Travels with George

by Vivien Fallows

  My circumnavigation of the route had not been so speedy that I failed to notice the last remaining petals of the spring flowers, there were just enough blown blooms to make me appreciate how dramatically different the scrub must look when the flowers are at their colourful best. As ever, I’m just a bit too early or a bit too late for nature’s most flamboyant moments. Tantalisingly, the hot air still carried a potpourri hay-like whiff.

  Today’s adventure had been both stunningly captivating and hotly sweaty, so back to the motel I went where I de-bugged the windscreen, said goodnight to the Commodore and retreated to my room where I settled down to watch (why?) Extreme Makeovers… and I mean extreme. Peering through splayed fingers, I squeaked ouch each time a new procedure was embarked upon. Still, the end results seemed incredible…it’s amazing what a few nips and tucks can do to knock back the years. All the same, I will learn to live in harmony with my excess adipose tissue.

  Drifting off to sleep after my arduous day, I was suddenly back in the land of the living and wide awake: the downside of low-cost accommodation is that the soundproofing is usually non-existent. The German couple in the room next to mine talked and talked and talked…

  Wednesday 3rd December: just me and PC Coates

  Breakfast was a too sweet Special K bar but at least I was on the road by eight forty-five. What a fabulous drive! The road was a mix of single and double track which sliced its way through wonderful scenery and then zigzagged across country on a road which didn’t appear on my map but which the hotel receptionist had told me, with absolute confidence, would be the best route to my destination: Kalgoorlie.

  Bowling along with not much going my way, just the occasional dust-devil-creating road train bearing down on me on its way to Perth and the odd anachronistic ute with de rigueur upright dog in the back staring intently at the receding skyline whilst maintaining impeccable balance. On and off the sandy/gravelly edges I went, avoiding dust-swirling road trains and wondering if the Commodore was equally enjoying this freedom of the open road. At Merredin I hit the Great Eastern Highway. The town sits in the central Wheatbelt at a point roughly midway between Perth and Kalgoorlie. I drove through Merredin, unaware that a visit to the Railway Museum might have been a good idea and opted, instead, to head for a coffee stop at Southern Cross, a name which sounded both romantic and patriotic, little dreaming of how much in need of the coffee I would be by then.

  Somewhere after Merredin near the town of Walgoolan, an Aboriginal name meaning a place where the short bushes grow, and before Southern Cross, coming over an incline and heading down into a long deserted straight set in a landscape peppered with ‘short bushes’ I noticed a car in the distance with lights on the roof… he’d appeared out of nowhere and was driving towards me. By the time I had hit the brake pedal, said lights were lit up just like a sparkly Christmas tree. Pulling over I had no option but to let down the window and smile at the unsmiling face of PC Coates.

  “How fast do you think you were going?” he asked sternly.

  Somehow, with his trendy shades and pink lip sun screen, I couldn’t get as twitchy as undoubtedly I would have done had he been a hard-nosed representative of the traffic cop division. Unfortunately I didn’t endear myself to PC Coates by uttering something totally inane as I handed over my licence. I suffered a further indignity and a blush of embarrassment when a lorry I had whizzed past several kilometers back trundled by with a toothy “tee hee” from driver and mate. Perhaps at this point I gave an involuntary nervous smirk, because a short lecture followed on the seriousness of my felony and ended with, “I suggest you drive a little more slowly in future, ma’am.”

  Sadly… my traffic cop charm offensive had fallen flat…

  Lecture over, I received a virtual three points on my licence because it wasn’t Australian and an actual 150 dollar fine to be paid in Kalgoorlie, without fail or be banned from driving in Western Australia for ever more. Blinking my contrition, I was then free to go.

  I had been cruising at 134kph in a 110 (national) limit. Was the relief of only a 150 dollar fine obvious on my face, I wonder? Yes, I know speeding can be dangerous but there are times when the conditions just invite a little play… but perhaps someone was watching over me bringing me back into check before greater damage was done. Continuing onwards my strictly adhered to 110kph did seem a bit of a dawdle. And as I pottered along, I ruminated a little sadly on the fact that my traffic cop charm offensive had fallen totally flat. Middle age brings both benefits and detractions… and I’m probably guilty of sexist thoughts.

  Back on track, I remembered my scheduled ‘revive, survive’ stop at Southern Cross where I pulled into the service station, wailing, “I want a sausage sandwich,” which swiftly arrived, all hot and delicious, to be washed down with a comforting mug of tea. Duly revived, I continued sedately on my way to Kalgoorlie.

  The urban sprawl of this mining town reached out to greet me in a non-too welcoming manner. Making a snap decision, I rejected the ply-wood motels and opted for a couple of nights of splendour at the Australian right slap bang on central Hannan Street. Well, it seemed like a good idea. The room was very small with nowhere to put George other than under the basin in the bijou bathroom – could be worse. A quick spit and polish later, I sauntered out for my usual bearings getting recce, dropped off more film to be developed and then sought out the Post Office to pay my speeding fine. This handsome building with its impressive solid clock tower is the main subject for the few postcards which exist of Kalgoorlie-Boulder (in 1989 these two mining towns amalgamated). Crossing the threshold was to journey back in time. The friendly staff stood behind a handsome highly polished wooden counter, free from security glass, tut-tutting over PC Coates’ inhospitable act of levying a fine. Cheered by their good humour, I enjoyed a mug of green tea and an apricot biscuit in the café next door.

  Having perused my guide book, I set off to find the brothel – which wasn’t quite what I had in mind and perhaps accounted for the hotel receptionist’s raised eyebrows when I asked for directions. I thought I was about to take an historical look at an important Victorian service, but no, the red light district is current and thriving. One house does have tours three times daily but the focus is more on the 21st-century trade rather than the 19th-century activities. There has been talk about opening a brothel museum but the good matrons of the region keep putting their collective foot down: shame, as I guess it would be very interesting. Anyway, I had walked miles expecting to find one of the old tin ‘starting boxes’ – so called because the row of tin brothel rooms looked like the starting stalls at the nearby racetrack – but in their place was a smart new brick building: Langtrees Brothel. The next tour was at 6pm and as it was only four-thirty decided to amble back into town to see what the information office had to offer. Here I was in gold-fever town, so the heritage and mine tour for the next morning seemed ideal.

  I rounded off my rather weird day with half a pint of Murphy’s in the Tart ‘n’ Miner pub where the décor was decidedly tartan, so a bit of a play on words. H’mm, very funny. Back to the hotel for a quick change and then off to Monty’s a couple of streets away for a hearty steak and egg supper. Finally, after a long day, it was back again to my tiny room to catch up on writing and an early night in readiness for tomorrow’s trip.

  Then – No! Just after midnight I awoke to the sound of a brawl. No, it was a telly blaring in the next room, the changing music gave the game away, and then a loud conversation erupted in the corridor outside my door. The noise continued until one forty-five when I donned my sexy pink cover-up, brushed my hair, and strode out to ask, “Please could you continue your conversation elsewhere?” A few belligerent replies later and peace finally descended until 6am when they were back yakking in the corridor again. I got up early, had breakfast and checked out saying that one night was quite enough. Thank you very much.

  Thursday 4th December: a date with ‘Super Pit’

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nbsp; With my tour booked for 9.30am, I retrieved the car from the hotel garage, manoeuvred it out from its allotted space, into a tiny alleyway and slowly emerged into the main road. Drove around a block or two and found the Mercure Plaza and checked in to a top of the range king-size room – apparently all they had left, but at least the price included breakfast. Again manoeuvred my car into its allotted space and set off for my trip.

  First stop was the main hub for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) which was fairly interesting, when in fact it should have been totally absorbing. Am guessing that the visitor centre is now a little more up-to-date than when I visited. Based at Kalgoorlie-Boulder airport, the RFDS continues to ‘reach out’ to people living in remote areas via the triumvirate of radio, air and medicine. In 2003 the service was (I think) in its 74th year and had grown from the operation of one timber-framed aircraft leased from QANTAS to the large national organisation recognised the world over. It would not be too rash to assume that many hundreds of people owe their lives to the foresight of the founder of the RFDS, the Very Reverend John Flynn.

  Next stop, the old mine of Kalgoorlie which, whilst informative, wasn’t as good interactively as the Ballarat experience had been. Nevertheless, a further piece of Australian history had been tucked under my belt. What I did though, in true pioneer fashion, was have a go at fossicking with, yippee, success. A minuscule speck of gold sat at the bottom of the pan I had been busily swirling water around in, to separate dirt from glitter. It worked! Sadly my prize now seems to have vanished whence it came. But even finding such a microscopic ‘nugget’ was enough to give me an idea of how the early prospectors must have felt upon striking gold… even a small pocket of gold… surely a giddy rush of gambler’s adrenalin?

  And then it was off to view the contemporary version of gold extraction, at the largest open cast gold mine in Australia: Super Pit. The name was no mere boast, it was wondrously super-sized. From the viewing area, peering down on dozens of gargantuan earth-moving trucks crawling ant-like up and down the sides of the pit in a sort of orchestrated slo-mo ballet, took on an air of the surreal. The motion never stops. It’s as if the scene is on constant replay mode. Colossal as the pit is, they were about to extend it by a further kilometre. An enormous scar on the face of the earth, and sadly no one mentioned the trauma such excavations might cause the indigenous people, whose traditional lands were being eroded on a mega-industrial scale in the necessary name of prosperity. I didn’t think to ask, I was too awe-struck by what I was looking at. At the time of my visit, the fact that Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines worked closely with and supported the local community was not alluded to; but it’s good to know that that was the case.

  Hopping down from my very small soap box – to continue, my fellow tourists were two elderly couples from Perth, great mates; one couple from Blackpool and one from Cheshire who were, typically, a laugh a minute. There were two girls from Switzerland who spoke (surprisingly) little English (what a hypocrite, I have no second language) and a ‘mature’ thirty-four year old backpacker from Sweden. He and I had been in the tourist office together the night before so he greeted me like a long-lost friend. My northern chums kept saying, “Your friend’s looking for you… your friend’s looking out for you… your friend wants you…” etc, etc. Anyway, my ‘friend’ was horrified when he heard that I was driving on my own down to Esperance and then back west to Perth and lamented the fact that he’d already bought his Greyhound ticket to do roughly the same journey – when he could have travelled with me. “What a pity,” I sighed… Today I remain slightly baffled by this exchange…did he volunteer his age? Did I ask him? It’s not a question I’d typically start a conversation with. And yet I made no note of his name…

  After my Super Pit tour I visited Kalgoorlie’s museum and was again drawn to the collection of old photographs; it’s the earnest expression on people’s faces which draw you in… you so want to know their back-story. In chasing their golden dreams, the miners certainly led a tough existence. Perhaps not quite as tough as the lives led by the pioneers who harvested gum from New Zealand’s giant kauri trees, but nevertheless a very harsh existence. Sated by all the information I’d been subjected to in one day, I returned to the hotel where I was duly handed the key to room 212. As I stood outside said room, I thought it unusual for the cleaning staff to leave the television on so late in the day – so I knocked at the door predicting the inevitable outcome – a disgruntled resident. Back downstairs with a jolly, “I didn’t know I was sharing…” which fell a bit flat. Swapped keys and was given room 110, so back upstairs I again trundled trusty George only to find that this room was next to the noisy lift: great!

  The evening continued in this vein as I decided to go back to Monty’s which turned out to be a bit of a mistake as the glutinous pasta bore not a trace of its Italian ancestry. Perhaps if I had taken the time to think, I would have concluded that steak suited Kalgoorlie’s profile better than pasta. Luckily, the hot coffee and cheery service were good on both nights.

  The established routine of back to my room after supper continued, and I obediently set about writing up my journal. First though, I phoned home and awoke my slumbering husband with a riddle, “I’ve just got my first one and you’ve had lots… what is it?” I won’t quote his first answer, but he got there in the end… and then proceeded to reiterate PC Coates’ take on the situation. Confession and scribing duties over, feeling drowsy I opted for an early night at which point a very heated discussion erupted between… this sounds like a joke in poor taste, but I assure you it’s not… an Australian and a Muslim which got more and more heated as each tried to point out the errors of the other’s belief system – unfortunately Islam v. secularism is never an easy (or quiet) mix.

  A small wave of depression washed over me as I seemed to be paying all this money for the benefit of another night’s lost sleep. Thank heavens for noisy air-conditioners, I thought as I twiddled with the controls and at the same moment, I just don’t believe it, next door switched on theirs. Fortunately, as the two machines rattled in unison they really did drown out the conversation which was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

  Sleep at last – well at least until 2am when I awoke absolutely freezing. By now peace reigned up and down the corridor, so I switched off the air conditioner and drifted back to my undisturbed slumbers.

  Friday 5th December: a lack of sleep never dents my appetite

  My stay at the Plaza might have cut a large lump out of my budget, but I did enjoy my inclusive breakfast. Nothing special really, but just what I wanted: cereal, prunes, yoghurt, fresh fruit, with one slice of squishy toast, grapefruit juice and a cup of Earl Grey. Much better than a ‘healthy’ snack bar.

  Refuelled I hit the road heading south passing through semi-arid terrain to the small mining town of Kambalda, which shed its 1907 gold ghost town status when nickel was discovered in 1954 and the nickel is still being extracted. Whoa! Is that a police car I see in my rear view mirror? Don’t want to be tailed by the entire Western Australia police force. Alone again and further south, Norseman was the next and last of the goldfields to drive through and marks the point at which the Eyre Highway starts. This is the road which cuts across the Nullabor Plain linking Western Australia to South Australia at Port Augusta just north of Adelaide. I drove for a few kilometers into the Nullabor, for no reason other than to say, “I’ve driven in the Nullabor”… rather like jumping backwards and forwards over the Tropic of Capricorn… it’s there, so you do it.

  Norseman is tiny and the now familiar single shop serving all purposes provided a welcome cup of tea and a biscuit. Strolling around this and other similar outlets inevitably provides me with a few minutes of fascination as I inspect the weird array of goods. It must be such a challenge catering for all needs when you are the only shop for miles. The people I meet in these multi-purpose stores are always so friendly and many wear that unmistakable mantle that comes w
ith being a land-worker: weather-beaten and sun-crinkled features. Drifting up and down the aisles, today’s selection of items included a light within a three inch high wigwam, cheap electrically-charged versions of pashminas in a variety of day-glo colours (you wouldn’t want to shake the hand of someone wearing one) and cans of food which seemed to have been shipped over from Aitutaki and were about to explode. The frozen meat was in carcass sized boxes; this was not a place to ask for “two lamb chops, please”… it was obviously the whole animal or nothing. Hello! And what’s this? A CD of Winifred Atwell, queen of the boogie-woogie: I made a dusty purchase.

  The southerly road continued its way across flat arid land until I at last reached the coast and Esperance, my scheduled night stop. The shoreline is certainly photogenic, so I did the honours pointing the camera first east and then west where, in both directions, receded a handsome line of Norfolk pines. They seem to be made for hanging Christmas baubles on as their branches are so uniform. Esperance Bay is known as the Bay of Isles (granite islands) and it grew in importance as grain from the wheat fields was shipped out in tankers moored alongside ‘tanker jetty’. An earlier jetty provided a provisioning point for those working in the eastern goldfields. Today, the town is popular amongst the surfing and scuba diving fraternity – but I think increasingly its shores are patrolled by sleek great whites so, once again with self-preservation in mind, I didn’t dabble my toes.

  Having strolled up and down the Esperance strand, my watch showed that it was only one-thirty so I decided to push on to Ravensthorpe. Today’s scenery has ranged from scrub, to wheat, to one of the most densely populated eucalypt areas in Western Australia, plus the sparkling white sand and aquamarine waters of Esperance. I have seen spring flowers in the more temperate coastal area but, as ever, missed the banksias.