Kimberley 4 Hire-car

Two men in grey QANTAS t-shirts are talking to Renee about the 4WD camper they’re here to pick up.

‘It’s the black Hummer’ she says
The large ebony vehicle glinting in the sunlight and packed full of camping gear stares back at the three of us. Denis and Steve exchange looks. we were expecting a white Toyota Land Cruiser. ‘It’s not what I was expecting’ I mumble.

‘There’s two six person tents there’ continues Renee. My heartbeat starts to pick up. Not from excitement. Fuck. They’ve supplied enough tents to house a small army but none of the creature comforts illustrated on their website. Andrea will spew.
'I’m happy to go to Broome as long as it’s not a bloody boot camp.’ Her words ring in my ears.

‘It’s brand new’ calls her offsider from inside the shed.
‘Don’t know why they bought a black one. Everyone knows they show every scratch.’
I wonder if Renee is trying to be helpful. She doesn’t seem like the nasty type.
‘Stupid colour’ confirms Tim the sidekick.

‘There’s been a change of owner in Brisbane’ she tells us. ‘It’s a mess. Tthey’ve been moving cars all round the country to cover their bookings.’

‘Some of 'em on backs of trucks’ chips in Tim. ‘This one came up from Perth couple a days ago.'

'But it’s not what we ordered’ I say with a little more intent.

‘It’s almost new’ repeats Tim. ‘You’re bloody lucky. You should se some of the cars this lot send us. Useless.’

We don’t have a lot of options. The girls are at the supermarket getting supplies ready to load up the 'land cruiser' they’re expecting. We follow Renee into the office and dutifully ask a few questions about insurance and conditions of hire while resignedly initialling every page of a document which would do justice to a legal firm arranging a lease on Kirribilly House. Every black scratch is listed on the condition report.

‘The tents are on the roof ‘ Tim tells us. ‘and four stretchers, four chairs, a table’
Everything is big. Feels like were moving house.

‘The tents are those new ones’ Renee says, excitement in her voice. ‘The poles just pop into shape as you set them up. Clickety click.’ She adds.

In the boot is a giant esky and four more of everything contained in four large plastic crates. Other stuff is spilling over into the back seat. It’s chock-a-block.

We get a call from the girls. ‘Pick us up from Coles. We’re almost done.’
I look at Denis. He looks at me. We both raise our eyebrows thinking the same thing. There’s no room for food, let alone our travelling gear sitting on the veranda back at Moonlight Bay.

‘One thing' says Tim. ‘Don’t on any account leave your keys in the car and then close the doors.’ He pauses. we wait for the punchline.
‘The Hummer automatically locks you out. Some kind of security system’ he says with gravity. ‘I’ve done it once already. Lucky I had the window down. Last renter lost the spare key.’ He explains. Denis ands I exchange raised eyebrows a second time from opposite sides of the bonnet.

Tim demonstrates how the auxiliary battery works and gives us instructions about when and how to use it. The charge light flicks on and off. Tim swears, gets it to work long enough to convince us it'll be okay and closes the boot door. It never works properly again.

‘When you get back, tell us how this thing works.’ says Tim casually indicating the multitude of dials and knobs on the dashboard. 'It's automatic' he says proudly stating the bloddy obvious. By now Denis and my eyebrows are just jumping up and down, twitching in disbelief. Shit. Andrea is going to spew. She hates surprises.

‘Call us if you need anything.’ says Tim as if he cares. We climb into the black cabin with its dark tinted windows and its bullet proof metal frame and inspect the array of options facing us. Feeling like a pair of Hummer virgins we carefully reverse from the storage shed intent on avoiding the embarrassment of having our first accident in the carpark.
Shit, it’s a big monster.
.
‘But you’ll need to call Brisbane if anything goes wrong’ calls Renee as a parting reassurance.

Kimberley 3 Idiots

It’s early afternoon. The phone at the Broome QANTAS Service Desk rings out. Pauline calls Perth. There’s been a delay. Bad weather. The plane should be in around 2pm.

At 2:40 Pauline phones the Service Desk. We’ve starting to get jittery about a second night in our gray issue PJs. They answer.

‘There’s been a mix-up’ says the sleepy voice, slowed by the afternoon tropical warmth. ‘Apparently your bags were left in Brisbane.’

Pauline explodes. She gives them a serve. We’re cheering in the background. ‘I can’t believe that QANTAS, the national carrier, could be so incompetent etc etc’

‘Hang on’ says the now alert voice. ‘No. No.’ a voice in the background is giving an excited commentary. ‘I’ve just been told they’re here. Yes. Right behind me.’

The rest of us garner this information from the roll of Pauline’s eyes and her wild sign language.
‘They were there all the time, the idiots.’

Silence from Pauline. Silence from the Service Desk. It’s not a stalemate. It’s a rare I’m speechless moment from Pauline and an I can’t think of what to say next from sleepy voice. It appears that QANTAS has also outsourced intelligence.

We all get dressed in our gray QANTAS gear to greet the arrival of our luggage. Steve goes into role. Pulls his shorties up under his armpits, stumbles down the stairs like a drunk and greets the cab driver and the neighbourhood in a too loud voice. ‘Hello everybody.’ He bounces forward pushing the others out of the way, sticks his head through the open passenger window and asks: ‘Have these come all the way from Brisbane?’ And he recites the inaccurate list of identification numbers checking off each bag in turn. ‘I can help if you like?’ Steve has had a sudden relapse into his former life as a clown.

The staff at the check-in desk of the apartment complex don’t seem to share our sense of humour.

Kimberley 2 Luggage

The bags for our party of four have been delayed in Perth. They’ve put us on the connecting flight with a promise that our bags will arrive on the first flight the next day.

‘About nine o’clock tomorrow morning’ they call after us as we run across the tarmac towards the impatient plane, its engines roaring at us.

At Broome there is a line up of forlorn Brisbane travellers at the service desk. The attendant gives us the impression that this is not an unusual occurrence. He fishes four overnight packs for stranded passengers from a giant cardboard box sitting behind him on the floor. The Brisbane contingent will spend the night in one size fits all QANTAS issue shortie pyjamas.

‘What does your luggage look like?’ The attendant yawns us towards a large poster on the wall with depictions of typical traveller’s bags. They are all coded.

‘Isn’t it all marked and listed in your paperwork?’ Andrea has some expectation that there will be a sophisticated system to this obviously oft repeated event.

We gaze stupidly at the poster.
22A is a duffle type bag; 24 is a medium sized bag with wheels; 25 is a backpack.
‘Ours is a backpack with wheels’ we tell him.
‘Choose the closest match’ he says.

He reads back his inaccurate list: ‘one 22A, one 24, one 25A (small) and one 25B (large).’

‘And a tent in a small bag’ I add. ‘sort of fawn. Khaki.’
‘Two tone’ chips in Denis ‘orange and brown’
‘Makes khaki. If you mix them.’ I laugh at my joke.

He looks at us curiously.

‘And they’re all in the name Peel.’
‘But we’re not all Peels.’
We give him our actual names.
We turn to go, then remember ‘Oh, and when you send them to our accommodation at Moonlight Bay the booking is in the name Lynch.

We leave. It’s a balmy night. You can feel a slight chill in the sea air. June in Broome.

A taxi takes us to our apartment. The driver doesn’t bother to offer to help us with our luggage. It’s 8:30 pm. After nine hours on the road we rip open our QANTAS packs and queue for the shower with our baby tubes of toothpaste and our single shower sachets of shampoo.

Our first experience of Broome is a ten minute walk into what we imagine is the centre of the town. Chinatown, on the waterfront. We can’t quite get our bearings. We pass a noisy cluster of corrugated iron buildings on our way. It’s the only sign of life. Chinatown is dark and largely deserted with no sign of water. It doesn’t feel right. We were expecting the main street of a country town. This feels like a movie set. We manage to find a Thai restaurant opposite a bottle shop. The bottle shop is doing a bit of trade. We have a surprisingly good meal and the first two bottles of wine of the trip. We need them.

Back at Moonlight Bay we’re too whacked to peruse all the brochures strewn on the coffee table and elect to have a QANTAS fashion parade to celebrate our arrival. It’s a pretty ugly affair. Grey cotton elastic waisted shorts and grey t-shirts; tops and bottoms sporting the flying kangaroo in red. Australia is in big trouble if this becomes our national dress.

None of us looks good in grey. No one looks good in grey.

Kimberley 1 Two Words

It’s day two of our trip to the Kimberleys. I’m sitting here in the apartment listening to Neil Murray sing his songs of country. ‘I am your native born….

Andrea is calm now. Six hours ago her face was stone – a frown permanently etched on her usually smiling face. Two words, luggage and hire-car.

Hummer Envy 2

At One Arm Point our presence had provoked interest, at Cape Leveque we reverted to curiosity status. Our campsite was centrally located on the pathway between the East and West beaches. There was constant foot traffic past our tent and around our giant stretchers which were scattered around the Hummer (we couldn’t fit them in the tent).

Was it our strange sleeping arrangements or the Hummer which caused people to pause and stare as they passed by?

To compensate for our embarrassment each of us told our Hummer/stretcher story to whomever was unwise enough to slow their pace and make eye contact. At times we found ourselves prompting each other to tell the hapless visitors another chapter of our harrowing story only to find that we were repeating a story already told.

We had become Hummer obsessed. We were at risk of becoming Hummer bores.

‘Watch out. It’s those people from the Hummer again’ families were heard to mumble as they returned from their evening appointment with another glorious sunset.

After leaving Cape Leveque the kilometres rolled by and our Hummer phobia began to fade. Our Hummer love affair was beginning.

We mastered the complexities of the CD player, the sun roof opened on command; we learnt how to override the automatic locking mechanism (which locked everyone into the car until the driver agreed to set them free); we became mesmerised by the compass and temperature readout appearing electronically on the rear view mirror.

The boys twiddled with every button on the dashboard, constantly consulting the manual while missing vast tracts of stunning countryside. The girls in the back pretended to be dismissive of this obsession with dials and gadgets but were secretly in awe of our technical expertise

'Open the back door please'

No worries

'Turn up the airconditioning'

Easy

'There’s too much bass on the Leonard Cohen CD'

Done

'Can you please just watch where you’re driving and stop fiddling.'

Sorry can’t help ourselves.

The envy we created was subtle but palpable. Our black Mariah entering campgrounds turned heads, drew stares, created division. Some approached, others avoided us.

‘Great to see a Hummer doing what it was designed to do’ said a fellow camper as he circumnavigated the beast inspecting tyres, ground clearance, towing points and remarking on the absence of a bull bar, a serious oversight in his opinion.

They were designed for desert warfare I’d say without any information to back up my claim. Iraq I’d add. There’s no country they can’t conquer I’d observe without irony.

We were challenging the 4WD paradigm. The Toyota Land Cruiser hegemony was under threat.

In the bush there is a clear hierarchy. At the top sits the Land Cruiser – the more battered and dirty the higher the status. The Land Rovers and Nissans come a close second but clearly in the minority. Then come the also rans – the Mitsubishis and a range of baby Toyotas, Mazdas, Holdens and 4WD campers.

But we were the only Hummer. In the whole of the Kimberley. We were the one black mean machine driven by a team so inexperienced that it wasn’t until the Pentecost River, 1500 klms into the trip that we figured how to use the 4WD mode - and then only because we were faced with a 100 metre stretch of deep water. We furiously read the manual as we watched Land Cruisers and 4WD buses inch their way across the boulder strewn riverbed with water up to their doors.

We may have been able to make this crossing in standard 4WD but conversations overheard between blokes in campgrounds convinced us that we needed to be cautious and engage low low low 4WD mode.

‘Let the engine do the work’ a friendly camper had advised us, sensing our inexperience.
‘Know where your wheels are’ said another overweight bloke who looked like he’d spent his life in a mechanics shed on a cattle property and had retired to his camping chair never to move from it again except to get another stubby from the fridge.

The Hummer was an automatic. We sat there engine running all set to go. We had a choice three buttons. We pushed the ‘low 4WD’ knob. It blinked at us and automatically returned to the standard 4WD setting. Bugger. We punched the ‘high 4WD’ button. It flashed and engaged. We were out of standard but our camp advisors had emphasised that ‘low’ was the only option in this situation.

Shit.

'Where’s the manual' said Denis. I found the page and read aloud.

‘To select low 4WD the car must be at a standstill’.

Check.

‘Place the auto shifter in the neutral position’.

We were in ‘park’.

Denis shifted to neutral. I hit the ‘low 4WD’ button. The light flashed beside the correct button and held.

We were ready. We were mentally prepared. Select low, handbrake off and let the engine do the work - use the accelerator sparingly. We glided slowly into the brown water and watched it rise to door level around us. We entered the water smoothly, our foot off the accelerator and slowly came to a halt.

Denis was driving. I was shitting myself. The girls were a little nervous but oblivious to our ineptitude. The river surrounded us and stretched before us.

After what seemed like an eternity, of TV images of cars being swept off river crossings into foaming torrents, of me swimming for help through croc infested waters, Denis and I realised that we were still in neutral. Not only that but two Toyotas (our arch enemy) had followed us into the water and were lined up behind us.

‘Oops’ said Denis.

‘Better put it in gear’

‘Well done boys’ chorused the girls from the back.

After 1500 kilometres of knob twiddling and manual perusing we had failed our first major test. And there were witnesses to this moment of Hummer humiliation.

Two days later on a two hour walk into the beautiful Emma Gorge a man and his son passed us on the track returning from their early morning trek.

‘Dad, isn’t that the man….’

‘Yes son, It’s the man from the Hummer’ said his father shepherding him protectively to the side of the path. As we walked on we could see the young boy looking over his shoulder unable to let go of the image of the Hummer man and his Hummer mates. On his face he had a quizzical look. Part admiration, part confusion. I had the feeling that he knew there must be more to this story than was evident.

I have no doubt that in many a Kimberley journal, alongside the notes about the grandeur of the Mitchell Falls, the cave paintings of the Wandjina figures and the magic of sunsets over the Bungle Bungles there are small but memorable notes in the margins:

‘saw the Hummer man again today’.

Hummer Envy 1

I’ve not often been the object of envy.

I have experienced envy on the other hand. In my case this is usually triggered by the twin themes of wealth and talent: the owners of impossibly expensive houses perched on headlands overlooking rolling surf and secluded beaches; international travellers who journey to exotic destinations without a second thought; artists who are gifted beyond what seems fair, who toss off inspired canvasses one after the other while the pathetic remnants of my many art classes languish in bottom drawers of dusty cupboards; and gifted athletes who are invariably endowed with both exceptional skill and exceptional good looks.

I am not an unhappy man. I understand my limitations. I have an acceptance of my lot. An ability to celebrate the moderate gifts I possess.

Hummer envy, the deep desire of others to have what I had, took me by surprise.

Four of us, two couples, were about to set out on our long planned journey across the remote north west of Australia. The Kimberley.

We had arranged to hire a 4WD to be picked up in Broome on our arrival. We had booked it five months in advance. On arrival we were surprised to find our booking had taken an unexpected turn. We were presented with a big ugly 4WD. A Hummer. Our initial response was one of scorn and embarrassment. Myself and my three travelling companions experienced a serious case of Hummer rage.

We had expected a simple Toyota Land Cruiser. A white or cream one, complete with double fuel tank, bull bars, a few dings and a tent on top. Instead we stood before a large black bull of a car, the sun glinting off the perfect polished duco. Instead of a bull bar it sported a shiny metal grill, silver teeth bared. There was no auxiliary fuel tank, no tent on top and no dents. It was an immaculate Middle American dream.

Every aspect of the design was square. It was full of right angles as if a curve might be too girlie for this beast. The windows were small, the wheels oversized and every window, bar the windscreen, was tinted an impenetrable smoky black.

This was our vehicle for three weeks.

Back home my wife and I shared a four cylinder Mazda and our companions were proud drivers of an old 90’s Commodore. We’d never driven a 4WD, never seen a Hummer.

Our first instinct was to hide. We feared people would laugh at us. We had images of being ostracised in camping grounds, of being the topic of whispered conversations. Our Hummer distress was palpable.

It drove well. The girls in the back remarked on the comfort of the seats, unexpected in a 4WD. They’d been expecting a plank of wood covered in foam, not contoured seats with lumbar support.

When we drove into the Aboriginal community at One Arm Point at the northern most point of the Dampier Peninsular we felt like aliens. The streets were largely deserted. In the hot afternoon dogs slept in the shade of dusty trees. The occasional local emerged from the store with an ice cream. Silver corrugated iron and ochre backyards greeted us as we glided silently into town.

Inside the Hummer, behind wound up dust proof windows, each of us wore dark sunglasses. We peered out like hit-men from the Mob or a team of FBI Agents travelling incognito. Invisible behind our tinted windows.

We had aspirations. We were intent on making contact with some local Aboriginal communities. We had delusions of self importance.

We knew that the first rule of community work was ‘maintain a low profile’. ‘Listen’. The second rule we knew was: ‘do not arrive in a large shiny black American 4WD looking like characters from Ghostbusters’ We couldn’t exactly hide this monster. We were snookered.

Resigned to our fate we purchased a $40 fuel card from the store and motored across the road to the gas station. The two boys jumped down from the Hummer running board (it took two of us to complete most Hummer activities – one to open the fuel tank, one to operate the pump; one to drive, one to read the manual).

The gas station could have been out of a scene from a John Wayne movie. Everything was rusty or rust coloured. Every surface had taken a beating. Our brilliant black limo stood out like proverbial dogs balls. The bloody thing was so shiny it seemed to repel dirt and dust. We couldn’t even claim off-road cred. Heads down we went about our business.

‘How long you had that Hummer?’

A young bloke filling his battered Toyota Hilux on the other side of the bowser was talking to us.

‘My son wants me to buy im one of those’ said a second black voice as he emerged from the mechanics shed. ‘He seen em on TV’

‘How much that Hummer cost you?’ said the first.

I made up a figure.

‘More like sixty thousand.’ said the second.

I discovered later that he was pretty spot on.

The Hummer was working its own miracle. We’d suddenly gone from aliens to celebrities. The Hummer had suddenly become our ally. A point of connection at petrol bowsers. At the rate the Hummer was chewing up petrol it’d have quite a few opportunities in the next 3000 kilometres to work its magic. Things were looking up.

Back at the camp-site however, things were a bit different.

Broome to Broome

Back from Broome via Kunnunurra and the Gibb River Road.

For those not familiar with that part of the world we're talking about the remote north west of Australia between the Northern Territory border and the pearl coastline of the Dampier Peninsular.
The Broome area has a long history of many cultures working within the pearling industry. Japanese, English, Indonesian and Indigenous communities all worked side by side, not always harmoniously.




Gibb River Road (Denis and I and the Hummer)
We spent 3 days at Cape Leveque, 200 Km north of Broome (about which there is a story coming featuring camping disasters, long distance phonecalls and enforced sleeping under the stars) before returning to Broome for our big trek along the Gibb River Road and back.

The Gibb River Road is 600 kms of dirt road though stony spinifex plains interrupted by occasional ranges and massive river systems, most of which are dry at this time of year. We took the challenge in our rented Hummer - another story in the pipeline.


Cape Leveque (East Beach looking west)

Four of us on a 21 day epic of camping, dust, stunning gorges and swimming holes (Manning River story to come), indigenous communities, did I mention red dust, vast landscapes, inspiring optimism and hundreds of fellow 4WD adventurers - and lots of exciting indigenous art pieces, two of which came home with us.

I could give a running commentary in retrospect? On second thoughts maybe just the three main stories and some commentary on some great photos (if i do say myself).

And so back to work. Yawn.

Wandjina Gorge (and freshwater friend)