G’day!
Welcome to Letters From the Road, and letter number 36. This one finds us in a windy town called Denham, thinking about banned stickers, septic tanks, and battling a useless feeling to keep moving forward.
Welcome to those of you for whom this is your first letter! Good on ya for reading. Letters From the Road is the story of a family road trip in Australia, told one weekly installment at a time featuring my journal entries written during the trip. The journal entries are word-for-word, and you’ll see them highlighted in the letter.
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If you’ve just joined us and want to catch up, you can find the other 35 letters here, in a government archive of offensive materials.
I’m taking next week off, so check your inbox in two weeks time for another letter.
Be kind,
Luke
I remember the first time I heard about a place called Shark Bay.
It wasn’t long after we moved to Australia, and I was working as a consultant for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in Melbourne. Amongst the firefighters I worked with was a foul mouthed bloke named Mick. Not soon after I started there, he welcomed me by asking, “Is your wife a Seppo too?”
Seppo is a loving-yet-derogatory Australian way of referring to Americans, one of many slang terms that have been formed through a local talent for abbreviating words using mysterious forms of linguistic rhyming and voodoo. For example, you could say ‘froth and bubble’ for trouble, ‘Mork and Mindy’ for windy, or ‘apples’ for nice. That last one is next level . You get there by rhyming nice with apples and spice, but why say two words when one will do? So it’s been shortened to just apples.
Seppo is similarly advanced slang. It’s short for septic tank, which rhymes with Yank, which is a shortened form of Yankee.
With that important bit of translation out of the way, let me get back to Mick, and Shark Bay. Once I got beyond Mick’s rough edges, cursing and chain smoking, I found that I really liked him. He had a big heart, and was always generous with his time.
He had recently taken a road trip with his wife and young kids that hit many lesser traveled parts of Australia. Mick spent an hour one day telling me all about it, and in some ways it was the first bit of research that I did for the road trip we were currently on.
I was fascinated with the strange and mysterious names of the places Mick and his family went. Kakadu. Kimberley. Windjana. And especially one called Shark Bay.
He described standing on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean, and peering down into the clear blue waters, watching dugong, giant stingrays, turtles, and - of course - sharks swimming by. They stayed there all day, just watching the live aquarium show happening below.
And so it was, eight years after first having that discussion with Mick, that we were leaving the sleepy lunchbox banana town of Carnarvon and heading for Shark Bay.
25 November 2019 - Denham
I like wakin’ up in the morning and wearing the same clothes, and then doing it again tomorrow. Love it. Except when they stink.
We said goodbye to the Danish fellow this morning. He was going to be hanging out for a couple more days. Not sure what the hell one does in Carnarvon for that many days, it’d be like spending 5 days in Coober Pedy....
Road trips aren’t all World Heritage sites and jumping pillows. If anyone could understand staying multiple days in a desperate place, it’s us. We’d spent 5 days on another planet also known as Coober Pedy, South Australia, and had also spent a more than reasonable number of days in Carnarvon. How quickly we forget.
The Shark Bay World Heritage area is made up of two peninsulas which create a W-shaped fork sticking northwest off the coast into the Indian Ocean.
The middle tine on the fork is called the Péron Peninsula. It’s named for Françios Péron, a French naturalist who visited the area as part of an expedition in 1801 and 1803, and is home to the small town of Denham where we’d be staying.
It has recently come to light, through translations of Péron’s expedition reports, that he wrote a recommendation to Napoleon that the French should invade the English settlement called Sydney and take it for themselves. Clearly that didn’t happen, but hey, it’s still cool for Péron to keep his name on an out-of-the-way peninsula and National Park, as a snub to the French to show them what might have been.
The western peninsula of Shark Bay, the outer tine of the fork, is home to the town with possibly the most wonderful name in Western Australia: Useless Loop. The origins of the name are not completely clear, though there are some theories.
One of the French members of the expedition with Péron reportedly referred to the area as "Havre Inutile", meaning Useless Harbour, because he believed it to be blocked by a sand bar. Fast forward to 1960 when a salt mining operation was established in the area. The pipeline from the salt flats was in the form of a loop. Put the two together, and you’ve got Useless Loop.
I so wanted to travel to this town of 134 people, just to say that I’d been there and that it was (or wasn’t), in fact, useless. I wanted to see the mountain of salt that’s apparently there, the 70 square kilometres of salt ponds, and Useless Inlet where all the seawater first enters the ponds. I wanted to drive on Useless Loop Road, Salina Street, and Kangaroo Court. Yes, Kangaroo Court, a road where anything can happen.
Useless Loop is a company town, owned and operated by Shark Bay Salt Proprietary Limited, which would probably lend a ‘you ain’t from around here’ feel to the place, and possibly keep us from getting through the gates, period. But still, who wouldn’t want to give it a go?
My wife and two kids, it turns out. Useless Loop was a distant 209 kilometres (130 miles) and 2-½ hours from Denham down middling roads, an endeavour which was immeidately vetoed by my family as being an extreme distance to go for something useless.
Especially after we’d already had a middling drive, the one from Carnarvon to Denham.
Today we drove from Carnarvon to Denham, a drive of three and a half hours or so, with nothing in between but two roadhouses. One we stopped at. It had signs up to please support the roadhouse by buying something if you use the bathroom. Guilt trip marketing.
The two roadhouses in question are the Wooramel and Overlander Roadhouses. Other roadside attractions included two crossings of the 26th parallel, the completely arbitrary line of latitude - or is it longitude? I can never keep them straight - one crossing on our way south, the other when we looped around to go north up the peninsula into Denham, neither of which anyone deemed worthy of stopping for.
It was a relatively short 328 km (203 mile) drive, but a lonesome one.
And so I needed something to keep me awake. This was presented in the form of roadhouse coffee, a gamble that the house usually wins, so I instead kept myself engaged by thinking about the souvenir selection.
And the Wooramel had yet another shitty roadhouse bumper sticker, this one showing a camel pointing a pistol and some friendly sea creatures. The bumper sticker from the Sandfire Roadhouse, which I purchased for some reason, features a camel on a motorcycle. What is up with these schlocky units? I’m unsure whether to hate them or love them. They’re all designed by this company Davric, who makes its products in Australia.
I wonder who these people are, whether they are successful? The Australian National Park stickers are also a joke. I think maybe I could do knockoffs of the U.S. National Park stickers and sell them. The black and white call sign type design, where Yellowstone is YELL, etc.
Australia doesn’t have these, but I could make them up.
Would there be copyright issues with doing that? We’re in Australia, whatever.
I wrote to you back in letter #28, where you’ll also find a picture of a camel on a motorcycle, about my combined disdain and fascination with roadhouse bumper stickers.
Little did I know that I had only scratched the surface, and that the story goes beyond scenes like Australia’s favourite animals bellied up to a bar or being held up by a gun toting camel. Western Australia has a chequered history when it comes to bumper stickers, with the issues going back 40 years.
Back in the 80’s, the Western Australian government mobilised to take on public complaints related to some very serious offensive materials, things that kids and grannies might come across when at the newsagent, tainting them forever. The government’s target? Bumper stickers and stubbie holders.
Of course stubbie holders, those sleeves for your beer bottles and cans, were implicated along with bumper stickers, because who hasn’t enjoyed a cold drink emblazoned with a picture of fish hooks and the saying ‘Master Baiter’?
In October 1980, police in Western Australia began making seizures of offensive materials, so that they could be reviewed by the State Advisory Committee on Publications. They were working at the direction of the Attorney General, who was utilising legislation from 1902 called the Indecent Publications and Articles Act that the government could use to regulate materials it deemed offensive, otherwise known as censorship.
Around the time of World War I, the Act was used to ban books related to anarchy. In the 80’s, though, perhaps as a sign of where the world was at, the government had turned its censorship sights to bumper stickers.
The police seized more than 300 for review. I can picture the scene, a bunch of old white politician types sitting around a table and pondering the offensive nature of a pile of stickers which had sayings ranging from “Happiness is being single” to “Love thy neighbour, but don’t get caught”.
Some other highlights from those stickers that were seized: “The Lord giveth, Fraser taketh away” - a sledge against former Premier Malcolm Fraser, and “Honk if you like my rear”, which to me is a timeless form of the ‘honk if you’re…’ one liner and should have been an easy one for the no pile.
The Committee decided that 23 bumper stickers should be removed from sale, and even went so far as to recommend criminal prosecution in related to one of the stickers, but it was not pursued.
Unfortunately I cannot track down details of the stickers that were actually banned, but I assume they are more lively ‘Honk if you like my rear’.
I would also like to state for the record, in case any members of the Western Australian parliament have come across this letter, that if they ever elect to reopen the debate around offensive materials, that roadhouse bumper stickers are on the top of the list.
In Denham now, at the Denham Seaside Caravan Park. It’s like Ningaloo here, windy as fuck. We’ve got some protection where we’re at, but the wooshing in the trees is constant. Makes one chilly at night.
I had a coffee too late in the day, so I am not tired. Henry is tired; he came to the tent at 11pm last night, and has been a jerk all day. He actually got into an argument with Katie in the car about his farts smelling bad.
‘If you don’t like it, roll down your window,’ he angrily told her. Disrespectful.
26 November 2019 - Denham
Went running again this morning. 9 km and what a sham. I probably walked a kilometre. The 8 am sun was so hot, the wind was bad, and… I’m bad. Cannot even bang out 9k.
Also travelled to the aquarium today, spent a lot of money, but it was worth it. I think everyone enjoyed it. And they had decent beers on tap, who knew?
The rest of the day, we entertained ourselves by watching a bird fight, crow versus seagull.
‘It’s like yin versus yang!’ Oscar says. ‘Black versus white!’
The seagull seems to be winning. We were rooting for the crow.
What does that say about us?
The bird fight may have been a sign that things were out of balance. Or maybe it was the fart argument from the day before - you know how it is when you open up the refrigerator and there’s a smell? It’s a sign that something is off.
My journal entry for the rest of the day was reflective that our balance was indeed off, and we’d reached a low point.
Katie says to me today that she’s burnt out. Travelled out. Doesn’t care. She didn’t want to say any of this in front of the boys. She told me this in a way where her voice and body said ‘I’m done’. There was no anger or frustration, just fatigue. I know how she feels.
I’ve felt this way multiple times during our trip. In St. George, Utah. In Iowa City. In Broome. Again after Karijini, though luckily the Ningaloo was perfect. Does it matter if we go home early? Does it matter if we quit? Are we really quitting anyways?
I’d love to have another Ningaloo. Other than the incessant wind, it was great. Relaxing, amazing snorkelling, lots of down time to sit and think, to sit and write, even if it is only on my phone. Even Henry spent a lot of time writing, which was amazing in itself.
What we need is a little beach town with a brewery, a little shop with a butcher, and a basic but golden camping ground or caravan park. I could spend two weeks at such a place, soaking up the warmth, the easy vibes, expanding my headspace.
Maybe south of Perth is the go. I’ve not had any luck finding anything exciting between here and there, so maybe we should just make a run for it. Spend our week in town, find our crash pad, then book it in for two weeks. Maybe that’s the go.
One thing that is between here and Perth is Kalbarri National Park. It’s an area where an amazing sandstone gorge was formed, etc etc. I ran this past the boys, and they responded as I did: another sandstone gorge? Yawn. 37 degrees C (99 degrees F) and flies? No thanks. So we’re skipping it.
We didn’t need to actually go to Useless Loop to understand what it was like. We were in a useless loop of our own, one of driving and camping and camping and driving.
We would try to clean out the refrigerator the next day, with a challenging drive up to the top of the peninsula. Our plan was to see a place where the red sands meet the blue ocean, a place where we’d try to discover the magic that Mick had described to this Seppo, all those years ago.