Wednesday 6:45pm  - Balladonia                                I‘ve been to some sh#tty places in my day. But yet still I have only just arrived… in Balladonia, population zero. A place where the fuel price unexpectedly jumps by 30 cents a litre in less than 200km. Another one of those no-horse poo holes with trapped backpackers, usually young, always female, “experiencing” the real Australia by working in Aussie pubs (well that’s what they signed-up for back home anyway). Typically they are in a very isolated area and working a six day week, the one day off spent pondering thoughts about faraway places in a sh#tty hotel room which doubles as “home”. I’ve witnessed them at Cataby Roadhouse, Laverton, and now Balladonia and that’s just the arse-end of WA. I predict they are scattered far and wide along the Nullarbor and any other deserted highway truck stop in Australia. Nice for the Truckee’s to flirt with, not so conducive to “seeing” Australia. Oh yeah… that’s the catch. On top of the six day week… they also get crap pay. Double bummer. This poor Québecin is just two days into a two month stint. Catherine is her name, though probably spelt with a K. 

I’m sitting in a doorway again tonight but this time it’s of my own freewill. In a restaurant full of empty tables a weirdo with a book sits directly opposite me. I can hear him breathing. An ugly man across from me patronises his Filipino wife and an American accent boomerangs off the frosted “bar” doors, it vibrates through the dirty glassware and bounces off the walls. Everyone is heading westward chasing the mining boom. And I am a Geologist, in demand, in the middle of it, heading in the opposite direction. The meals are huge by the way but I scan the menu and still don’t think it excuses $24.90 for Lasagna. Large meals are not necessarily a good thing.

So my accommodation tonight is not surprisingly the cheapest I could get and is officially being referred to as a “donga”. Inverted commas for good reason. Being a FIFO (fly in fly out) mine worker, I’m quite familiar with what a “donga’ actually is. These $39 a night “dongas” (or “dongha” as the Asian lady backpacker who has been stuck here no less than five months pronounces, are in fact sea containers. Not-quite-converted sea containers containing a single bed and some rather nasty cobwebs. I wish I had a swag and if I did have a swag I wish it would have fit in my car. In fact, Id pay $39 right now to sleep outside under the stars. 

So what else would I expect along the Nullarbor? Well better than this actually. Because the “donga” isn’t fit for a human being. And yes, fair enough, you can get away with it while you have budget travellers like myself on the road, but just because you can get away with it… should you be doing it? The XXXX Gold has worked a charm though and I was dead to the world when the curtain rod fell on my head at three in the morning (NB sorry did I say curtain rod…  I meant poly-pipe off-cut balanced on 2 rusted nails). I stir again at 6.30am thanks to lead foot crows performing tap routines on the roof of my “donga”.

Thursday 11.00am - Caiguna

“Whoa black betty (bam-ba-lam), whoa black betty (bam-ba-lam)…. oooh shit”. The black line before me is actually moving… a living moving pissed-off enormous black snake. I did that thing I do where I try to dodge it (and therefore not kill it) by driving straight over the top. Problem is, my car is about two and a half metres wide and the snake was at least three. I returned to check if she was dead, but “Black Betty’ had left the road, presumably to die. That or she was curled up under my car.

Thursday 12.01pm - somewhere between Caiguna and Madura

 “Pure massacre… pure massacre…” in deep song when suddenly, there in my side mirror (for my rear mirror is of little use) is a turquoise coloured old Ford halfway up my little red Suzuki butt. He pulls right and accelerates past; he’s a creepy mongrel with a big bushy grey beard with deadly spiders living in it for sure, and he has long matted pube hair. My heart skips a beat and I think of poor Peter Falconia. Peter’s name particularly comes to mind due to the fact that about three hours before this I had also been deep in song “Take me back to your house, your house, your house” when there, beside me in the opposite lane, was that same turquoise coloured old ford and that same freakish Highwayman.

Thursday 1.57pm - Madura

I stop for fuel and food and this time I’m not singing “Take me back to your house, your house, your house”. But still right there next to me is that turquoise coloured old Ford. And the freakish Highwayman standing right next to it, shaking his head. “What the f#ck do you think you’re doing? That’s twice I’ve gone round you and twice you’ve tried to crowd me off the road”. “What’s your f#cking problem”? Well after not properly communicating with anyone except my stereo for almost four days I was slightly dumbfounded. Yes I had noticed my car was veering across the road a bit, but no, with all that time to think about it I hadn’t thought about much at all. I certainly had not “crowded” him off the road. I had not crossed that centre line once though I will admit he had given me a fright on both occasions when his ghoulish blue beaten up old Ford had appeared out of nowhere. He continues to glower at me and I put my head down and mutter something about my steering not being quite right. “That f#cking car shouldn’t be on the highway if the steerings f#cked”. Then a little voice from within says “Well how fast were you going, you came up behind me out of nowhere”? He continued cursing and carrying-on. The Grey Nomads all kept quiet and kept their heads down so I sort shelter in the service station. 15 minutes later and he still hadn’t left, so I snuck out to the car, locked all the doors, and hesitantly launched myself back onto the highway. But it’s not until I arrived at Mundrabilla that the obvious was suddenly apparent.

Thursday 3.58pm - Mundrabilla

I say to the guy behind the counter at the service station: “I suppose it’s always this windy here”. He says that it’s worse than usual at the moment that it only ever stops when the wind changes direction. He says this with a glint in his eye, but I still can’t tell if he’s pulling my leg. I drive off but pull up a little further down the road to take a photo. The Suzuki is rocking. I look around and for the first time really notice the sparse trees which lean 45 degrees to the north here, and for good reason. I may have said my cars got a problem with the steering, causing it to veer to the left, but the truth is if I were heading west it would be veering to the right. The Suzuki weighs less than a tonne and is one of the least aerodynamic vehicles around. That Southern Ocean wind shear was so strong that it was blowing me across the road.