Skimpies and seedy men

We´re on the road again, after a few days in Karratha. Karratha is a little mining town in the north west of Australia with around 8000 people. Its the most bogan place I have ever been. For those of you who dont know the word bogan: A bogan is the australian version of a red neck. He or she often live in small towns - sometimes far from other people. For the bogan, beer a clock is the whole day. They dont go anywhere without their stubby holder and a beer. Since they always drink beer they usually have a pretty good beer belly. They say bloody, fucking and beer o clock all the time. The female version of a bogan is often pretty though, a real country girl. But look at her, and her boyfriend with the beer belly will definitely fight you. The boyfriend will fight you even if you DONT look at her, saying "Why dont you look at my girlfriend? Is she not hot enough for ya???"

There are a few girls here, but most of them are taken. And there are a lot more guys. Some of them live here, but most of them flies in and out on rosters, four weeks on, one week in Perth. Or two weeks on and one week off. The locals call them FYFOs (FLY in FLY OUT) or just FIT IN OR FUCK OFF. In other words; the locals dont

like people who fly in and earn heaps of money and then leave. It is deserted up here in boganville, but you do understand why australians and foreigners come here to work. There are billions of dollars in the the red dirt around us. This is

where the second biggest income in Australia lies. Ironorn, or raw material that is made into iron, is everywhere. Simon is a surveyor here, he walk around in the hills and flat areas of red dirt and measures up where the companies can build railways and buildings for the ironorn when it is taken out of the ground. Sometimes it is over 50 degrees in the bush. The men walk around in work boots, yellow and blue or orange clothes and measures and measures. They work long days in pairs, and cant make mistakes. If you measure just a few inches wrong, a whole building can collapse. Better not drink TOO many beers at the pub the night before working.

It is hard work, in a place that few people want to settle in. But the money is good. You can earn around 4000 dollars at the most as a surveyor here. No wonder Simon had money to leave with a solid amount of money and travel for one and a half year after some hard work in Karratha.

- This place is a shitwhole!! haha!! says a red bearded man at the tavern friday night. It is crowded, mostly with men who are still in their yellow work clothes. He is there with his son.

- Yeah, Mark is getting into it now, he says satisfied. This place is shit but we earn shit loads of money, haha. So its worth it.

I ask his son what he thinks about it.

- Ive been here six weeks. My dad his whole life. Its pretty shit, haha. But its good money.

It cant be too shit though, cause everyone around me seem to be loving the pub and friday night. I am the odd one out here, I dont have a beer belly and I am not a though bogan chick that look like she can fight. I am the Scandie who cant drink 15 beers in a night and who speak with a funny accent. One of the guys ask me if I want to meet his friend. His friend is standing with his arms crossed in his yellow work clothes saying "No Gary I dont want to". Gary obviously thinks his friend need some female company. There isnt much to choose from for the guys up here.

Oh well, there are the skimpies, but they are only to look at, not to touch. Skimpies are girls that work in the pub, with as little as possible clothes on. At the other end of the pub, a girl is pole dancing in a little pink g-string. They used to walk topless, today theyre a bit more covered up.

After a few days in skimpy town, we are off to 80 mile beach.

Skippy the dead kangaroo!

The sun has just gone down. The sky is still a bit orange and we are driving back from the beach. "Watch out for the kangaroos"! I say to Simon as we see them standing on the side of the road. They sleep in the day when it is hot, then go out at night to eat. And where do they go to eat? Well, Skippy might have seemed very clever in that tv-series, but he is NOT in real life. Skippy is pretty damn stupid. In some areas there are kangaroos all along the side of the road. You cant see the reflection in their eyes - like you often can with deers. You just see a gray and white little Skippy, looking at you like he is asking "what are you doing at my dinner table? I am eating here - just beside this road and now ive decided to hop on it and sit here for a little while." Well, we drive pass lots of Skippies, hoping that none of them will jump

into the road. Then suddenly, one of them is sitting on our side of the road. Simon drives more slowly and tries to turn around it. And what does smart, little Skippy do? Well, he decides to jump towards the car thats turning away from him, instead of away from it and into the bush. We hear a load "DUNK!!!" on the left side of the car. Shit! Imagined if we killed Skippy?? Skippy, the bush kangaroo!! That helps to find people and says that funny, clicking sound when somethings going on? That jumps around to that funny little theme song and looks like the cutest thing ever? Shit - what have we done!

We drive on and Simon says it didnt hit that hard. "Skip is probably jumping away right now!" But I cant relax. We have to go back and see if Skippy is alright. We turn around. And find Skippy. He is lying on the side of the road with blood dripping out of his mouth. He is lying still as we shine the flashlight on him to see if he is alive. He is breathing a bit, but is so hurt that he isnt moving. What are we gonna do? We dont have anything to kill it with. And I certainly cant kill Skippy the Bush Kangaroo with a little rock from the side of the road. We would have to hit him several times and that wouldnt be much better for him. I wish we had a kangaroo-killing gun but we dont. We have to leave Skippy there to die by himself. My heart feels like stone, I am the worst person ever. Skippy, the kangaroo that helps everyone else - when he is hu

rt he is left alone!! But oh, what could we have done. The next day we drive past again. Skippy is dead. He´s twice the size, blown up from the hot sun. Gone to Skippy heaven with all the other kangaroos that are killed every day on australian roads. I hope he is jumping around in kangaroo heaven, and that he wont have anyone send me to kangaroo Hell for what I have done. Rest in Peace Skippy!

In the land of the kangaroos

We´re in the outback. The only thing that lives and breathes apart from us is a snake crossing the road, a kangaroo jumping away when it hears the sound of our 4WD. The desert like area around us is cooler now. The sun is touching the horizon. We are on our way to a spot called Red Bluff. According to the tourist guide we bought before we left our last five star camping ground in Monkey Mia - it is one of the best surf spots on the Western Australia.

And - a surf spot where you should look out for fins in the water. As we are heading north the water is getting warmer. It feels comforting that the great whites dont really like the warmer temperatures, I do not have any wish to meet them on my 6,7 feet surfboard. "I am NOT a turtle or a seal, go bite some other animal! Youre gonna spit my leg out anyways. So let me keep it!"

Im on a months road trip up the west coast of Australia. Most people would drive up the east coast and see all those famous spots - gold coast, sunshine coast, great barrier reef and the cities. Well, we chose the outback on the other side of the country. Perth was where we left from, the most deserted city in the world. You kinda get used to the red dirt, the small, tough bushes that grow around Perth, and you think you know what the Australian outback is when you set off.

But its when you look out the window two days later, when the road is one long, long stretch and it smells sweet from road killed kangaroos from your open window that you get the feel of it. That rawness of the Australian landscape, the lonely animals that jump around by themselves and the eagles that eat whatever the cars have killed them for dinner. Thats when you start to wonder how the Aboriginals have been able and are still able to survive out here. How did they find their billabongs (water holes in the desert) and how did they survive the heat in summer? It is winter now, May and only around 35 degrees in the day. In summer it gets up to 50 degrees. Im swetting like a dog already.

And, if Simon would have stopped the car and put me out there in the desert by myself, I would have died. Im sure of it! How can you survive in an endless wilderness of red dust, bush and striking heat? There is around 200 km between every gas station. Even with a car you´ll have to stock up with water or gas or whatever you need to get through the next distance to the new station. Further up north you´ll have to stock up even more. Some areas you´ll have to drive 500 km to get to the next gas station. The distance from Sand Fire Petrol Station to Broom is so far that your petrol tank ALMOST isnt big enough to make it. Make sure you have some extra petrol in the back of your car.

Anyways, we´ve stocked up and are ready for the outback. This time to a camp site with no facilities. It will be the bush, the kangaroos, the waves and us. If a creepy man wants to steal your stuff, you can be sure no one will hear you scream. A perfect setting for a scary movie. The movie "Wolf Creek" is set here in Western Australia and is about three young people who go on a road trip up the coast. Two of them never come back from the desert after meeting a creepy guy that wants to help them when their car breaks down. Wooooo.... Simon wanted to bring a machete cause of that movie just in case, but he ended up bringing a screw driver under his drivers seet "just in case, if i need to protect ya". Im sure the most dangerous things we will encounter is a curious kangaroo or a little desert rat, but you never know do ya. Especially not in the Australian outback. Cause I really do understand that people can go nuts, living their whole life out here. Just dont take our water and our petrol supplies! Cause we´ll die in that bloody hot desert.

We´ve reached Red Bluff. A kangaroo greets us on the beach. The water is bright blue, the sky orange. There is one little light from another car further up the beach. Time to put up the tent and get those coronas out of the carton. And hope that no crazy men from the outback steals our water. Good night!

Lets get the hell out of Bug Bluff!

We were gonna spend three days but only spent a few hours in that camping ground the next day. When we got there last night there were thousands of moths flying around the tent area. They flew inside my bra, in my ears and in my mouth. Alright, thats just the moths, I thought. We cooked dinner and went to sleep with the stars gazing down on us through the thin mosquito net. As we woke up the day after and went outside, hell was loose. This was insect paradise, with all sorts of insects loving the dry, hot area and no birds to eat them. And I do understand why there were no birds, if I was a bird I would never live there. Id get the hell outa there. Just like we would do later that day. But first, we drove over to a different beach to check out the surf. As soon as I opened the car door they invaded me. My hair, my eyes, my mind. Well, at least it felt like they were in my mind as well. I usually love seeing dragon flies and butterflies. But in the sand dunes on the way to the beach they were everywhere. In every half meter of air. Circling around my head, and I dont know why. Maybe they were wondering if I was running out of water and was about to die soon? So that the flies could eat me and put their white, little eggs in me while i was rotting. Well, I was NOT ready to rot yet. I was ready to fight. At least for five minutes. I waved my hands and tried to talk to them. Then walked faster and waved faster. But they were obsessed with flying in my hair and my mouth and my eyes. I shouted "fuck off!!!" a few times - not because the flies would understand but in pure desperation. Like "can you bug off??" But bugs dont like to bug off i guess.

Below: Emu visitors in our camp in Exmouth. They wanted my green apple!

I sat down on the beach after fighting my way across the dunes. As I choked on a flie and tried to spit it out, a wasp found its way between my boobs. It decided to sting me there. Now THAT was the drop! I yelled "fucking bugs", and ran into the water with a swarm of flies, dragonflies, new wasps following me. Dipped into the water to chill my head and my freshly stung boobs. When Simon suggested we´d pack our stuff and leave Red Bluff, I said yes and laughed at the bugs - haha, Im off! Driving out of the dunes I named that place Bug Bluff, and thank the God of the aussie wilderness that we still had air in our tires and gas to take us out of insect land. And so, we are on the road heading for Exmouth, leaving Bug Bluff for the kangaroos and others who can cope with thousands of annoying insects. What I learned in Bug Bluff: 1. It will take me a while before I think dragon flies and butterflies are pretty again. 2. I admire the aboriginals even more for being able to live in the australian desert. 3. I laughed when I saw a photo of a norwegian girl with a flie hat on the beach in australia before i left home. I will never laugh of people with flie hats again. I want one, no matter how stupid it looks with a big net on your head.

Petting a kangaroo at a wild life park on the way up the coast.

Below: Wild dolphins come in the Monkey Mia every morning to be fed.

Claustrophobic in the enormous outback

Its funny how lots of lots of space can make you feel really claustrophobic. You are driving in the outback. There is no one around for miles. Only a cow here and there and a smelly dead kangaroo every 200 meters. I think I feel claustrophobic because I cant get out of here whenever I want to. At least not within a short amount of time. Its actually worse than being stuck in an elevator, because in an elevator you would get help and get out pretty fast comparing to how many hours you would have to drive to get to civilization here. You can reach the next gas station in one and a half hour, but I wouldnt call that civilization. The gas station will have gas (as to the name gas station), toilets, and a man behind the counter who hasnt seen a blond, skandinavian girl in a long, long time, maybe never in his life. He looks at your boobs when you buy your coffee and stutters "have a good one" while looking at your bum when you leave.

If there is a God out there, it kinda makes you wonder what he wanted to do with THIS area. Humans cant really live here, birds wont come here even though there are insects everywhere and the trees dont grow higher than a few meters.

I do understand why the white man settled in Australia pretty late compared to other parts of the world. It must have seemed pretty rugged and tough when they first came here. Imagine seeing land after a long, long trip across the indian ocean. The sailors start exploring the New Land by foot. They walk but cant see anything else but bush and red dirt. The first people who came to Australia must have been pretty tough to survive, without the skills of the aboriginals.

Even though it feels like an endless land of bush and red dirt, the outback knows how to show off its beauty. At sunset, the sun goes down over red hills and makes the trees orange. The sky is still in a light shade of blue. I feel like I am on another planet.

I guess some spots on earth are there to remind us that we live on a planet in space. A spot that kinda looks like the moon at night, and like the planet Mars in the day. Its beautiful, and - when I think about it, I kinda like feeling claustrophobic in the Western Australian outback.