Timber Creek
Trip Start
Nov 28, 2004
1
7
57
Trip End
Jun 11, 2005
Katherine,
Northern Territory,
Australia
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
I hit the road and throw Percy into the next phase of the adventure. To begin with, I visit the Government office in Katherine that deals with vehicle licensing, and ask to re-register Percy in my name. So I can sell the car legitimately later on and have third party insurance cover. First, the desk clerk believes it's not possible for overseas residents to do it, for some reason. Then the supervisor says it is. The registered address of my car becomes 112 Mitchell Street , Darwin. Known locally as Elke's backpackers.
I aim for Timber Creek which wilts in the furnace of the Victoria River region. The drive is mind boggling. Unending climbs and curves of shimmering blacktop cutting through a land of red, like being on Mars
1. Random shot of the road
. Desolate expanses of earth baked the colour of blood. Trees the colour of ash. Small signs mark places called ' mistake creek ' or ' dead man's creek '. Small bridges cross these riverbeds whose earth is cracked and gaping open at a piercing blue sky. There is almost no shade. I have to stop and wake myself up by pouring icy water into my eyes. I keep plenty of it in the Esky. As per usual, there is that pervading waft of rotting animal and the buzzing of flies. I press on and struggle to remain conscious for another 100 kilometres, breaking it into ten sets of ten and so on. I reach the Wayside Roadhouse - which comprises about fifty percent of a sleepy town known as Timber Creek. Timber Creek sits on the Victoria Highway about halfway between Katherine and Kununurra in WA. Inside is a bar and a few desperate looking souls. There's a football game on TV, and locals either play pool or simply sit at the bar gazing into empty space. Round the back is the ' campsite ' where I moor up the car. I am the only one daft enough to be staying there. I make use of the communal shower block washing the dust and sweat out of my skin. A storm is brewing in the heavy sky and I quickly cancel my cooking plans and scurry back to the bar where I consume a ' counter meal ' of Cornish pasty, chips and gravy. It's delicious, in a roadhouse kind of way. Full of meat and beer, I climb into my bed on wheels and listen as rain pings off the car's roof.
Legend has it that a maritime explorer, A C Gregory, once sailed up the estuary of the Victoria river and became shipwrecked here. He used local timber to patch the hole in the stricken vessel and thus it became known as Timber Creek. Gregory continued to chart the region believing that there was an inland sea. Covering over 8,000 kilometres, he found only seemingly endless deserts where the rivers ran dry.
Next ; WA
