To Broome

It was a long day today. I got up reasonably early and got through those water crossings. No dramas this time. The long one was a bit hairy but the little one I stuffed up last time was easy second time around. I turned off to Emma Gorge but came to another water crossing. By this stage I was done with water crossings so I turned around.

I had another luggage malfunction. One of the red bags strapped to my pannier half fell off. I must be getting a bit lazy with my packing.

Not much of note on the ride, except I saw a tornado. I kept hitting willy willies. I hit two that I couldn't see and avoided one that I could see because it had sucked up a heap of leaves. The wind was coming from the left and when I hit them it was suddenly coming from the right for a split second then the left again. It happens so quick that I don't even have time to panic. The first one today threw me towards the other lane and I had to hang a leg out to avoid an oncoming campervan.

I was thinking that if I'd encountered three willy willies on the road there must heaps of them all around. So I started looking for them. Sure enough off in the distance I could see a column of dust rising maybe 100 metres. It was really faint. It looked like a small fire about a kilometre away, but the smoke was really narrow and rising at an angle. The road actually swung around towards it and by the time I got there it had dissipated and left a little cloud of dust swirling up in the sky.

I also encountered a couple of kangaroos standing right in the middle of the road. The idiots just stared at me until I got right up to them and shouted at them to get off the effing road.

I came out of El Questro and have made it to Hall's Creek. It felt like I came a long way but it isn't even 400km. The main street of Hall's Creek looks kinda cool. There were groups of people sitting in the median strip doing very little and there is an awful lot of barbed wire atop all the fences. I was going to stay the other side of town but a sign on the way in said the town has free WiFi. It doesn't.

I'm at the caravan park. It's pretty dusty and there are cats eyes every where. They are these burr things with 4 spikes positioned so one is always pointing up. I don't even know what plant produces them, but it is definitely an arsehole. I didn't realise this when setting up my tent so I didn't lay down the tarp. I've had to put the tarp inside the tent so the burrs don't pierce through the bottom and puncture my mattress.
...

So when the sun goes down Hall's Creek becomes a hellish warzone. I was warned to lock up all my stuff. I have no way to do that so instead I have put everything in my tent and pushed my bike so it is just in front of the tent flap.

Outside the confines of what I now call the green zone (the caravan park) dogs are barking in every direction, people are screaming and sirens are blaring. Incursions into the green zone are expected throughout the night. Apparently the police placed infra-red cameras throughout the green zone but special operators attached to the insurgency stole them all. No doubt they will turn these back on the police. Probably as projectiles.

I realise now that the cats eyes that litter the park were probably placed here intentionally. The great unwashed hordes at the gates don't wear shoes. A simple defense that I hope is effective. If they do penetrate through the cats eye field I have my tomahawk and my breaker bar. My only worry is that the nightstalkers' powers of thievery are strong enough to telekinetically remove my weapons and levitate them to their getaway bmx.

Like most wars, this one is politically motivated. A segment of the Hell's Creek community are avid communists. They believe in a style of communism where redistribution of wealth is informally carried out at the discretion of the beneficiaries. They enforce this ideology on the rest of the populace against their will.

I must go now and resume my watch.

The night is dark and full of terrors.
...

I have awoken this morning and am pleasantly surprised to find that I am not dead.

The screaming and sirens continued right through to morning, accompanied by loud bangs. I believe this was the sound of infra red cameras impacting with police cars. The communist party here has a direct returns policy.

Each time I was woken, guttural screaming was the cause. There was a lot of noise but consistently two words drilled through rest. "White dog, white dog, white dog!"

Judging by the barking there was more than one white dog out there. I don't know what breed they could be. Whenever I think of a white dog I think of Jon Snows direwolf, Ghost. If he was out there it would explain the screaming and I expect the roads to be littered with body parts. But direwolves don't bark.

Whatever the breed, these white dogs occupied so much of the communists' time that we here in the green zone remained relatively safe. The White Dogs are the Heroes of Hell's Creek. The police should look into enlisting some white dogs.

Today I'm going to slowly pack up and make my way to Fitzroy Crossing. I suspect it is also under the influence of the communist infection so I'll try to camp somewhere free of both oppression and camping fees.

But first I have to escape through Hell's Creek.

May White Dogs watch over me.
...

I escaped from Hell's Creek successfully and made for Fitzroy Crossing. The ride was long and boring. I saw heaps more little tornadoes. Went through another 2 willy willies. Ran out of fuel and filled up from the jerry can. Got about the same range as when my reserve wasn't working. But it was a head wind all day.

Fitzroy Crossing looked way worse than Hell's Creek. There was indeed a crossing. A couple of single lane bridges over an almost dried river. The place looks run down and horrible. I stopped for fuel, bought some lamb chops and got out of there. I ended up going another 140km or so and am stopped at a rest area with an enormous boab tree.

Some backpackers pulled up and one of them invited me over to play cards. They are a mix of various Europeans. One French, two Swiss, a Brit, and a Dutchie. They're heading to Broome then some are splitting off while others are continuing down to Perth, so I'll probably see them along the way, although they seem to be doing more km a day than me.

Should be back in the net tomorrow.
...

I'm in Broome. Halfway mark I reckon. Everywhere in Broome is super expensive. Except this place. It is a backpacker camp. It looks as though it is on an abandoned industrial block, but it has showers and a kitchen and everything. There is hardly any shade so all the tents are clustered around the few trees. I'm jammed in with another 5 or 6 tents in the space a caravan would take up.

It is basically a hostel but in tents. Back in the good old days we created Camp Chaos at Point Plomer. This place is approaching that level of chaos. Camp Chaos had a gazebo that the wind had flipped upside down onto the roof of another gazebo, and quite frankly that is hard to beat.

True to form, however, I heard a big kerfuffle at the entrance earlier and saw that one of the campers was arguing with the police. I later found out that the police were accusing him of stealing a crocodile from the wildlife park. I'm so disappointed if he is innocent. I hope he busts out a crocodile later. I don't know why you would steal one, there are shit loads of them out there for the taking.