The Road to Daly Waters

When I look back on the hundreds of photographs I took on a recent road trip, from Melbourne to Darwin (up the Stuart Highway), I’m impressed by the huge numbers of shots I have of blurry vegetation taken from a moving car window. It says something I think, about my determination to try and capture the essence of this vast, unending Australian outback landscape.

That was back in July – just four months ago – but still, the images of stark white tree trunks, dry creek beds, sage green saltbush, termite mounds, burnt-out roadsides and a very particular kind of solitary vastness, are stuck fast in my memory. I have painted a good number of paintings since the trip (www.bluetumb.com.au/adrienne-rewi), inspired by my lasting impressions; but words have been harder to channel. Some places have been easier to write about than others. One of those is Daly Waters.

Devil's Marbles

Devil's Marbles

My Australian friend Leanne (who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand), flew across to do this trip with me. We hired a new, crazy orange Holden Commodore and we hit the road. One of her express wishes was, that we stay at least one night in a classic Aussie pub. Daly Waters Historic Pub seemed ‘on paper,’ to fit that bill. So on Day Nine of our trip, we left Devil’s Marbles at around 8am after a dawn walk around those magnificent boulders and headed north, bound for Daly Waters, which sits 916km north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and 620km south of Darwin.

Daly Waters Historic Pub

 As we were to discover, calling Daly Waters a town is something of a stretch. The 2016 Census listed just 9 permanent inhabitants and essentially ‘town’ is just a fancy name for the roadhouse, which in turn, is just a fancy name for the Daly Waters Historic Pub, which was originally built as a supply point for drovers and (according to the sign), holds the longest continuous liquor licence in Northern Territory, dating back to 1893. The current building was built in the late 1920s.

I talk a lot about the vast emptiness of the outback and that is certainly a lasting impression. But in truth, these wide-open spaces are filled with a minutiae of detail. When I read back on the detailed, illustrated journal I kept throughout the trip, I read about roadside trees filled with flocks of zebra finches; fast trucks and slow camper vans; the sobering remains of crashed cars; the sad looking Brahmin cattle herds hanging around dry creek beds lined with red rocks and white gums; large mesa away in the distance, still huge despite the distance.

I recall the vast array of roadkill, struck down by passing road trains and tourist vehicles – the dehydrated cattle carcasses, kangaroo, birds of prey; and the ever-changing parade of road signs for places like Tennant Creek, Threeways Roadhouse, Banka Banka Station, Bootu Creek, Attack Creek and Churchill’s Head Rock. And I’m reminded of the weird little roadhouse settlements we passed every few hundred kilometres, which set us to wondering why anyone would want to live in such an unforgiving landscape.

 I remember Elliott, population 350, which was established during WWII as a staging camp for troops heading north. It distinguished itself in my memory for its tumbles of pink and white bougainvillea, it scattering of unkempt houses and its For Sale advertisement for a black leather couch, $500 and its “large range of tyres.” We topped up the petrol tank there – as we did at almost every roadhouse along the way – and we noted the large flock of red-tailed black cockatoo in nearby trees.

It was almost 2.30pm before we finally drove in to Daly Waters. It was 25-degrees (in mid-winter) and I was instantly captivated by the huge scarf of pink bougainvillea cascading over the pub roof and verandah. Every man and his dog seemed to be enjoying its shade as they swigged back their cool drinks and icecreams.

Forget the dusty red ‘main road’ and all the filth that comes with that, I homed straight in on the bunches of bananas hanging off the palms by the pub’s main door, the pink and white flowering frangipani, the giant jacaranda pods hanging off trees, the giant cacti and the rowdy crowds of people and apostle birds.

The pub staff were an unexpected treat – all handsome young men from foreign countries – Poland, Brazil, Germany and the like - young backpackers paying their way I guess; and the pub’s now-famous interior was packed with memorabilia and a somewhat shabby collection of women’s bras hanging off the ceiling. Apparently women have been hanging up their bras here since the 1980s. It doesn’t bear thinking about really and at no point during our stay did I feel quite frivolous enough to add to the collection.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Daly Waters for me, was the camping ground – packed to the gills with expensive camping vehicles. The Grey Nomads as they’re called here in Australia – (often but not always) retired couples who have cashed up and taken to the roads of Australia. You see them in their thousands on the outback highways during the Australian winter, which quite frankly, is the ONLY time you’d want to visit Central Australia. The temperatures here in summer (40-degrees C plus), make the idea of travelling too appalling to even think about.

Some seem to settle in for weeks at a time. The ‘hairdresser’ for instance, worked her hair magic during the day then appeared to have a part-time job at the pub at nights, serving customers their dinners. I could think of worse ways to travel a country.

We chatted with a young couple from Melbourne, who were sitting in the cool evening air outside their elaborate camper van.

“We’ve been on the road for two weeks, so we’re only just cracking into it,” announced the man, proudly, perching his beer can on his large, black-singleted belly.

I could relate to that. We’d only been on the road for nine days and it felt like we were “just cracking into it” too.

I still feel rather fondly towards Daly Waters. There was a certain quirky ‘holiday magic’ about the place that drew me in. The mad array of people, the live country music night, the Beef’n’Barri (Barrimundi) barbecue (with salads and the schnitzels that Aussies seem to be particularly fond of), the tropical plants, the variety of bird life – and all the other things we never even got o explore in the interests of an early night and an early start for Katherine the next morning. But that’s a whole other story.