The Northern Territory
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2005
1
87
158
Trip End
Jul 21, 2007
Tennant Creek,
Australia
Monday, December 11, 2006
Van temp was 33c on setting out from Mt Isa, todays destination was Tennant Creek which meant crossing out of Queensland and into the wild, desolate Northern Territory. Not that our place on the globe wasn't remote enough already. There's quite a difference between driving up and down the east coast, always within 20km of a nice sandy beach to lie on, and driving down a road 1000 miles from anywhere. At least there were less 18 year old gap year students!
We stopped at Camooweal, just shy of the border, for petrol. This place is REALLY in the back of beyond and REALLY feels like it. There is a string of forlorn looking buildings terminating in a petrol station whose rivetting selling point is that it is the last one for the next 500km
crossing into the outback proper
. God knows why anyone would want to live here. We went into an ancient wooden general store where an old man, blatantly suffering the effects of advanced troppo, went on interminably about various wars. We ate tuna butties under some shade and noticed that the temp had crept to 43c, definitely uncomfortable. Any sane person needs to be shrouded in a constant blanket of AC at this temperature. It was about this time that Kerry turned feral. She had complained before that she felt like a caged animal in that compartment but we gave her worries no credence. She started to foam at the mouth and scratch feebly at the headrests while muttering incoherently but we were too busy driving to take notice.
I am pleased to report that we administered the antidote that very evening: 2 cold beers.
We crossed into the Northern Territory and ploughed along the plains once again, staring forward, mesmerized by the heat haze and it's ethereal distortions.
Tennant Creek came up at 5.30 at the end of a plumb straight road 250km long. The temp read 45c and it didn't cool down at all until about 3am. The heat was now becoming oppressive and we thanked Kerrys good initiative for the plug-in fan. We had also made another first rate purchase before leaving Brisbane which was a set of PC speakers to plug the mp3 players into
Outback roadsign
. We made sure we bought the one with the additional sub to round down that treble a wee bit. Nice sound.Tennant Creek is depressingly similar to every other outback town in that it is devoid of character and is purely utilitarian. A sheet of corrugated iron is always preferable to brick or stone. I suppose this is necessary when you are as far away from anything as this place. We had moved from the middle of nowhere into the middle of nowhere. There were definitely a lot more aboriginal people here (the most we had seen so far in New South Wales and Queensland put together), and they hung around on street corners in groups looking like homeless people. They do fit into the stereotype in that they all seem to be drunk, however this is just another symptom of the wholesale rape of their culture. They are viewed and treated as second rate citizens living on the fringes of a society that has left them bereft of self respect; financially and culturally ruined.
