After
asking for jobs on every single roadhouse on our way from Alice Springs to
Darwin, we felt more and more keen for doing some more job hunting in Darwin.
Although we would prefer a job on a roadhouse, we would like to know what our
opportunities would be in the city. We spend most of a day in Peter Pans travel
agency. It’s a travel agency especially for backpackers, and they’re located in
every big city here in Australia. They provide free wifi, which a lot of
backpackers, like us, are taking advantage off.The worst thing about getting into the bigger cities is that it’s a
constantly problem to figure out where to sleep safe (in the car). We don’t
wanna pay for the accommodation, so as a result of that, we always feel very rootless
when we get into the cities. It leads to the same discussions and questions
every time – like where should we park, where do we shower, where is the
nearest toilet and so on. One of these days we had decided to sleep 10 km out of
town, behind a caravan park (they charged $40 for a site, which we had no
interest in paying), but we did want to use their showers though, and
preferably for free, but it doesn’t always feel safe and possible, which is why
we arranged that Erik should walk by the reception first, and then I would walk
in there and pay for my shower (at least we would pay for one shower then),
apparently they didn’t allow outside customers to take showers in there, so I
was hating myself for be honest and polite. At this time I was desperate to get
a shower (the midget bites we both got, started to itch like crazy and only
cold water can reduce the itch). I was going out of my mind, couldn’t go
another night without a shower. So I walked into the campground and filled up our
5 liter water bottle, and started showering behind our car on the silent street
– only one car passed me and I don’t think they realised, that there was a
crazy naked backpacker showering behind the car. At least the bites weren’t
that itchy anymore. Erik got his free shower and got out of the campground without
anyone seeing him. Lucky him!
During that night the midget bites got a lot
worse. I think we got the bites in the outback somewhere, and apparently you
can’t see the small flies, to begin with the bites isn’t visible either, but
will show after a couple of days. Anyway we were getting crazy, none of us
could sleep, and even though we knew that scratching the bites just made it
worse – we just couldn’t help it.. Had to scratch the hell out of them – ALL
NIGHT! It was a living nightmare – we had been eaten alive, by those small
bastards. We have never experienced anything as awful as this – it was simply
unbelievable that small flies can harm us so much. We counted our bites that
night and it came up to a little over 600 together. The wounds looks horrible
and it can take a long time to get rid of the red spots. After that night, we
decided to check in at a hostel, and get all our bedding and everything in the
car cleaned – to make sure we didn’t carry anymore flies around. We paid $34
each for a dorm bed, the social area was great with a swimming pool and a bar.
And it was nice to belong somewhere!
I handed in my resume to different
restaurants in the city and Erik went to a job interview with a VW and Skoda
dealer, they offered him a job as workshop leader for VW, and a sponsorship for
4 years, incl. Australian citizenship (something that most backpackers can only
dream about), but we’re not planning to stay that long, so he turned the offer
down. Erik showed off at the hostel later on with his sponsorship offer – so
embarrassing, ha ha, but also a little funny, course all the young backpackers
there can’t get any jobs! And actually I never heard from any of the restaurants
where I applied for jobs. We both got offered jobs at Apollo (car and camper
rental company).
All these days we were actually just waiting for a roadhouse
to call us back, and tell us we got the job we applied for there. We weren’t
really interested in all the other jobs. We kept calling one specific roadhouse,
but the owner was never available. Always too busy to talk!
Thursday we decided
to do some tourist stuff. We went to the Northern Territory museum and art
gallery - a very inspiring place, with a small exhibition about all the deadly
animals around here, and whole room devoted to Cyclone Tracy. We also visited
the Mindil beach market, it’s main attraction is food from all over the world.
Here we found an interesting stall, advertising for a big rodeo show on
saturday night. Very quickly we decided that it was on our to-do-list, and
definitely something we had to experience.
It's so convenient to travel with a mechanic.. Here he's removing a part from the wheels that made a lot of noise.
Only some of all the sandflies bite that we got.. It looked sick.
Hostel pool and bar
The most wrecked car we have seen so far
Yellow masked lapwing
Cullen beach promenade
Do not want to meet one of these bastards, while having an innocent swim
From Mindil beach market
Dijurido's (a famous playing instrument in the aborignal culture)
Friday 22nd
August - Saturday 23rd August
It was the
day when we had to give our final answer to Apollo. We spend the morning on the
beach and tried in vain to get a hold on Dallas, the owner of the roadhouse,
where we preferred to work. He still didn’t call us back, so around noon we
decided to drive out to Apollo, and tell them we were keen for the jobs there. Just
before we started up the car, Erik tried to call the roadhouse for the last
time… And finally we got an answer (still didn’t talk to Dallas), but the staff
ensured us that we got the jobs and we told them we could be there sunday
morning. We were so happy, first of all because we would earn and save more
money out there, than in the city. We wouldn’t have to worry about
accommodation, as it was already a part of the wage. We would stay in a very
small community where everybody knows everybody, plus that we would get to
experience the life in the outback. It was great and it was time for a little
celebration. We splashed out and bought some nice wine, and went out for
dinner. On Saturday we went to the rodeo show – it was so much fun and very
entertaining.
Darwin beach. It's all fenced in and the safest place to take a swim around here.
Celebrating that we finally got the job that we wanted
Rodeo, and time to play with my new camera...
The bull fighters were really making an effort to get the bulls out of the way.. No one got hurt, although it looks like it here.
Notice all the chickens in the chicken cage
Rodeo Video
Sunday 24th August- Wednesday 3rd September
We drove to
Emerald Springs in the morning. We were extremely excited about our new jobs,
and as a matter of fact, we have only been taken money out of our accounts the
last year, and now all of a sudden, we were gonna do the opposite. It was an
incredible feeling actually. At the same time we knew that we shouldn’t expect
too much from a place so isolated from the civilisation. It would most likely
be a very monotonous and easy job. And we were right! No big challenges for me.
Erik has on the other hand shown a whole new side of himself as a waiter and
barista. It took him a couple of days to get into it, but now he’s almost
professional. For the first time, probably ever I earn more money than Erik – I
get $24,60 an hour and he gets around $21. The staff here is backpackers like
us, so it changes all the time. People only stay for a month or two. We’re
living in a house together with the other 3-4 employees. We work 8-10 hours a
day, 6 days a week. The roadhouse has accommodations and a small campsite, most
of the visitors are truckers passing by on their way to or from Darwin. 5 days
a week we have a tourist bus visiting, they get scones/muffins and coffe/tee in
the morning and dinner on their way back in the evening, so those days can
sometimes be busy. During the days we are in a constant fight against flies, they’re
everywhere, and when the night kicks in we get all kinds of different bugs
flying around, like big muffs and huge grasshoppers, and off course some
mosquitoes and sand flies. One of our first days here there
was a tiny python in the kitchen – WELCOME TO THE OUTBACK!!!
An old staff
member also told a story about a 3-4 meter snake, living underneath the staff
house, also a python, not venomous, but definitely not pleasant to step on
either. One night it came into the house through a hole in the floor. That was
awake up call to get that hole covered. Another thing is that we have to take
care not to step on cane toes when we walk outside at night, not that they are
dangerous, just very disgusting. Cane toes are huge frogs that were brought
into the country, to get rid of all the beetles in the cane fields, but
apparently they eat everything BUT the beetles, and they breed like crazy.
They’re really disgusting.
Emerald Springs is located 130 km north of
Katherine, which is the closest town, and 170 km from Darwin. Imagine driving
that long to do your groceries –welcome to our world!!! The other day I drove
22 km north to the nearest roadhouse (Hayes Creek) to get alcoholic supplies, on
my way I discovered a bushfire, which is really common at this time of the
year, everything is so dry and the gum trees are just waiting to get burned
down to the soil. I reckon most fires are caused by cigarette fags, thrown out
of the windows of cars and road trains. Frankly it’s shocking how many fires we
have seen already. 32 km south of us we have Pine Creek, a very small community
with a post office, a kiosk and a gas station. The last saturday in every month
there’s a party at an old historical hotel (Grove Hill), all the locals (that’s
people living within a 100 km radius) come there to socialize and have a good
time. We went to check it out, first 11 km on the highway and then 16 km on
dirt road and then we finally arrived at the little gem. There was country style
live music, and the atmosphere was awesome. People were enjoying themselves. Everyone,
except us, was wearing check pattern shirts, cowboy boots and cowboy hats. Next
time we will have to do the same! The hotel is ancient and can’t provide
accommodation any longer, but before the highway was developed, it was the
biggest stop-over you could make between Darwin and Alice Springs. All the
workers used to stop here, change their horses and get smashed, before they
continued their travels. Now it’s basically only used for this party every
month.
Kitchen in the staff house
The lounge room
The outside restaurant
The inside restaurant really shows that it's mosty a place for truckers
Erik showing off as a waiter
A huge stick insect in the kitchen
Thursday 4th
September – Friday 5th September
Our first
day off in ten days. We had decided to visit Litchfield National Park. It’s one
of the best places, in the top end of the territory, for bushwalking, camping and
especially swimming. It’s got gorgeous waterfalls plunging into safe swimming
holes, and with safe I mean no saltwater crocs (salties), has been spotted
there since last wet season. The freshwater crocs (freshies) lives there, but
they are not dangerous to humans. It’s actually scientific proved that the
freshies isn’t a threat to us. A signpost told us the pool was safe, so
together with all the other people we enjoyed a swim in Wangi Falls. We also
visited Tolmer falls, which was another neat waterfall, only for looking
though. To avoid driving the same way out of the national park we decided to do
the loop, which included 50 km on dirt road. It was fine in the beginning, but
all the potholes and corrugation makes it uncomfortable after a while. Just when
we got out on the normal road again we ran out of LPG gas, so we tried to
switch to petrol, but Migaloo (our car) wouldn’t run on that, so we had to pull
over. It came as a shock to both of us, we didn’t have any problems with that
before, and now when we finally had a day off, we ran into problems and off
course right in the middle of nowhere.. Well everything here is in the middle
of nowhere, so it didn’t really matter where it happend. It’s bad news no
matter where you are. We tried in vain to get Migaloo going again, but without
any luck. We were stuck, the nearest gas station was at Berry Springs, at least
15 km away. We were fucked!
Then eventually we could see a car coming towards
us, going the same direction as we were suppose to. We stopped them and asked
for help. They were from Sydney and on their vacation up here, luckily they had
time to help us, and towed us out of our misery and into the gas station.
Unfortunately they didn’t have LPG, the next gas station, Noonamah, was another
10 km away. Erik now tried to start the car and all of a sudden it started –
the family now followed us to the next gas station, to make sure we got there
safe. Erik reckon it’s got something to do with the heat. It’s pretty hot up
here at the moment, so it´s possible that the heat is the issue. Well, when we
got the LPG on, Migaloo was good to go again. We arranged to meet up with the
family at the Mindil beach market in Darwin that same night. We wanted to thank
them and buy them a beer or something.
After the car was fine again we decided
to drive back to Berry Springs, and visit the swimming hole and hot springs
there, before heading to Darwin. We so needed to cool down after that hectic
afternoon. Unfortunately this was also the reason why we never found that
family on the market – we got there too late! It was a shame! It wasn’t really
our day! I got my cowboy hat though, which was our main purpose to visit the
market (now I’m ready for the next cowboy party).
We drove down to Adelaide
River and camped for the night. The next morning we rose early to drive the
last bit to the jumping crocodile operators. As all our time in Asia, we didn’t
book the tour in advance, but got on the boat in the morning anyway. We were in
for a treat, watching wild salties jump out of the water to catch a silly piece
of pork chop, isn’t something you see every day. It was like a circus act, the crocs
know where to get free feed and they seem well-trained in jumping for their
prey, which by the way is their natural behavior. They use their powerful tail
as a propeller to get themselves out of the water. It was really fascinating to
experience. And all of this happens in the wild, no enclosures or anything –
just as we prefer it! Afterwards we cuddled with a Western Australian carpet
python and I just couldn’t get enough so I swung the black headed python around
my neck as well. The black headed python is one of the rarest pythons, and
unfortunately a lot of them die, from eating those disgusting cane toes (the
frogs). Erik had to start work at 1 pm, so we headed “home” straight after the
croc show.
The beautiful outback colours
Tolmer falls
Wangi falls.. And more playing with the camera.
A free ride....
Berry Springs was gorgeous
Croc tour
They can be hard to spot on the riverbanks.. But the dragon look-a-like tail give them away most of the times.
Frontpages on newspapers
Snake dundee, with the western carpet python
Erik is really comfortable with his new friend
Jumping Croc video
Saturday 6th
September – Wednesday 10th September
We have gotten
use to a lot of different and weird looking animals, especially bugs and
bettles – one thing we probably never will get use to is the snakes. It’s
almost daily that one of us see a snake around the roadhouse, and they have all
been different so far. So there’s a few around! Erik almost stepped on one the
other day when he walked out from the staff house.
The owner of the roadhouse
(Dallas) is from time to time driving all of us insane, he’s using his energy
and time on all the wrong stuff. Like for example he thinks it’s more important
that he uses time to tell us which corner of the plates the tomatoes goes on,
than to drive the two weeks old rubbish to the dumb. The yard smells so gross
from all the bad food in the rubbish bins, and it’s literally a pigsty. No
wonder there’s so many flies and animals around! He thinks he can solve the problem, if he just
move the rubbish further away from the restaurant. So his big truck is hidden
by a tree in the backyard – loaded to the max with ancient rubbish. So
disgusting! We can’t have a normal conversation with him, frankly he’s out of
reach, and every now and then he blames us for all kinds of stupid things, and
afterwards uses his sick wife as an excuse for his weird behavior. One day he
came stomping into the staff house and started to look into kitchen drawers,
our common cupboard, the fridge and the freezer. When I asked him what he was
doing his answer was ‘I found some weird stuff in here from time to time’. He
obviously doesn’t trust us at all. His childish head makes him think that
people steal food from the kitchen and hide it here. At night time we have
caught him several times, sneaking around the staff house and listening by the
windows. He talks unreasonable loud to us, sometimes in front of costumers.
Luckily most of the costumers knows that he’s a freak. He’s unreliable and
unpredictable. Between costumers the place is called Dallas’ kingdom’. He’s a sad
sad human being to be around. I could continue telling stories about that guy,
but he’s not worth the time!
There’s some really nice things happening as well.
There’s this local guy that visits us frequently and he’s got two wallabies
(small kangaroos) as pets, and a dog. It’s such a different world to have them
coming and jumping around in the restaurant. They do get a lot of positive
attention from the other visitors. It’s so great! There’s a lot of truckers
coming frequently as well, Erik has begun to recognize them and share travel
experiences with them. A lot of them are transporting cows, and sleeping here
for the night. It can be really noisy at night with all those trampling cows,
but on the other hand I find it extremely cozy to get up in the morning, and
start my morning jog with saying good morning to all these animals looking
down at me, from the big road train trailers. I run on the highway, but it's never really busy in the mornings. Usually I only meet 8-10 cars during my run, so it's all right and not to dangerous.
We will stick around for another three weeks, and will have to put up with Dallas weird behaviour for still a little while. Then we will continue our journey through Australia.
The little fellow that Erik almost stepped on
From the highway it's a sad apperance of the roadhouse.
The main entrance is the dark door on the left hand side.. From outside it looks like the place is closed down..
An left bus in the end of the caravan park
The outside restaurant, seen from the back of the caravan park
