Desperately Seeking Something

(continued from Let's Go Outback Tonight)

The main road from Adelaide to Port Augusta was about what I expected--lots of shrubs, a few gum trees and farmhouses, and the occasional passing truck. It was when we turned north onto Port Germein Gorge Road and started snaking into a mountainous wilderness that I started to appreciate why Jo was hesitant about this ride. Every five miles or so we came upon a stray goat or a wasted woodshed. But no signs, no power lines, no proof of human life. And we still had three hours of driving to go. Deeper and farther into the land of Nil.

We reached Melrose and decided to press on west toward Quorn. By the time we got there, the long ride was wearing Jo down physically and the isolation was doing me in psychologically. Staring at the strip of highway that gradually narrowed but never disappeared began to hypnotize me. Across my periphery, blue skies reflected weird prisms of light off the land, and all I could think of was one word--Para. . . Chil. . . Na. it was Mecca, Medina, the Holy Grail, the Copacabana. It was the oasis of hope and humanity that would reward us at the finish line of our foolish marathon on borrowed wheels.

Jo was none too impressed with my notion of a Pot of Gold Watering Hole, but she wanted to let me exhaust my curiosity once and for all. “I just can’t wait to get there and hang out with a couple of bearded, bath-dodging, two-toothed serial killers. It’s gonna be awesome,” she scoffed. I would see that Australians don’t go Outback because THERE’S NOTHING THERE.

The guidebooks had differing statistics on the population of Parachilna. One said seven. The other said five. Not five thousand, or even five hundred. Five like the fingers. I was convinced that these were five party planners, so Jo and I made a bet as to how many people, including management, would be waiting for us at the Parachilna Pub. The over/under was ten. If you go half an hour past Parachilna, the paved road ends. And the gravel driveway to hell begins.


As it turned out, the last leg of our pilgrimage, a two-hour haul out past Wilpena Pound to the end of the Ranges, was more fantastic than I could have imagined. Beautiful vistas opened up as spiny barren mountains rose up to the left and the right. The lonesome two-lane highway dipped and wound gradually through dry riverbeds, sloping mountain passes, and open ranges. I would have let the engine roar and peel the highway ribbon away if it hadn’t been so late in the day. We had been well warned about the likelihood and danger of kangaroos darting out from behind roadside shrubbery around dusk.

One guy told me a story about his uncle, who had a kangaroo collision out here while driving a big flat-front tractor-trailer. The roo bounded into the passenger side of the king cab and crashed through the window as the driver hit the brakes and started to skid. As he clung to the wheel, trying to keep the truck right side up, the crazed roo kicked him mercilessly in the ribs. When the medics arrived, they found the walls of the cab covered with blood and both the roo and the uncle sprawled unconscious across the seat.

I drove carefully, inspecting the right side of the road while Jo watched the left. We passed a couple of wandering emus and a few crows, but never did a kangaroo come into sight. After a while, the big rocks by the road started to look like loaves of bread and then they started to wiggle. Trust me. Jo saw it too. Finally, with just minutes to go before the sun dipped beneath the westernmost edge of the visible sky, we saw our sign--”Parachilna: 5km.”

We rolled into a place that was everything I had imagined. . . snug accommodations, friendly innkeepers, a gourmet feast, and a cheery pub crowd of over twenty travellers just as crazy as me. If Australia is proof that there is life on Mars, then Parachilna proves there is life on its moon.

Why had we all pushed so hard to go so far just to make sure there actually was nothing in the middle of nowhere? For the same reason people meditate and medicate themselves silly to try and rid themselves of the cluttered frustrations and distractions of everyday life. It’s then that you can enjoy the experience of completely unpredictable thoughts and feelings.

And once upon a Parachilna, when you do come upon something to look at or someone to talk to, you are fully present to appreciate and engage them. The Outback is not something to see. It’s something to get lost in.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Icicle Ride)