It's been raining "like buggery" (I am working hard to adopt the local vernacular) and the whole roadhouse complex is a muddy swamp. Grey nomads and travellers are piling up in droves, unable to access the free camp areas which are on unsealed roads, so the kitchen staff are working 14 and 18 hour shifts trying to feed everyone, then retiring to drink and fight in their rooms. Raelene and I keep attracting the interest of lonely truckers and one of them offered Raelene $1000 for a bit of you-know-what but it all became confusing when I asked if it was an activity or time based rate. Anyway Raelene was too busy restocking the chips.
Approximately 400 women with violently incontinent toddlers used the front public toilets today; as we do not have a flame thrower, Duncan and I decided to "clean" it by simply opening the door slightly and emptying an entire can of air freshener into the hellish, almost-visible stench. Battling to dry enough linen for the motel rooms, I was advised by Duncan to "just check the beds for sex or wee stains and re-make the buggers" (he is banned from cleaning the motel rooms). Some backpacker kids in a station wagon broke down so he's been under the car in the mud all day trying to fix it. Meanwhile bored German tourists are wandering aimlessly around the back of the roadhouse, desperately trying to entertain themselves by looking at the diesel generator, and, at one point, watching the dryer go round and round (the TV reception here is satellite and can't get a signal through the cloud cover).
If the rain has spread as far inland as Meekatharra, we could be in for flash flooding and being cut off from both ends of the highway for days! I'm keeping quiet about my stash of Chunky Man Meal cans.
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