The Territory

It’s pretty hard to get worked up about a place when even its own tourist brochures describe it as ‘desolate’. At least you know in the Northern Territory, they pull no punches.

This is typical of the straight-talking Territorians, rough-as-guts, uncomplicated, hard-working types who drink Piss and shit in the outdoor dunny. Even most of the women round these parts look like the sort of blokes who’d have to fly-in a wife from the Philippines. Some of em probably do.

There’s only two places visitors generally head for in the Territory, Ayer’s Rock (some of you may remember it from my last blog. Nice place. You really should go) and Kakadu National Park. Unfortunately both Debbie and I had independently visited them both in our previous lives as backpackers, and were keen to motor on to pastures new, so our time in the Territory was to be confined to several long days driving.

Driving in the Territory is not much like driving in other places. You won’t find any traffic lights or roundabouts. Sometimes there’s a line in the middle of the road, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes there isn’t even much of a road. Until recently it was one of those few glorious places on earth, like the autobahn in Germany, where there was no such thing as a speed limit. Just put your foot to the floor and see how fast she’ll go. The killjoys in Canberra finally put the brakes firmly on that one a few years back when a few too many people saw how fast she’d go right into the nearest tree. A beer or three after midnight will do that kind of thing to a guy. So now, thanks to all those intrepid idiots, we’ve all got to stick to a safe 130kmh.

On the other hand that’s still way the fastest speed limit in all of Australia, and for old times’ sake I just had to see if the old LandCruiser was up to it. I’m pleased to say she topped out at 135. Might have even topped 140 if I’d had all day, but for all her 3 tonne bulk she felt like she might just take off at 136! By my maths that’s about 85mph in old money, just about enough to scrape out into the middle lane of the M6. Mind you, it’d be an expensive trip as we were only doing about 12 miles to the gallon!

Back down to 90 after our white-knuckle ride and it actually felt like we were going backwards. This could be a long slow haul!

But like I say, driving in the Territory’s not like driving anywhere else. To help pass the time everyone waves to each other as they pass. No, really! It takes a bit of getting used to at first. Often you’ll remember only just after the other car has flown past, and be left feeling like an antisocial git. Other times you’ll go way too early and end up looking like a nerd. After a bit of practice you’ll just about get it right, but you just know you’ll never really hack it like an old-time pro. It’s the visual equivalent of ‘Have a nice day!’. The yanks are so cheesily enthusiastic they come across insincere, the Brits way too sullen for you to even suspect they might be genuine. The Aussies unfailingly pitch it just right. Helps that they actually mean it, too! You can give it your best shot, but you know that you’ll never quite get there. And no matter what you do don’t even think about attempting a genuine Aussie G’day! It will roughly translate as ‘I’m a desperate pommie prat!’

The first town we hit in the Territory was the little hamlet of Camooweal. My Grandad used to live in a little village in Cheshire called Tiverton, which was about the same size as Camooweal. A Post Office, a few houses, a couple of roads, and that’s about it. Tiverton was such a non-event of a place that few noticed it existed, melting as it did into outskirts of the much larger town of Tarpoley, about a mile away. Funnily enough Katherine, the next town we got to in the Territory, was about the same size as Tarpoley. Camooweal might have suffered a similarly anonymous fate, were it not for the fact that the distance to Katherine was, wait for it... 1093kms. And let me tell you, that’s a long way when you’re doing 90! Luckily, to break up the monotony, there was precisely one right hand turn at the 400km mark. No other junctions, no traffic lights, no Red Fox pub on the corner, no pelican crossing, no grannies crossing the road.

Actually, I have to admit, Katherine wasn’t much like Tarpoley at all. Not too many aboriginals in Tarpoley, as I recall. Or Roadtrains. Tarpoley didn’t flood every few years, and when it did they never had to call Steve Irwin to find out how shift the crocodiles out of Woolworths. That really did happen here. God knows what they’ll do next time.

All in all Katherine’s a bit of a funny place. Most of the locals start drinking around 8am out of a combination of heat and boredom, so by the time it comes round to late night shopping things can be getting just a little interesting.

The problems of indigenous Australians and alcohol are well documented, and I don’t want to dwell on them here. Many communities up here are Dry. Sadly Katherine isn’t one of them. Whether it’s the poverty, lack of opportunities, loss of cultural identity, or any of the other thousand factors frequently touted I really don’t know, but I suspect the local council’s bizarre decision to pipe Phil Collins out of loudspeakers down the main street all day and night doesn’t help matters. By 11am I was feeling a tad thirsty myself.

Still in Katherine we had a hotel room with a real bed and a real telly, and since it was our one chance to watch the Olympics we decided to bunker down in there all day and do very little.

Now watching the Olympics in Australia is a very strange experience. It’s not that the commentators are more partisan than anywhere else, they’re actually very fair. It’s just that they never actually show any events that an Australian isn’t going to win. So when you unexpectedly cross to the tiddlywink stadium to be faced with a bunch of Russians and Croatians in the first three places, you just know the lone Aussie in 8th is about to tiddle the best wink ever and score 111.8 thousand million points from the judges, the best tiddle in Olympic history, and snatch the gold from the bloody foreigners. The plucky lad will go on to explain how he only started winking seriously last Thursday in the pub after he broke his leg. Other than that he’d have been in the hurdles.

Occasionally the Aussie will actually be Russian having flown into Sydney last month and somehow stumbled on the Olympic trials. As long as they’re winning, they’re an Aussie. It also helps if she happens to be a good looking blonde called Tatiana, a fair-dinkum traditional Aussie name.

This year they came a cropper as it was one of the few Olympics at which they could show events live, what with China being almost the same time zone. Eamonn Sullivan was a cert in the 100m freestyle, broke the world record in the semis, only to be touched out by a giant bloody Frenchman on the big day by the ridiculously small margin of a tenth of a fingernail. Had the Aussie press not heaped so much expectation on the poor lad he might not have bitten them down to the quick and it all could have been different. But as it was a national disaster had occurred and an Aussie had been shown coming second. To a bloody frog, of all things. There was much official condolence and mutterings of great sportsmanship, but you just could tell they couldn’t wait to get back to normal in London in 4 years time and go back to showing yesterday’s edited highlights like usual.

We didn’t see anything else an Aussie didn’t win, but understand the Brits did surprisingly well for a change, and actually managed to pip us in the medal tables, so well done to you all over there.

You whingeing pommie bastards!

I’m starting to realise being a Scottish born naturalised Aussie Pom gives you a weird state of allegiances.

We escaped Katherine with one last left turn and headed west again and the Territory was almost done.
Or so we thought.
Before long we stumbled upon some distinctly un-Territorian landscapes.
Look over there, aren’t those hills? There’s cliffs and escarpments and everything! We could have been in Utah, only the beer was flowing much more freely. Had Western Australia decided to get uppity and start 300kms early? What on earth...

It seemed the Victoria Highway, somewhere else almost nobody ever goes, had secrets of its own. Gregory National Park and Keep River were awesome, and I’d never even heard of them. I don’t think the people in Katherine had ever even heard of them.

But now, once again I sense you are starting to get very, very sleepy... Big Red Rock, middle of nowhere... you really must go there!
Victoria Highway? Never heard of it, mate!

Cheers,
A.

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