Hi all

So we pulled into the beautiful sleepy little town of Denmark in mid afternoon and set about finding a cheap hostel, felling we deserved a bit of comfort for the coming drunkenness. Unfortunately, peak season had just started a couple of days before so instead of 30 bucks a room it was nearer 50. Too much for us poor mortals so we went and booked into the campsite. And it was beautiful.

Right on the edge of an inlet complete with resident pelicans. It was gorgeous. So a few glasses of wine and several beers later we were ready to hit the town. After a brief discussion on how risky it’d be to drive (incredibly was the unsurprising answer despite the fact it was only about a mile or so), with a bottle of wine each in hand for the walk, we set off on foot. And made it as far as the entrance to the park. At this point a work van screeches to halt alongside us and a huge bearded face looms large from the window. ‘You fellas off to the pub?’ ‘Yep’ ‘Well hop in the back and we’ll give ya a lift’. We opened the back and were surprised to find three blokes already in there. With hearty hellos all round we crammed in and with a huge lurch off we set. Meet Russ and his gang of tree loppers. There’s Russ (obviously) who was part Aboriginal and f***in huge. Like a grizzly bear and with the biggest bushiest beard I’ve seen outside of a cartoon. His hands were about twice the size of my head. There was a guy called Chris who looked like he belonged in Linkin Park, a quiet looking dude with long curly hair called Dan who reminded me of someone that I still can’t place which drove me mad all night, a guy called John who was from Queensland and a guy called Barry (or possibly Bernie, or possibly Barney, or possibly Barbara for all I knew) who I could only understand about one word in ten of. These guys it turns out work all over WA and were staying on our campsite for a few days and specialise in getting drunk. Qaulity. But our speedy arrival at the pub left us with a slight problem. Four bottles of wine that had hardly been touched. We did our best to glug them outside the pub but only managed a bottle and a half between us. Ah well, the boys assured us that it was alright to bring your own booze in (but only after they’d stood back and watched us try and drink it all with bemused looks on their faces). Me and And opted to go for a beer instead, leaving the girls to finish off the wine. Things got off to a bad start due to the fact they’d been promised free beer by their boss who was the landlady’s brother only to find out they were only allowed one drink (‘f*** the smarmy p**** I’ll have a pint of vodka. Well that’s one drink innit?’ was Russ’s answer - several times. And I swear to God he was serious) and after they’d abused the waitress not only over that but over the entire menu. I was just beginning to think this had been a bad idea, but after they’d ordered and come to terms with the fact they weren’t going to get drunk for free (a harsh reality to accept) things brightened up considerably. The thing is, judging from what I’d seen and heard so far I was fully expecting a night of beer and bulls*** and macho b******s antics. A preconception that was swiftly done away with. These boys could chat about anything and everything. And it wasn’t just idle crap. Politics, world affairs, music, art, sport and a million other things. As well as a good dose of piss taking obviously. Chris had a degree in Fine Art which set him and Mand off for ages, with Dan chipping in with little nuggets of history. I was f***in amazed to be totally honest with you.

Mand and Kimbers went inside to play pool and were promptly joined by the greasiest looking bloke I have ever seen in my life. Complete with long curly hair and black leather jacket. We watched in a kind of horror as he sleazed on Kimbers and the tension went up a notch as he put his arm round her and Dan asked Andy if he wasn’t bothered by it. ‘Are you havin a laugh boys? Look at him for f***’s sake’ was the answer which went down a storm. Big ups all round for Andy on that one.

By now, the table of locals behind us had gotten involved in our conversations in particular a girl called Cheri. Who was an absolute hippy fruit. Complete with homespun woolen clothes, freaky ‘charm’ jewellery, and tie dye all the way. She brought the conversation round to hippy topics wherever possible. The vibrations she gets from people, that nothing ever happens by chance, how much happier she is now that she doesn’t get hung up on Western values, auras, how life is a journey, blahdy blahdy f***in blah. Now it just so happens that I agree with a lot of this kind of s*** (well, sometimes at least - other times I think it’s a load of old w***), but I don’t go on about it to complete strangers. And I certainly don’t preach to people in pubs about it. For me that’s just as bad as some God botherer trying to convert me. It annoys the piss out of me. Thankfully she picked up on this (vibration) and ended up talking almost exclusively to Andy. Sweet. But she did say two things which got my attention. The first was that she could sort us out with some weed. ‘That’s good’ I said. ‘People keep on promising to sort us out with some then we never hear from them again’. As indeed was the case with Cheri herself. Never trust a hippy. But the second thing she said got me thinking. That a friend of hers was up in Darwin and that the rains had already come. She was adamant.

Now I personally was beginning to wonder about our plan of getting up to Darwin and all the way back down to Melbourne in time for Christmas. It was fine for the other two who didn’t seem to mind the idea of zipping through the original plan cos they’re on a tight time schedule anyway. But me and Mand aren’t. We’ve got a year to spend here if we want it. And besides, although we weren’t running out of cash we’d both got the urge to settle and top up the funds a little bit, and had decided that it’d be better to do it while we wanted to rather than when we had to. Cool beans. And later on something happened that really sealed it for us.

In the meantime though a girl turned up and joined Cheri’s table who turned out to be from Guildford. I still find it strange that we can be drinking in a bar in a backwater like Denmark and find someone living there who comes from just up the road from us. It’s just such a spin out. Anyway, time was getting on by now and with Russ and the others deciding to head back, and inviting us to come along and drink their beer and smoke their weed, we felt it’d be rude to refuse. Back at he camp we headed for their cabins and set about drinking them dry. With Mand taking an unhealthy interest in Russ’s beard (‘It’s just like a fluffy bunny’) much to his bemusement and everyone else’s amusement (like watching a gazelle lick a lion), I f***ed off to the toilet. And this is where it all went Pete Tong.

By the time I’d finished my piss there was an almighty row coming from the women’s toilet. On further investigation this turned out to be Mandy and Kimbers having the mother of all arguments. To say it was loud is to say that Australia is slightly bigger than Britain. I was joined outside the door by the night porter who told me in no uncertain terms that if they didn’t shut up right now then he’d throw us the f*** off the campsite. I managed to get this message across before getting the door slammed unceremoniously in my face and the noise subsided a bit (enough to satisfy matey anyway) and me and And (who had come over to see what all the noise was about) decided to leave them to it and go back and have a joint with a couple of the boys. What they were arguing about isn’t really important but it really put the nail in the coffin as far as us all travelling together was concerned. For some reason we’d reached a point where we couldn’t all get drunk together without at least two of us arguing. Simple as that really. I think we’d managed it about twice since Vietnam.

So me and Mand decided that rather than try and drag it out what we all needed was probably some time apart. Me and her had only had maybe 6 weeks alone since we left England, and Andy and Kimbers had had maybe two weeks since he'd arrived. Add to this our differing time scales and it just made sense to go our separate ways.

Anyway, the joint turned out to be the nail in my coffin, or perhaps it was the whiskey we started drinking after all the beer had gone but either way about an hour later I was suddenly buckled beyond reason and headed off to bed. Mand joined me a bit later having only just stopped arguing with Kimbers, and then got all tearful. Beautiful. A perfect end to the night.

Laters all

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