“That’s not a knife, this
is a knife,” are the words going through my mind at I look upon a large
fighting knife hanging on the wall behind the bar at the Walkabout Creek Hotel
in McKinlay. Sheathed with a belt that has the name “Crocodile Dundee,” written
into the belt, I’m sitting at the famous bar that was the location for
shooting, “27-years ago today,” barks out the bar tender. This is the site of
our mid-day stop after an impressive morning flight from Cloncurry to start leg
two.
McKinlay is an impressive landing point as Mother Nature is
going to grind us through the ringer for the next week. The slight headwinds
that we were battling on our way from Townsville to Cloncurry have changed
direction 180-degrees and strengthened. The challenges of leg one will turn
into battles for leg two. Taking shelter from the stifling mid-day heat at the
Walkabout Creek Hotel, a beer at the bar that Dundee used to call his office
was not only refreshing, but completely called for. The bar is wonderfully
decorated with pictures from filming, complete with a massive crocodile having
beers on the porch next to crew members, and lots of paraphernalia not only
from filming, but militaria (caps, badges, insignia, uniforms) boomerangs, traps,
and newspaper clippings from mammoth floods and weather. On the side is the
pool room, complete with the “Never Never Safari Tours” sign board. What a cool
place to spend the mid-day halt, as Glenn and Mark chat up the owner about the
movie, the local economy and employment. Most ranches and stations are losing
all their young workers to the money and easy careers of the cities, while
mining is taking over as the primary resource over farming.
The visit is too short, and we’re back out in the heat, and
the pilots back into the air, pushing on towards Kynuna. Craig and I motor over
the barren landscape, the road long and flat, we chug along just behind the “jellyfish”
so as not to lose them. Not that we could, the land is so flat that you can see
the curvature of the earth, and even after a 15-minute rest stop, the paramotor
wings are still quite visible just above the horizon. The heat of the day is
ruining the refreshing shower I finally got back in Cloncurry, the first since
Townsville.
The pilots battle on in the headwinds, and the sun is
starting the shoot for the horizon as we pass a sign saying we’re ten
kilometres from the village of Kynuna. The sun is down, and darkness is setting
in as we enter the tiny village with a strange name. However, we notice that
Glenn is losing altitude just as we are approaching the local bar, the Blue
Heeler, with a bright neon sign blazing on the roof. Every time we come to a
town this size, the bar is almost always entirely empty, except for the odd
rugged sun baked local needing his after work beer. However, the Blue Heeler
has four people sitting on the porch sipping at their cold beers as Glenn comes
swooping into the parking lot just in front, shouting out, “Do you have a beer
ready for me” just before his feet hit the ground. The patrons are beside
themselves as Glenn comes to stop. We arrive just as he and Mark are getting
bombarded with questions, “Where the hell did you come from mate?” and “Know I’ve
seen everything,” uttered from the porch. The bars owner has a beer in Glenn’s
hands even before I get to the scene, and is asking me what I want as I step up
onto the porch. A XXXX bitter is in my hands in seconds, as Glenns spectacular
landing sparks off great conversation and stories, ten strangers coming
together and sharing a great night of fun and beers. 
The owner even offers us a plot at the caravan park in the
back to stay the night, and some wild pig meat for our freezer. Needing to be
up early, we take the camper to the park in the back, and thankfully, showers
are also on the premises. However, the insects here are insane, a bright light
on the restrooms pull the majority away from us, but we are still swarmed with
hundreds of thousands of flying beetles, mosquitoes, and all manner of other
creature. We’re eaten alive as we eat our dinner, the clear night sky is
offering up a spectacular star gazing experience, but the mass of bugs forces
us to the sanctuary of bed. I notice that the sink just beneath the light is
filing with the dead insects as they fight for the light, a good ten
centimetres thick at the bottom of the sink and climbing. A fresh shower before
I turn in, I try to kill as many Mossies that make it into the trailer on my
return; however, there’s literally thousands of other insects flying around, camouflaging
the blood suckers. My fight futile, I jump into bed, my skin crawling with a
mass of little legs, I pull a sheet over my head to keep them from going in my
eyes, nose and mouth.
The night is a disturbing one, with very little sleep, my
arms and ankles raw from hundreds of bits from the Mossies and No-see’ems. It
was a great day, but
No comments:
Post a Comment