the shrieking woman

So we decided to high-tail it quite quickly across the Kimberley’s.

This is a place where you need to have mad 4WD skillz, heaps of time and a bit of cash for the tours and flights so you can see it at it’s best.

None of these we have.

So rather than waste time pining over what we don’t have, we figured we’d come back here someday when we can do it properly. And as such, we’ve driven almost over a thousand kilometres in just a few days to get to the Northern Territory.

You can’t drive without a few days rest now and then and every state border has a fruit fly quarantine so we pulled up at Kununurra for 2 nights, to recoup and eat vegetables. Kununurra is couple hundred kilometres west of the Northern Territory border.

The general routine when we pull into a caravan park is that I wait in the car while Husband man goes to organise a site and make payments. And there was quite a long line of caravans as we pulled up. As they slowly got placed, about 15 minutes later, I had inched our rig to the front of the line right outside the office door, waiting for husband man to step out.

It was here that I encountered the amazing Shrieking Woman.

It was about 32 degrees, a dry heat and smack bang in the middle of the day. So after pulling the van up to the office entrance, I opened the car door, stood up and leaned against the seat to get blood flowing to the legs and some fresh air after 400kms stuck in the car. Husband man was still inside the office arranging a site for us. I kind of stared blankly at the office door.

Pulling me out of my day dream with a jolt comes a woman – bursting out of the office. She makes a bee-line toward me, shouting all the way. I can hardly understand a word she is saying because her shouty is in some high-pitched frequency that only dogs could hear I was assuming she could not possibly be directing that kind of shouty at me.

When I realise she is getting closer to me and looking me in the eye – I start to try to understand what she is shrieking at.

“You’re not going any further right now” she shrieks.

I kind of stare blankly at her and then I figure that because of all the people lined up, the must have run out of sites so I’ll have to reverse out and we’ll head off to another caravan park. And before I can properly finish that thought, she’s shouting:

“You’ll just have to stay there”.

“Um, okay” I reply, staring at her blankly.

It’s about now that I am at a loss as to why this woman is shouting at me, it’s not like I knew they would be all booked out or anything. Meanwhile, where in the fark is my Husband man.

My apparent lack of anxiety toward the situation must have unsettled her, because she went from shouty into shrieking as she was saying:

“You’re going to have to stay there, you’ve got a flat”.

I am still standing there with a lack of bother, which was obviously the incorrect response.

“A flat!!!!!” she was shreaking. And waving her hands about the air. All very hot and bothersome.

So, as I understood it now, we were not refused entry, but we had a flat tyre on the caravan. Still, I wasn’t phased. Surely if one has a flat tyre, one changes their flat tyre and there is not need for incessant shrieking about it.

So I said – “Oh, okay. Well we’ll just put the spare on”.

Cause, duh, that’s why we have a spare tyre is it not?

“You’re going to have to stay right there and change that flat” she shrieked “You can’t park a caravan like that”.

“OK, no worries” was all I could be bothered to muster up. And finally, finally, Husband man walks out of the office. He walks over to me and I tell him that we need to change the tyre before we go to our site because the Shrieking Woman over there insists. He asks who the Shrieking Woman is.

Shrieking Woman begins shrieking the same things at Husband man, so I need not further explain.

And so this is the my first EVER encounter with having to change a tyre in my 12+ years of driving.

Once Husband man had safely got away from the Shrieking Woman, he asked me where the jack is. I frown and say – “well what the fuck is a jack?”

Good start.

A jack, for all you would be tyre changing experts out there, is a metal implement that makes the vehicle rise off the ground in order to give you space to remove the failed tyre.

I vaguely remember Husband man’s brother showing us the location of said item and we dig it out. However, it’s some sort of special Hilux one for new Hilux’s and not for vintage caravans. It won’t work so we need a vintage jack for Van Morrison. We don’t have this item.

Now, yes, I am sure the helpy smurf in you is, right about now saying to yourself, that you wouldn’t travel for 20,000 kilometres around Australia without a jack for your caravan. And to that I say - well we got the last 12,000 kilometres without needing it.

So whatevs.

Husband man had to go back to the office to ask if they had a jack we could borrow. Having already infuriated me with her shouty hoo haa about the discovery of the flat – there was no way I could go and ask this woman myself.

As it was, I could hear the conversation from where I was.

Husband man “Do you have a jack we could borrow for the caravan?”

Shrieking Woman “YOU DON'T HAVE A JACK FOR YOUR CARAVAN!!!”

Husband man (far too polite) “No, can we please borrow one?”

Shrieking Woman “You mean YOU DON’T have a jack for your CARAVAN!”

Not only is she shouty, she’s captain obvious as well.

After a few more times of the same rhetorical question, she proceeds to witch cackle and tell Husband man that we are “not very experienced travellers” with an upward inflection, as though is a question. He kind of laughed politely because he is far too nice a person.

But see, now was where Shrieking Woman really came into her own.

She promptly walked out of the office, shouted something in my direction about driving without jacks and then proceeded to shouty her way around the caravan park, shrieking:

“Do you have a jack we can borrow? These people have a flat tyre on their van and no jack – can you imagine it, ha ha ha ha”.

This went on for about another 10 minutes.

Thankfully, a very kind and handy man had heard her shouty from somewhere within the park and appeared to rescue us. He was your regular maintenance guy and while Husband man was shifting his feet, looking at the tyre, willing it to change itself – maintenance guy got on the ground and got to work.

The tyre was completely shredded. We had remembered, some 100kms before getting there, the caravan feeling like it had lifted in the air as we drove. We’d stopped, checked for flats and damage and found nothing. So we drove on.

Then we had arrived with not just a flat, but a tyre shredded right through the tread and the metal rim resting on the limp rubber across the ground. It had also somehow completely destroyed the mud-guard connecting to inside the caravan, to the cupboard where we kept the canned stuff, so theres a few tins of baked beans strewn in our wake.

We were actually rather lucky to have arrived without running ourselves off the road or the sparks flying off into the van and setting it alight.

So my advice is, don’t be scooting around the country without a jack that works for your caravan, as this type of behaviour causes spontaneous anxious shrieking from complete strangers.

In any case, the tyre is changed and we got a new one before we left town for the other wheel and a new spare. I never had to see the Shrieking Woman again and thankfully our site was far enough away from the office that I didn’t have to hear her either.

And we now find ourselves safely in the Northern Territory, heading north toward Darwin.

Van Morrison: Don't Start Crying Now

We've spent the last week travelling the Coral Coast. The name gives away what you'd expect from a place like this.
Now, I'm not really in a position to start whining - given I am indeed surrounded by turquoise waters and the beauty of what lies in coral - but I am feeling a little sorry for myself.


At Denham, a lovely little seaside town that was hosting their annual fishing festival while we were there, I had myself a little encounter with a big old serrated steak knife.


I cut the inside of my left index finger in a kind of deep semi-circle.
There was blood everywhere - including all over my steak.


I have an absolutely ZERO pain threshold and when I get a hurty, I am quite possibly the worst version of myself.
I have to admit to shrieking, crying, hyperventilating and remaining in a state of total convinction that no one in the history of the world has ever been in as much pain as I am.


So my chop chop in Denham was all of these things.


Coupled with the sight of about 47 litres of blood spilling out of my finger and I went into a state of panic. Somehow in all of this distress I managed to remember elevation, compression and ice-pack application to the wound before Husband man transported me to the medical centre.


And here I met Nurse Hayley.
She was really kind and really calm and really not at all understanding the limits to my pain threshold. When I wasn't blacking out from forgetting to breathe, I was, in my head, cursing this poor woman and her non-knife-hacked hands.


Hayley made the correct assumption that I "obviously haven't experienced childbirth". As though that was meant to soothe me. I spent my state of shock asking her - 
Why on earth would something like this happen to me? Why could it not happen to someone else? What did I do to deserve this?


And various other dramatics.


After some basic damage control - Hayley sent me off and told me to come back in the morning for a lookey-here and most likely the application of some stitches. The very thought of this terrified me and I was only able to sleep on account of pain medication.


So back in there the next day, Nurse Hayley begins to remove damage control bandages and was, I am sure, ripping apart what little of the wound had healed.
Husband man could here my shrieking and yelping from the waiting room.


A second nurse was called to hold my hand and try to distract me with breathing excercises.


They applied some steri-strips instead of stitches. I assume this is because they couldn't stand what I would become with the application of needles and string into my flesh.
I then went home and called my mum, my shnanny and mother-in-law for sympathies.
All were oblidging.


What fabulous timing this all was as we embarked on a week of travelling the Coral Coast and all these pristine beaches and the Ningaloo Reef.


In what was an even more awesome eventuality, the only way I could participate in water based activities was to keep my hand covered, splash resistent and out of the water. No plunging into the depths of the sea.


Here's what the beacches look like, so there was no way I was missing out.

The only available option was to carefully put on a rubber glove and then stick that to myself with electrical tape. I heard little kids that we walked pass saying 'what's wrong with that lady' and calling me a freak.

It was really just the boost that I needed.


Then once in the water I had to snorkel with my hand sticking up out of the water. Husband man was literally dragging me along the coral beds as I held on to his toe with my good hand.


And so, I braved being a freakshow at Turquoise Beach and then again at Coral Bay.


But it was all worth it because this is a place where you can just swim about 10 metres from the shore and then follow the reef right there.
You don't have to get on some boat and be taken to the reefs - you can literally just walk out to it.


If you haven't heard of the Ningaloo Reef before - it's truly stunning and worth a a big old hike to Western Australia. There are hundreds of fishies and we even saw some turtles.


What we didn't do was swim with the whale sharks - the primary worthwhile activity in Exmouth. It was for this gypsy trip just a bit too cost prohibitive (about $400 each), but we intend on coming back some day cashed up.


We're now at Broome, spending our last few days enjoying the coastline. My chop chop is healing well and will be all ready to plunge into water just as we hit the outback.


From here we travel east to Darwin through the Kimberley region, about 2,000 kilometres in around 10 days. Yikes.

Van Morrison: Gypsy In My Soul

When I last wrote, we were down the southern end of Western Australia - some two weeks ago.

We're now about 2,000 kilometres from there and half-way up the West-Australian coast at Exmouth.

We loaded up Van Morrison's storage parts with some delicious Margaret River wines, all from hazy sunny afternoon tastings.

Then we went on to spend our final night there at Losari Retreat - in a boutique spa villa farewell gifted from Husband man's workplace.
Van Morrison is the size of the balcony alone, so it was odd to be living in so much space for the night. But it was just divine with it's outdoor jacuzzi, rain shower, super king size bed and television.

On to Perth and it's surrounds.
We pulled up at Fremantle, walked the cafe lined streets, visited the city and then enjoyed an afternoon brew at the Little Creatures Brewery.

I really liked this city and I especially liked that, without knowing it, people were going to invite us to their houses.

Husband man's family friends had us over for dinner one night and then the next night we went to my friend Doni's parents place for Greek treats and dinner out.

I had never met any of these people before and their hospitality was amazing - they just invited almost strangers into their home and we all chatted as though we'd known each other for years. Best.

Just north of Perth we stayed at Quinn's Rock. Which highlighted for us AGAIN, that caravan parks sometimes have the best views around for on average $30 a night.

This seesms to be a common theme - in small towns, where somehow, the caravan park is perched on a hill, overlooking the glorious sea.
We had this again when we headed up to Denham.

So not at all bad living like a gypsy.

But its not all beaches here in Western Australia.
There's a whole heap of red dirt.
Red dirt gets in your clothes, in the van, in the bed, on the couch.
Everywhere.

There's also some brilliant gorges, which we started to discover at Kalbarri National Park on a 10km loop walk.

While at Kalbarri, we stayed at a caravan park that is exactly what i had always imagined staying at a caravan park would be like. It only took over ten thousand kilometres and about sixty days to get this feeling, but I finally got it.

The air there was all balmy with a warm breeze that was coming in the windows and bringing with it the smells of barbeque cooking and sea mist.

It was noisy until the late evening - people having conversations, beer cans opening, laughter, kids playing chasy, footsteps on gravel roads, distant waves rolling in and crickets chirping.

There was sand and dirt and eucalyptus trees and moths and dogs scattered all around.

I wish all the places we stayed were like this, because then it would feel like even more of a perpetual summer holiday.

So now we're here at Exmouth, the thing to do is swim with the whale sharks.
Unfortunately, it's rather cost prohibitive for this particular taster gypsy trip - so we'll have to do it another time.

There is however, coral reefs all along the Ningaloo reef bed - and you can snorkel right on out to them from the beach.

I approve of this kind of island living.