Across the Top (2)

 

The notion of “circling songlines” that governed my route plan was, as far as practical, to follow the route I had fondly imagined back in 1982-3, when I and my dreamed-of Goldwing would circumnavigate the continent’s mainland.

I hadn’t heard of songlines, back then. Interestingly I saw several “songlines” sweat- and tee-shirts in the north, this trip. After hundreds of years Europeans are acknowledging that Indigenous societies were interconnected by a vast network of trade and communication channels. Songlines criss-crossed a vast continent from Bamaga (and beyond) to the lands of the Nyoongar people around Hamelin Bay, from Karratha to Mallacoota. Perhaps across Tayaritja (Bass Strait) too.

Sorry Tasmania.  Remember the Commonwealth Games opening when you were forgotten in the choreography? I haven’t forgotten you. But a bit like our Rakiura, there’s a few practicalities.

And I’ve had to omit the York Peninsula, at least for the time being. More practicalities. It’s a rite of testosteroney mid-life crisis – (in reality more old age denial) – for many, but it’s gonna have to wait.

More than any other of the regions outside my circle these are sidetracks that offer a journey in themselves.

Another lifetime?

There’s a few other regrets, too. I’ve circuited south west Western Australia (in a couple of hits) before, so, yeah, following the July/August car and superannuation debacles I had to revise that idea. The same for the York Peninsula in South Australia. Been there but only symbolically done that.

Perhaps life is a symbol?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair …

Being finite is a bugger. On the other hand, no matter how narcissistic I might be, I reluctantly acknowledge that omnipresence is out of my PayScale.

For now. Who knows what dwells beyond those irritating jaws of death?

Three other sidetracks have escaped me: Useless Loop and Kalumburu were neither practical nor, in the latter case, legal practicalities. And once I get south of Rockhampton it’s all familiar ground. My footsteps (tyre prints) there have faded from a myriad, myriad routes.

I’ll mainly desert Route One once I leave my current Townsville oasis.

Thoughts like these floated across the membrane of my grey matter as I made my way east from Wyndham and Kununurra. Sorry, Darwin. It’s not like you were a “dust off your feet” town. My too short a placement there is a happy memory. I’ve had one or two “dust off your feet” experiences, but you weren’t one of them.

Darwin. City of Lost Souls? Long before Cassandra Clare immortalized the phrase I’d heard it applied to Darwin. My theology doesn’t go in for lost souls, bar none.

(Though I can think of a gold-painted relic of departed humanity who seems to hold influence in the world at present who represents a pretty fair extreme of soulessness).

But the alleged lostness of a place like Darwin is dear to my heart. Slightly frontier (though where’s the “frontier” in a global village?), a bit other, a bit edgy … my kind of place.

As I drove east those thoughts crescendoed. I cannot not go back. But can I afford more days of delay, more fuelling, more, more, more? I know few if any people there now, and Darwin accommodation runs at Broome-like prohibitive cost-levels.

Yes?

No?

My back was aching. Suggestions of leg cramps. The mice and I passed into the Northern Territory. The 130 kph speed limit terrified the mice and taunted me. But honestly, Tritons become twitchy and thirsty at 130.

Yeah Nah.

I pegged back after a brief flirtation.

Darwin?

Fuelled up at Timber Creek. Not quite as expensive as Mt Barnett but eye-watering nevertheless.

In Australia the government gives tax rebates for residents of remote regions – if it didn’t then only Gina Rinehart could live there, and she wouldn’t. Too many Unmitigated Natural Things out there. Dust and Insects and Poor People. Ugh.

Wyndham to Katherine. One of the shorter day-legs of this circuit. 711 kms, no dirt, 130 legal kilometres per hour if I wanted them. Just one short (dirt, and definitely 4WD) sidetrack (to see the old Victoria River Crossing in the Judbarra, formerly Gregory National Park region). Yet by Katherine I was needing more than the front seat of a Triton for sleep. Broad daylight, high 30s Centigrade, perfect conditions to push on, but to where?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

 I needed a bed.

Granted myself the rare luxury of takeaways.

Slept the sleep of …

“Rat-a-tat-tat” said my car when I turned the starter motor, pre-dawn, the next day.

Rat-a-tat-tat.