Jim, how’s it going, you from WA?”
“Sure am” I say back “where are you from Jim, which state?”
“Tassie mate” he answers, throwing a thumb at his number plate.
“We’re neighbours” he goes on, “at least for today.”
“Oh we’re here for the week” I tell him, “this is a great place to stay”.
Then a young family struggle by on their way back from the beach,
“Wait up you guys, my feet are burning!” the young tackers screech,
Fishing gear, umbrella, esky, toys, all covered in sand.
And Dad’s pink face looks desperately around, “where the bloody hell’s our van?”
Then Mum accidentally drops a ball, it rolls under our car and just out of reach.
A broken teenage voice pipes up, “I’m hot again can we go back to the beach?”
I turn my attention to a group of park veterans sitting across the way.
A bunch of grey nomads ‘round a card table, armed with a shandy and ready to play,
“Are Ken and Alma coming this year?” I hear one lady ask,
No not this year, poor Ken broke his hip, he’s going downhill fast.
They make sorry sounds and shake their heads, in a very touching display,
Then a woman gets up, a man holds out his glass, “better pour me another one May”.
I hear a woman getting feisty, her man’s not taking it lightly. It sounds like a doozy of a fight,
When I turn around to see, well, he’s stuck up in a tree, attempting to retrieve his tangled kite.
The park’s owner cruises by, on a four - wheel motorbike, he seems like a really lovely fellow,
He stops and chats to nearly everyone he meets, or at least nods his head and says hello.
Then from about four, the new arrivals flow in and start setting up camp for the night.
And I sit out there until the sun has gone and the mosquitoes are starting to bite.
JB
At the entrance to the town of Dampier in Western Australia's Pilbara there is a statue of a kelpie dog. The story of Red Dog captured my interest and after researching the life of Red Dog I wrote the following piece. The life of Red Dog has also captured the interest of film director, Kriv Stenders, who is currently filming a movie based on his life.
Wandering Red
Red Dog hasn't been seen for more than a month. His life is a walkabout, but it feels different this time; permanent somehow. A reluctant whisper shuffles along the red powdered streets. In the single men's quarters, on the company bus, at the shopping centre, they question each other, ‘anyone seen Red?’
Red Dog is the Pilbara wanderer. A kelpie the colour of the rust burnt landscape he chooses to inhabit. He started life as Tally Ho, a family pet, but one family, one yard, wasn't enough for this allodial spirit. And so he became the companion of everyone and no one. A hobo hound, roaming the highways of Australia's North West, trotting through the ancient ochre hued ranges, pads hardened against scorched rock and needled spinifex.
Where the frontier slides into the azure Indian Ocean sit the neighboring towns of Dampier and Karratha, Red Dog’s chosen base. The traditional land of the Jaburara Aborigines, built on the prosperity of iron ore, salt and gas. A habitual vagrant, Red Dog divides his time between his favorite haunts, but unlike most tramps, he’s never short of a meal, an ear scratch or a place to sleep. He has a bed reserved for him in homes, dormitories and company workshops throughout the district. He knows where he receives the best steak dinner or the most fixing and fussing when he’s ill or been injured in a fight. On days when the bitumen shimmers in the heat you will find him sprawled on the cold tiles in the air conditioned shopping centre, sharing a burger with the men on their lunch breaks.
Red ambushes a lift when his destination requires it. An open car door at the petrol station is an invitation to ride and he’s the only dog permitted to travel on the company buses. Red will wait at a bus stop if there is one close by, or simply step out in front of the approaching rig to make his intention clear. The technique also works well with familiar cars, the owner often needing to visit different locations until arriving at Red’s chosen end. He regularly travels the 300 kilometres east to Tom Price as an unofficial passenger on the Hamersley Iron ore train and he drops in on friendly faces in towns as far away as tropical Broome, over 850 kilometres north.
Red commands respect and entices protectiveness. With a coat - coarse and dusty and traversed by battle scars - a head like a bear and sharp orange eyes, he’s not a pretty animal. It’s not cute puppy features that draw the crowds, but rather his liberated attitude, uncanny intelligence and his arrogant confidence. Red Dogs’ had many invitations to settle down and enjoy the life of an adored household mutt, but will stay a few weeks at most before deciding to move on.
With only one man did he ever commit; a man named Charlie. Charlie worked behind the wheel of a company bus, taking ore workers to and fro. Red had pride of place in the seat behind Charlie and would happily spend the day as the driver’s offsider. Red never attached himself to anyone before Charlie, or anyone after. Charlie was killed in a road accident. Red was away in Perth at the time. The Smith family had decided to take him on the two day journey south to the city. He disappeared on a suburban beach, much to the family’s distress. Some believe he sensed Charlie’s tragedy, others point out his dislike of the city, either way, Red arrived back in Dampier by means unknown, beating the Smiths by four days.
Red Dog walks the highway and the streets, as he’s always done. But now there is a searching in his eyes. Where once he travelled simply because he could, his roaming has developed purpose. His beady, orange eyes, scan the faces on every passing bus.
But no one has seen Red for more than a month.
JB
