After a very long straight 230 km drive which feels exactly like the Nullarbor I get to Carnarvon; it's weirdly like arriving in Cairns. There are palm trees, frangipani, bougainvillea; you can tell you've crossed into the tropics. It's pretty, and at night the grey nomads are securely locked up behind high fences in the caravan parks while outside the town goes feral. It's the kind of place where 25 police officers per resident wouldn't be enough; there's a kind of wild west enthusiasm for "gettin' inta trouble" and so far it appears that I could be the only person in town who is not a professional roo shooter. My ability to use whole words also stands out, but fortunately my missing teeth help me to fit right in. Also, being a non-pregnant adult female seems to make me quite popular, judging from the excited barnyard noises that emerge from various passing utes.
The caravanners are packed into the grounds like sardines; they're sitting in their matching chairs when we leave in the morning and are still there when we get back at dinner time. Some of them do this for six weeks. A caretaker checks each site daily and removes any that have died in their chairs so that fresh supplies of grey nomads can be jammed into any available space.
Duncan turns up & takes me out for an all you can eat Homer Simpson seafood buffet (lock up the plastic lobsters!). Crammed into a tiny space with a snoring diesel mechanic on one side and a snoring dog on the other with Smokey sleeping on my head lacks any romantic appeal it may have had in theory and so we resort to a park cabin for the rest of the weekend. The freezers are full of all our fish after a fantastic day fishing on the huge One Mile Jetty - I'll never have to shop again! I sure hope I like fish.
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