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© 2003 Brian F. Schreurs
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Erldunda to Barkly Homestead

August 7, 2001

  3207 miles       refuel & depart Erldunda
  3318 miles       refuel in Alice Springs
  3424 miles       refuel in Ti Tree
  3524 miles       refuel in Wycliffe Well
  3652 miles       refuel in Three Ways
  3716 miles       overnight in Barkly Homestead

For our part, we keep a cracking pace across the desert, trying to cover as much distance as possible. Our fuel stops take on a racing pit stop air; one person fuels, one checks fluids, and the third hits the head. Because we have to backtrack home, towns -- and, indeed, individual petrol stations -- lack the sparkle of the new and unexplored, as our Jag had left oil stains in these environs before.

There's two green aliens over their right shoulder, but the tourists are checking US out!

Two of the Devil's Marbles.

The Aussies miss their best chance to be rid of the pesty American.

Despite Shane's early assertions that the Outback was just hopping with kangaroos, the only ones we see on the whole trip are either dead or captive.

Our XJ6 with Shane's mate's E-Type coupe. Supposedly not a wanker, but it's Shane vouching for him.

Wycliffe Well is sort of the Roswell of Australia. Apparently aliens landed near there despite the availability of thousands of kilometers of uninhabited land in almost any direction. The occasion of aliens and humans meeting is celebrated with chintzy statues of lanky aliens stumbling out of a tin spaceship, and of course space-themed souvenirs not available anywhere else in the galaxy. Thankfully.

But Wycliffe Well holds a special surprise for us as well: the XJ6 refuses to start. We putter around for a while, and finally Jason hits on a solution by using a jumper wire to bypass the relay pack.

At Devil's Marbles, Shane proposes we stop for photographs to prove that we are, in fact, here. Time to explore the Marbles? Heavens no, we're in much too big of a hurry for that; we skid the car into the parking lot, position it up against the nearest Marble, I jump out and snap a pic, then off we go trailing a cloud of dust that settles on the Britz campers nearby.

We refuel again in Three Ways, and find ourselves once again using Jason's jumper wire. He may be a bookworm, but he's a handy bookworm.

With lodging along Barkly Highway punctuated by 200 miles of barren earth between stops, we elect to make our stop for the night at Barkly Homestead rather than pushing on to Camooweal. Last time we were here they had no accommodations available but this time fortune smiles on us. We get a room for a night then Shane and I head for the bar -- Jason keeps to the room.

But what's this? An E-Type?

The chances of another vintage Jaguar just wandering around the Outback on its own is remote. It has to be one of the Jag club wankers.

In the bar, the staff surprises me with a large form. On closer inspection it seems to be the government's census form: apparently, I've managed to travel to Australia on census day. I demur, but the waitress is insistent. The form apparently must be completed by all persons inside Australia's borders, whether resident or visitor. So, not wanting to make a big deal out of a census form, I go ahead and complete it. Many of the questions are quite nosy -- places of employment, salary, and so forth -- but for the most part it isn't much different from the United States census, and I find a strange amusement in being immortalized in a foreign government's statistical database.

The Jag club wankers, it turns out, belong to the same Queensland club that Shane is in. They know each other and strike up a conversation. I remain aloof, still bitter about being excluded from the Run, but Shane is warm and insists these blokes are on the "good" list. They all have a laugh at how stuffy the Victorians are, and Shane mentions how we were excluded due to a lack of space.

"Lack of space!" cries the E-Type driver. "Why, there were 14 no-shows!"

With this piece of information, Shane and I tear into a row about what a pack of assholes must run the Jaguar Club of Victoria, and how David Laird must be the king of them all. The E-Type driver opines that if he had known fellow Jaguar drivers were being excluded, he may have dropped out as well.

In the corner, providing a backdrop to our sports car club rantings, a travelling Irish band provides a constant stream of folk music. Out here it's still possible to find bands that trade a meal for an evening of performance. This one is a three-piece plus one hanger-on hanging on to the guitarist. A fact that apparently is not entirely to the satisfaction of the other members of the band, as her skill with the tambourine is a bit suspect.

But they do a fair job of playing, and the crew of Barkly Homestead seem glad for any diversion. They rip into a rendition of "American Pie" as passionate as they come, though with fewer lyrics than envisioned by Don McLean. I am perhaps a little embarrassed to discover that I am no better at filling the blanks than my Australian compatriots. Fortunately my Americanness is no longer hanging from my sleeve by this point in the trip, so I am not approached for help.

Groggy from exhaustion but still steamed by our deceitful snubbing from Laird and company, I go to bed in the wee hours but sleep restlessly with an inebriated "...singing this is the day that I die..." ringing in my head.