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.
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| Devil's Marbles |
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| 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.
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| 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.
