The XXXX Files
Sunday, November 08, 2009
As anyone who has perused our photos recently will have seen, we have just emerged from a nine-day tour from Alice Springs to Darwin, via Uluru and Kakadu national park. As a result, we are now connoisseurs of a uniquely Australian form of hospitality: the outback roadhouse.
It will not surprise anyone to hear that it is a long, lonely road across the middle of this vast country, and perhaps that explains it. But these roadhouses, which are an average of about 400km from anything else and are usually a combination of petrol station, pub, spartan camping ground and shop purveying random merchandise, are fantastically bizarre places. There was a camel farm at one, a giant plastic echidna (spikey, porcupine-esque creature) at another, pickled death adders at a third, and walls covered in tourists' business cards, flip-flops and bras at a fourth.
Best of all, however, was Wycliffe Well, self-proclaimed "UFO centre of Australia." Our guide instructed us not to laugh at the owner's life's work. There was no danger of that: I was too busy being gobsmacked. Outside, next to where the road trains and tour buses pull up, was the UFO landing pad. Inside, an array of newspaper clippings and assorted guff about 'sightings' in the area. It is of course a coincidence that there is a big air base not too far away, the resident pilots of which fly low over the surrounding desert at night time. And that there's not a lot else to do at your average roadhouse other than drink icy cold beer and wait for the next customers to arrive, which might take some time.
As well as absorbing such cultural delights, which were by themselves enough to merit the 3000km drive, we have seen a great deal else in the past days. Uluru was beautiful - in case you're wondering, it looks exactly like it does on the million pictures everyone has seen - and King's Canyon nearby (relatively - about 300km) was more unexpectedly great. We slept around the campfire in swags, swam in natural pools (above waterfalls, which crocs can't climb, for the sake of our limbs), and woke up between 4.15 and 6am every goddamn day. Most importantly of all, I discovered from our new Japanese friend Ryoko what it is that I should do when we finish globe-trotting: a Kunoichi is, apparently, a female ninja. I think I'd be good at that.
It will not surprise anyone to hear that it is a long, lonely road across the middle of this vast country, and perhaps that explains it. But these roadhouses, which are an average of about 400km from anything else and are usually a combination of petrol station, pub, spartan camping ground and shop purveying random merchandise, are fantastically bizarre places. There was a camel farm at one, a giant plastic echidna (spikey, porcupine-esque creature) at another, pickled death adders at a third, and walls covered in tourists' business cards, flip-flops and bras at a fourth.
Best of all, however, was Wycliffe Well, self-proclaimed "UFO centre of Australia." Our guide instructed us not to laugh at the owner's life's work. There was no danger of that: I was too busy being gobsmacked. Outside, next to where the road trains and tour buses pull up, was the UFO landing pad. Inside, an array of newspaper clippings and assorted guff about 'sightings' in the area. It is of course a coincidence that there is a big air base not too far away, the resident pilots of which fly low over the surrounding desert at night time. And that there's not a lot else to do at your average roadhouse other than drink icy cold beer and wait for the next customers to arrive, which might take some time.
As well as absorbing such cultural delights, which were by themselves enough to merit the 3000km drive, we have seen a great deal else in the past days. Uluru was beautiful - in case you're wondering, it looks exactly like it does on the million pictures everyone has seen - and King's Canyon nearby (relatively - about 300km) was more unexpectedly great. We slept around the campfire in swags, swam in natural pools (above waterfalls, which crocs can't climb, for the sake of our limbs), and woke up between 4.15 and 6am every goddamn day. Most importantly of all, I discovered from our new Japanese friend Ryoko what it is that I should do when we finish globe-trotting: a Kunoichi is, apparently, a female ninja. I think I'd be good at that.
Post a Comment