Broome, Western Australia

Song lyrics keep ringing through my head. There’s the one about six days on the road and making it home tonight, but the main one is from Neil Murray. In his song ‘Good Light in Broome’, he tells the hard-bitten story of a bloke struggling through his life, limping from one disaster to the next as he tries to find answers to his existence of constant sorrow.  Early in the piece he is given the clue that maybe the solution lies in the clear, precise atmosphere of the western town of Broome.

Of course he initially ignores this, and continues to struggle, until finally he succumbs and heads west, where he describes his plans once he reaches the Indian Ocean. 

Well when I get to Cable Beach,

I’ll fall right out of the truck and into the sea,

With my clothes still on I’ll plunge under the waves,

And all the dirt will drain away.

Of course, the dirt in the song has a greater meaning, but for us, it’s literal. The last time any of us have had a shower is close to a week, after travelling from Alice Springs to Halls Creek via the Tanami Track and then on to Purnululu. This amounts to a couple of thousand kilometres, about half of which is on dirt road. The camping is in bowls of swirling dust, where just walking leaves a small cloud of agitated powder that trails on the wind like smoke from a cigarette.

Both Sandi and myself are stained with dirt, ground into our fingers, toes and knees. However, Eddie and Frank are like we have never seen them. Their faces are like the surface of dried clay pans, with crusted circles of dirt scattered uniformly across their cheeks. It’s difficult to tell if it’s burnt skin or a layer of hardened soil. It’s rough to touch as you stroke a finger across their skin, like some sort of oversized brail. Their hair is tangled, with a dead brownness to it. It lays flat on their scalp, except when they wake and it’s standing to attention at random angles, then slowly descends to a matted dullness as the suns warms and the waxy grease melts.

If faced with a period of time where showers are scarce, I always think the best thing you can do is at least wash your feet at the end of the day. Of course I have forced this principle onto my family, so each evening after we have set up camp or get back from a day of walking in the heat, we fill a pail with a few litres of precious water and bathe. The water almost immediately turns the colour of weak, watery gravy, darkening seconds after the first foot submerges. At the conclusion, the water is tossed and the bottom of the bucket is left with a dark residue like coffee grains at the bottom of a huge cup.

Frank announces on day five of the shower-drought that he has had shoes on all day and the foot bath is thus redundant. I’m too tired to argue, and more to the point, it’s one less set of disgusting leg-ends that I have to share the priceless cleansing water with.

It’s only on the final leg in the car, a five-hour stint from near Fitzroy Crossing to Broome two day, later that the strategic error of this moment of lax parenting becomes apparent.

Frank removes his shoes.

The smell emerges from the back of the car, creeping like a hungry cheetah gently moving towards the unsuspecting gazelle. It’s a mixture of damp rot and sweat and has an acidic edge that tunnels through the nasal passages like a drill bit through soft wood. The brutal pall takes residence in the cabin and refuses to leave. The combined swirling squall of four open windows means little. The stink just sits, stubborn and unmoving. 

All that dirt will drain away, all that dirt will drain away….

We drive straight through Broome to Gantheaume Point, park the car and run. It’s high tide, the water is a brilliant turquoise and we surge in with splash and foam. The water is soft and cool and folds around us as we plunge under, uncontrollably laughing with elation. We rub our faces, spread our arms and fall backwards, the water swallowing our bodies to the quiet blue beneath.

After some time we slowly walk out, dripping and still stained with the bronzed crust of the desert, but transformed by the brine. We sit on the sand and look back into the endless azure. Diamond drops shimmer in the sun as they drop from earlobes onto the bleached sand, making tiny divots in the grains. There’s nothing to say, it’s a moment to just feel.