Stories of the road…
Red ute
An encounter of the imaginative kind.
THE FADED red, twin-cab Datsun ute lifts a cloud of dust as it moves along the track by the farm dam. It slows, turns and stops close to a heavy wooden picnic table by which someone has erected one of those cheap hiker’s tents, the type you buy in places like Kmart. An insulated blue cooler fitted with a spigot and an upturned camping chair stand adjacent.
The door of the ute slams shut. I look over. She is fit-looking, one of those self-sufficient, capable people used to looking after themselves, I imagine. She opens the hatch of the vehicle’s cargo compartment in which I see a surfboard and takes out an esky presumably containing food. She places it on the picnic table, sits on the bench seat and starts to read a book.
I get the impression that this woman has set up many a campsite this way. She moves slowly and deliberately… unhurried. A loose-fitting dress that comes to her knees, no shoes— just a pair of what Australians call thongs, the British call flip-flops and New Zealanders call jandals on her feet. Her blonde hair she wears tied atop her head in what seems an afterthought to get it out the way.
Her campsite beside the eucalypt tree is not far from mine, twenty metres, maybe. When I arrived late that afternoon I wondered who might be camping there. I figured they were away on a day trip somewhere. Now I know.
We, the camper in the faded red ute and I, occupy two of perhaps eight occupied campsites scattered across more than a hectare of campground centred on a large farm dam. The others are either couples or small family groups in camping trailers or car-camping tents, the exception being a couple bicycle tourers who are preparing food by their little tent. A couple others sit outside their campervans down by the farm dam. This, Esdee campground, is a quiet place. I wonder how many of those scattered across the clearing are attracted by the cheap camping fee and basic amenities? Was it this that attracted the woman in her faded red ute? I guess so. I can’t imagine her as a habitue of those tourist parks with all their amenities.
I turn away to set up the minivan for the night. First, hang up the little Biolite lamp to illuminate the interior. I unroll the thin foam mattress and spread my sleeping bag over it before going around to the rear to boil water for a late-afternoon coffee. Looking over, I see that she has stowed her surfboard under the ute. Here in this bushland setting we are only two and a bit kilometres from a surfing beach where, when conditions are right, a small swell forms off the point.
She sits at the picnic table, a cup of something in front of her, opens a note book and starts to write. Is she writing in her journal? Does she even keep a journal? Is she an author working on her book?
As the day cools and the light starts to fade she climbs into her ute’s cargo compartment, curls her legs, leans back against the side and pulls a doona over herself. She continues writing into the blue hour that follows the setting of the sun, those transient few minutes before the coming of night. I never see her climb into her tent. Did she sleep in the cargo space all night?
This, I think, is one of those people who do not need company. Not one for small talk. A surfer, yes. There’s the surfboard and there’s that style about her of someone whose home is the beach and out-of-the-way bushland campsites. I decide she is on some kind of roadtrip, sampling the swells wherever she decides to stop. That’s the stereotype that comes into my head. Many times I have seen people who do that and I assume she is another.
Yet, there is something incongruous about her. It’s the Northern Territory numberplate on her ute. The Northern Territory is a surf-free zone, a place completely devoid of decent swells whose waters are inhabited by hungry, ferocious saltwater reptiles which strike without warning to drag you deep into the murky waters and the black, sticky mud. And there are other things you don’t want to see below your surfboard. So how come the Territory plates? I figure she bought the vehicle from someone from up that way, or maybe she bought it while working up there. But, still… who is she and how is it that she ended up here at the end of a gravel road a couple kilometres and more from the modest coastal town of Carlton?
Our eyes meet across that twenty metres and she gives a nod of recognition. Recognition as another camper, that is. I figure she must be friendly and think I might go talk with her before she leaves next day. Last I see of her that evening she is still curled in her ute’s cargo compartment, reading.
As I usually do I wake with the sun but that morning I go back to sleep for the good part of an hour. Pulling on trousers and Tshirt and slipping on sandals, I take my wash kit and towel and make my way to the showers. I figure she will be up and about by the time I return to make my usual breakfast of muesli and coffee.
She isn’t. She’s gone. Some time in those few minutes I was in the shower, she went. Her tent, coolers and chair are still there. Okay, she will be back. I’ll make contact this evening.
There is a curiosity behind my intention to talk with her, something I attribute to my past as a journalist. It is just something I do, talking to people on the road, talking about their travels but edging carefully around their private life. You can discover a surprising amount about a person through casual conversation. Some people give freely of information about themselves, others are not so forthcoming but you can make deductions from what they do disclose and from their intonation.
Where is she from and where is she going? Is she really from the Territory? Is she an itinerant surfer travelling the coast? What is it she writes so intently in her notebook? What is her life like? How will I approach those questions without sounding like a busybody? None of this is really my business.
I am away further along the coast most of the day and it is late afternoon before I follow the long gravel road back to the campsite. Her faded red ute isn’t there and it won’t turn up until well after dark. Tomorrow, maybe. That will be my last chance to talk because I plan to head north in the morning.
I rise a little after first light, dress and step out of the minivan. I look over to her campsite. It is empty. She has gone. Some time before I got up she got out of her little tent, or maybe the cargo space of her ute, stowed her two coolers, the upended camp chair and the surfboard, and departed.
I never discovered who she was, where she was headed or why.
I have met people before like I imagined her to be. Loners, some of them. Not unfriendly, just content to be by themselves. Independent, you would call them. Self-confident. Not needing the constant stimulation of others although enjoying company when it comes along. I know this because I am one of them too.
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