Wrong Way Round

by Lorna Hendry

  At Bell Gorge we clambered over the rock walls of the gorge and climbed down to the pool where a waterfall crashed into the water. We spent the day moving from one side of the gorge to the other, first chasing the warmth of the sun after swimming in the freezing water, then hiding in the shade. We went through all our food and drink, but the water was fresh and cool and sweet so we drank it as we splashed under the pounding waterfall.

  At the tiny community of Imintji, we ate ice-creams on the wooden verandah of the roadhouse. The shopkeepers were Queenslanders who clearly loved the place. Jenny, a compact blonde woman who bustled around in constant motion, said that in the evenings she baked cakes and muffins and pies in the oven of their house to sell in the shop. ‘Because it’s hard to bake when you’re camping, isn’t it? And people like a treat.’

  Her husband, Stan, a white-haired man built on a larger scale than most people, rolled his eyes and smiled. ‘Doesn’t make any money’, he said, but I could tell he didn’t mean it.

  At Galvans Gorge, a sandy track led to a tiny oasis where water tumbled down into a dark green pool surrounded by ferns and palm trees. A rope swing attached to an overhanging limb of a huge gum tree cried out for some serious Tarzan action and we obliged.

  From the rock wall above the swimmers a large Wandjina, the traditional spirit of this area, looked down on us sombrely. It was the first one I had seen and I found it mesmerising. Painted in red ochre on the rock face it had a halo around its head and huge dark round eyes, fringed with long lashes, peering out of a pale face. There was a long, skinny nose but no mouth. I had read about it in the guidebooks. Senior law men used to restore the Wandjina at the end of the dry season to keep the spirit fresh and strong and to ensure the return of the rains. Many of the paintings are thought to be at least 4000 years old, but in traditional terms they are not ‘art’ as they were never originally painted by people. They simply are the spirits. They left their images behind when they returned to the spirit world.

  We lingered so long in the water that by the time we reached the roadhouse – and the three or four houses that seemed to be all that made up Mount Barnett – it was early afternoon. It was too late to attempt the one-hour walk to Manning Gorge that made Mount Barnett a popular stop on the Gibb River Road, so we paid our camping fee, got permission to set up anywhere in the campground and prepared to spend the night. We got a whiff of the toilet block and put up the tent beside a huge, gnarled boab tree that was close to the river. Looking around the deserted campground, I noticed another camper trailer that was exactly the same model as ours. But it looked different somehow – it was squarer, more solid. I peered through its open flywire windows. Something funny was going on in there with the tent poles. I called James over. He stood and looked for a while, then nodded.

  ‘I’ve been doing it wrong.’

  He went back to our tent, adjusted some poles and suddenly our saggy tent, which had a tendency to collapse at one corner, was as solid and square as it had been the first time we put it up five months ago.

  To get to Manning Gorge the next day we had to swim the Manning River. We pushed a day’s supply of snacks, towels, shoes and our camera across in two crumbling white polystyrene boxes supplied by the campground for exactly this purpose. It was an hour’s hike to the gorge and it was worth every step. The circular pool was wide and generous and had large flat rocks around the edges to lie on. The boys found a sloping rock covered with an inch of rushing water and used it to slide down into the pool, then clambered back up and did it again and again. Tiny freshwater leeches collected on their bare backs every time. When the boys noticed them, they just casually flicked the tiny black creatures off each other. I was surprised by how relaxed they were. I wondered where my kids – one of whom had been known to run screaming from a blowfly – had gone. They were still five months away from turning seven and nine but sometimes, like when they were helping around camp or hiking beside us on long walks, they seemed a lot older than that. At other moments, they played together just like they did when they were two and four, and life was all about having fun and getting as dirty as possible.

  We decided to ignore the advice we had been given that the road to Mitchell Falls was too rough for our camper trailer. After a decadent lunch of burgers and chips at the hotel at Drysdale River, we set up a very basic, one-night camp on the bank of the King Edward River. The river was wide, but fairly shallow – we had crossed it just before reaching the designated camping area and the water hadn’t even come up over our wheels. Nothing on this road seemed to be as difficult as people had told us to expect. The next morning we were up at six o’clock, ready for a full day of waterfall exploration. It took more than two hours to drive 70 gruelling kilometres of rocky, corrugated road. The car shook and rattled so loudly that we couldn’t even talk to each other. At some point the cover on our front indicator began to come loose and James had to throw it in the back to fix later. When we arrived at the Mitchell Falls campground we realised we hadn’t got up early enough. A busload of elderly people had almost completely booked out that day’s helicopter flights. We paid for the last available flight down from the falls and walked up. At the top of the falls the water was filled with the elderly people who had flown in. They were doing breaststroke and complaining about the quality of their packed lunch.

  The helicopter had no rear doors and only two lap belts in the back. We put Oscar in the front beside the pilot and wedged Dylan between us in the back and held on to him as tightly as we could without hurting him. The helicopter tipped a little as it took off and I could feel the weight of my body wanting to slide out the open doorway. I was grateful for the incredible noise because it meant I could swear loudly until I was able to calm myself down and breathe normally again. The view of the gorges from above was incredible. Although this was the middle of the dry season, water was still cascading down from the escarpment and creating massive waterfalls. Despite flying this route many times a day, the pilot had an enthusiasm for the landscape that was infectious. At one point he pointed to the horizon to make sure we could see the faint blue line of the coast in the far distance and then traced the path of a wide river all the way from the ocean to the gorge below us, finally pointing down into the gorge where the dark shape of a large saltwater crocodile lurked at the base of a thundering waterfall. We buzzed with excitement about our flight the whole way back to the campsite.

  Back on the Gibb, the first 50 kilometres of road was smooth and flat until, with no warning, there was a faint hissing, then a bang and the back end of the car began to wobble. We had a flat tyre. It wasn’t just punctured. A rock had slashed the side wall, leaving a gash nearly 10 centimetres long. We pulled over onto the side of the road and ate lunch under the shade of a tiny tree while James changed the tyre. Forty minutes later we were again on our way.

  Five kilometres further along the road James felt another wobble at the back of the car. This time a tyre on the trailer had blown. He replaced it with our one remaining spare wheel.

  Ten minutes later it happened again. All we could do this time was take a wheel off the trailer and put it on the car, then leave the trailer on the side of the road and hope we made it to Home Valley Station, 55 kilometres away. Just as we were ready to leave, two workers from a mine near Drysdale River stopped and offered us their spare tyre. After another round of tyre changing, and with the trailer back on, we got to Home Valley just before it closed. We parked the trailer, drove the car to the workshop and returned the borrowed wheel. By the time we realised we had left the trailer outside the furnished cabins instead of in the designated campground, our three-wheeled car was locked in the deserted workshop. We ended a long, exhausting day by pushing the one-tonne trailer through soft sand to the right spot.

  ‘Easier with a car!’ laughed two men as they walked past us on their way to the bar.

  The Home Valley mechanics were at work early the next day and we were back on the road with a full set of new tyres just after breakfast.
Nine kilometres down the road we reached the Pentecost River. I’d been worrying about this for the whole trip. The river was 200 metres wide and well known for being full of saltwater crocodiles. There was no bridge or barge: the only way to get across was to drive and it looked a lot wider and murkier in real life than it had in the pictures and videos I’d seen.

  A small car was sitting on our side of the river and it turned out to belong to the men who had laughed at us the night before. They were worried about the crossing. If the water was too deep it might get into their engine and stall their car in the middle of the river. After extracting an apology from them, we tied their car to the back of the trailer and drove slowly into the river. Muddy water lapped at our wheels and seeped in under the doors, but it never reached our bonnet.

  When we were safely across, we got out of the car to high-five each other and take photos of the next vehicle crossing behind us. There was a whole lot of debris floating in the water, bobbing about in the waves we had made. The men we had towed had left their rear hatch door open and now their stove, their food and all of their cooking equipment was floating down the river. One of them put on his thongs and took a few steps towards the river, clearly planning to wade in and rescue their things. At the same time, we all saw the red sign warning that large estuarine crocodiles lived in the area. Entering the water without a car or boat, it advised, was a very, very bad idea. He stopped well back from the edge and watched their gear disappear around the bend.

  Chapter Twelve

  At El Questro Station – a cattle station that had been turned into a huge tourist resort and was known either as ‘the jewel in the crown of the Kimberley’ or ‘Kimberley Disneyland’, depending on whom you talked to – the boys tumbled out of the car to wrestle on a patch of perfect green lawn. In the office, the woman behind the desk smiled. ‘Lots of kids do that. You must have come off the Gibb.’

  El Questro had a range of accommodation options. Its central hub had a motel and a large campground with shower blocks and laundries. We wanted one of the bush sites further along the river. We had been told that these were the best spots to get and were highly sought after, so when the woman confirmed that there was one available we couldn’t believe our luck. We drove past the campground with its warm showers and flushing toilets, past the families and kids playing footy on the grass and past the communal fire pits, to our private site far away from human contact and amenities.

  Ten minutes later we went back to reception and asked for a site in the campground instead.

  El Questro divided opinions amongst travellers. We had been warned that it was a tourist trap: expensive, kitsch and unauthentic. The natural hot springs were only open to regular people before midday. In the afternoon, the rich had it all to themselves. A helicopter flight over the ranges to secret fishing spots with a private guide was so expensive they didn’t even bother advertising it in the campground, and the variety show after the Saturday night all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet was hilariously awful in its camp Aussieness.

  We loved it.

  We spent a whole day cruising Chamberlain Gorge in a small battery-powered boat. We explored the rocks, swam in spots where the sun had warmed the water, and hung fishing rods off the back. Every hour we waved at the tourist boat as it cruised past us with its full load. Walking El Questro Gorge the next day, we realised how fit and adventurous Oscar and Dylan had become. The first half of the walk was a difficult trek through a rocky river bed, then we had to swim across a deep, cold waterhole and climb over several huge boulders that blocked the entrance to the second, narrower section of the walk. Lots of adults took one look and decided not to go any further but our kids didn’t hesitate.

  We restocked at the nearest town, Kununurra, just 110 kilometres away, but not without checking that we wouldn’t have to hand over all our fresh fruit and veg at the border. Less than 40 kilometres out of town we watched a line of cars travelling in the opposite direction submit to a quarantine inspection, kicked the footy and drove into the Northern Territory. Instead of driving straight to Katherine, James wanted to visit Montejinni Station, the cattle station where he had worked as a jackaroo more than twenty years ago. It was a 250-kilometre detour along the Buchanan Highway. He said it would be an easy drive; the road was sealed and it wouldn’t take more than a few hours. Either his memory had failed him completely or someone had come along in the past couple of decades and covered the bitumen with sand and rocks and corrugations. It was a beautiful drive, though, and James spent most of it telling us long stories about riding for days on horseback to muster herds of wild cattle, slaughtering beasts to feed the men, eating corned beef three times a day and being so cold at night that he had to wear every single item of clothing he owned.

  We pulled in to the roadhouse at Top Springs at dusk. Just 14 kilometres north of Montejinni, it used to be James’s local pub. I had expected a small town, but it was just the Top Springs Hotel at the junction of the Buchanan and Buntine highways, the dusty campground behind the pub, and little more. After setting up, we wandered back into the pub and James asked the barman if he had the phone number for Montejinni. He did, but warned us that everyone there had probably gone to Katherine for the annual camp draft that weekend. James rang, but there was no answer so he left a halting message on the answering machine, trying to explain who he was and saying we would like to visit.

  In the morning we decided to take the chance and drive down to Montejinni anyway. When we arrived at the homestead, the cook, Pauline, came out to meet us. She had heard James’s message and knew exactly who we were. She showed us around, asking James which buildings were new since his time and filling him in on the fate of the people he remembered. Not much had changed in twenty-two years apart from a couple of new sheds and some trees that had grown taller. Equally familiar to James was the news that one of the ringers had been arrested for fighting the night before and was now locked up in Katherine.

  Pauline took us into the huge kitchen and within minutes she had loaded up the long table with a feast of pikelets, cake, apple crumble, custard, cheese and a platter of corned beef and pickle sandwiches. I was stunned at the amount of food she had produced and she explained that her main job was to keep the men well fed. She cooked everything in bulk and always made sure that the fridge was full so that they could help themselves at any time. We ate until we could barely move, although James politely declined the corned beef. Pauline seemed surprised at how little we had managed to put away and insisted on packing us a bag of food to take with us.

  By the time we reached Darwin a few days later, we were more than ready for a couple of weeks out of the tent. Nannette had booked us two weeks in an apartment and we couldn’t wait. We would have a toilet of our own, a bedroom for the boys and a separate one for us, a television and two swimming pools to choose from.

  At the end of the fortnight I had arranged to fly back to Melbourne for a few weeks to work and earn some much-needed cash.

  Although the accommodation was a gift, we still managed to blow our weekly budget in Darwin. We had to replace all our tyres and the car needed a thorough service. We decided to wash it first, in case the mechanics took one look and decided it wasn’t worth putting in much effort to fix up such a bashed-up, filthy vehicle. The back door hadn’t closed properly for weeks, so there was a fine film of greasy red dust over everything inside. As red mud piled up in our bay of the carwash we realised that a solid seam of compressed dust in the door seals was causing the problem. The more we blasted it with the high-pressure hose, the more red dust washed out from hidden cracks and crevices. Scratches and dints revealed themselves as we scrubbed and wiped and soaped and hosed the car, but after an hour it was almost white again.

  We spent that fortnight as happy tourists. We ate hot, oily prawn satays at the Mindil Beach market, the golden juice tracing a garlicky river down our arms. At Mick’s Whips stall, James proved that his jackaroo stories were true by cracking a stockwhip so loudly that it stopped peo
ple in their tracks. At Parap on Saturday mornings we queued for freshly pounded pawpaw salad and plastic tubs of curry laksa ladled from huge silver vats. We fed stale bread to the fat milkfish at Doctors Gully and spent a day wandering around the Wildlife Park. We had timed our visit to coincide with the Darwin Festival and left the boys with Nannette a couple of times so we could see some shows. The next Sunday, the NT News social pages featured a half-page picture of us, looking cleaner and more relaxed than we had seen ourselves for months, sitting in the open-air Festival Club sharing a bottle of wine and a plastic bowl of chicken curry. We watched lots of television and found ourselves constantly going to the fridge and the cupboards for easily accessible cold drinks and snacks.

  On my last afternoon in Darwin, I sat on the edge of the swimming pool with Nannette. I watched my family messing around in the water and thought about how much I would miss them during my three weeks away. The pool had a shade cloth suspended above it like a sail and the boys decided they wanted to touch it. Dylan went first, crouching on James’s shoulders and gripping his hair tightly. James sank underwater and then sprang up, propelling Dylan up and forwards. Dylan stretched his arms high but just missed the dark blue canvas. Oscar went next, confident that his extra height would get him there. As James pushed away from the tiled floor of the pool, Oscar leapt straight up, brushed his fingertips on the sail and crashed back down.

  We all heard the crunch as he landed directly on top of James’s head.

  James staggered, tilting over and coming close to losing his balance and falling into the water. He got himself to the edge of the pool just as I reached him and I helped him up the steps. He collapsed, lying flat on his back on the brick patio. ‘I think I might have broken my neck’, he said faintly, his face twisting in pain.