Leaving Kalbarri, we stepped on the gas, drawing in lungfulls of sweet warm air through our open windows,
my view...not half bad
Patchouli and I signalling to each other the whole journey, through hand gestures and excited whoops whenever we both successfully overtook the Grey Nomads and Roadtrains who were also traversing this well beaten path to Monkey Mia. There are two roadhouses that are well known along this route – The Billabong and The Overlander. There is a very good reason that these are well frequented stops for old, young, rich, poor, families, roadtrains and backpackers alike when taking this trip…that being that they are the only two facilities available.
It often occurs to me that it must take a special kind of person to work at a Roadhouse, politely (or not) dealing with a vast array of customer whilst being seemingly cut off from any permanent support network of their own. One such woman I spoke to leaves her son with family and travels hundreds of kilometres to work for weeks at a time, another owned the Roadhouse and was permanently existing within this strange world of flux. I intend that much of my research for the impending documentary be centred around the very question “who are these people and why do they choose to work in a Roadhouse?”. There must be some great reward, I hope that I come to realise what it is.
We made good time to the Billabong Roadhouse. Unaffected yet by fatigue or boredom, the children clattered into the building, noisily, barefoot and dusty as though they had been coming here everyday of their lives; the man behind the counter greeting them warmly despite the alarm that such a scene could cause your average shopkeeper. With snacks purchased, bathrooms used and staff mildly amused by our tribe and their antics, Patchouli and I pow-wowed and decided to push on to the Overlander before feeding the masses, choosing to “put the beds down” there by which time it would be dark and the children could sleep whilst we drove.
“Putting the beds down” has become a phrase used on this trip on a daily basis. For myself, it means that the headrests of the three rows of seats in the Funbus are removed and all of the seats are laid flat to create a huge mattress effect. Fleece Blankets are thrown over the newly built bed and duvets and pillows are laid out in rows to accommodate each passenger. This is something we would normally do at our destination, preferring that the children travel in a safer upright position, however on the occasion that we are still driving at 10pm and the boys are all sat bolt upright with hours of driving to go, I have a plan B which is to “Put the beds down”, place the bedding in the positions of the traditional seating arrangement and to use the seatbelts as one normally would, with each child having at least the lapbelt to hold them tightly. It’s not ideal, but it works.
At the Overlander, we made the b
eds and set about cooking our first really shitty meal of the trip. Patchouli and I are vegetarian and into our “whole foods” in a fairly big way. Tonight though, to the delight of the under tens on the trip, we were cooking Instant noodles in a cup. This was, contrary to our intention, in fact an exceptionally labour intensive task…parked far, far away from the Petrol Station area (infact some way down the road) of the roadhouse, we lit and used the camp oven (dubious and debatable protocol when the last thing we wanted was to irritate the managers of our only stop before Monkey Mia, but hey, we did what we had to do) . Due to the fairly high winds and unprotected nature of our location, the water we needed for the MSG filled rubbish that we intended to subject our excited little people to, took an AGE to boil and needed constant supervision, not to mention the sheer volume of food that was required to fill seven hungry bellies…it was all a bit dull and by the time we had eaten, we were glad to throw the cups in the bin and get going.
We had been lovingly informed whilst in Kalbarri, that Kalbarri roos are stupid and all over the road. “Don’t worry, when you get to Shark Bay, you’ll see that there are barely any out..they have clever roos up there”. It seemed like an odd statement, but low and behold, the theory seemed to be working.
Ah, if only someone had told us about the rabbits.
The first rabbit we saw hopped out, Patchouli slowed down and he hopped off. The second did the same and the third, the fourth etc. This sounds peachy except the each hopped out around ten seconds after the other. We were already travelling at reduced speeds to keep watch for the clever Kangaroos, but this was getting silly. Soon, a break in the pattern and we were on our way. Suddenly a solid dark shape spun infront of my wheels. Round and Round, spin spin. I let it pass between my wheels, lifeless and finally still. A rabbit. Our first casualty. Patchouli must have hit it on the front bumper and it came hurtling back through her wheels to greet me, already dead. Poetboy was awake when this happened and devastated to have seen it. We had a long meaningful talk about life and death which in truth was not really what I was after whilst trying to avoid a repeat performance of the roadkill, but it was important to discuss with him and it stopped the sobbing.
When a so-called “clever roo” bounced out some minutes later, Patchouli was already so alert and intent on avoiding any more of our smaller targets, that it was a breeze to avoid him. In our stationary vehicles, it was actually very peaceful to see the roo tut and roll his eyes at the stupid humans trying to use his road after dark, then bounce off. “D’ya wanna go back for a look at him?” hollered Patchouli out of her window, taking on the tourguide role to her wide eyed English friend. “Nup, I have seen a roo before you know” my reply, “alrighty then, on we go!” she chirped out of her window, grinning back at me. She needn’t have worried, we saw many many Kangaroos following the first. We slowed and started, stopped and started, limping our way toward our goal. Finally, the inevitable happened and even though she had slowed right down, Patchouli clipped a roo on his back leg. He looked fairly angry about the whole thing but wholly unhurt…he hopped off and we willed the rest of the animals to just stay away from the big white cars, purlease?
The roos seemed to hear our plea, they were clever up here after all. The rabbits not so much. Patchouli has a theory that rabbits when they are depressed, do not jump off bridges or blow their brains out with daddy’s shotgun…no, they wait for cars to come and leap whole heartedly at the bumper. I wouldn’t agree but for the nature of these Kamikaze rabbits. They were to be seen to be believed. First of all they came one at a time, then in a move similar to space invaders, they started coming more quickly and in twos…one for Patchouli, one for me. I didn’t hit any, however poor vegetarian, animal loving, sweet natured Patchouli hit another two.
It was a relief to pull into a silent Monkey Mia, cloaked in darkness, welcoming us with her warm breeze and rhythmic crash of the ocean. It was nice also to have a welcoming party of one too – “Irish”, who showed us to our site…but more about the people of Monkey Mia another day.
