Red Dust

It’s incredible how quickly civilisation peters out as you fly west from Perth. Shortly after take-off we had a magnificent view of the skyscrapers of the city centre, the green of the parkland by the river, the vast expanse of bush mixed with perfectly mown grass that makes King’s Park so unique, and the Swan river itself snaking its way through the suburbs and down to the seaside town of Fremantle. Heading west, the suburbs grow smaller, the roads fewer, until only a few tiny communities scatter over the land below. Within ten minutes there was nothing but empty land stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction. For the duration of the two hour flight, the scenery did not alter. It was a visual reminder that we really were about to be living in the middle of nowhere.

The only clue that we were nearing our destination was that the ground was getting closer. I peered out of the tiny cabin window, expecting to spot buildings, roads, anything, but there was no sign of life visible down on that roasting hot, barren, unforgiving terrain. We were practically on top of the town before we spotted it. The plane flew out across the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and steeply banked to turn back over the mangroves of the tidal flats until at last, just before the plane touched down, we glimpsed Karratha. When viewed from the air, it really hits you just how remote this town is. A cluster of streets seemingly dropped into the middle of the outback. It was a vista both startlingly striking and frightening for someone embarking on a year’s internment there. This was it. We were about to spend a year of our lives in this tiny piece of civilisation in the inhospitable desert temperatures of the Pilbara.

To some, I’m sure that the idea of being in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by admittedly stunning scenery, is heaven but, being a city girl, this was a truly frightening thought. No more getting dressed up and sipping cocktails with the girls in swanky bars, no more fine dining in top-class restaurants, no more day-long shopping trips. Gulping, I closed my eyes for a brief few seconds and took a deep breath. I had to put all that out of my mind and concentrate on the positives of this experience. This year would be all about getting back to basics and exploring what Mother Nature has given us free of charge. The vast stretches of empty beaches, crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean, uninhabited islands of the Dampier Archipelago, breathtaking gorges, waterfalls and wildflowers of Karijini National Park, and the simple pleasure of watching the sun set over the red, dusty land, changing its colours by the minute and setting the sky alight with pinks, purples, oranges, blues and golds.

Disembarking from the plane onto the tarmac, a warm wind whipped at our faces, the heat dry and much preferable to the sticky, humid heat of Thailand. The temperature was pleasantly bearable, akin to a typical summer’s day in Spain or Greece. We were later informed that the temperature had dropped considerably in the past week – the winter months were fast approaching, bringing cooler temperatures averaging around thirty degrees centigrade. I was dreading the summer months between November to March, which would bring forty plus degrees centigrade temperatures and devastating cyclones.

Walking into the tiny terminal, I was struck by how many men there were standing about and, almost unanimously, drinking. Being a town built purely to house workers on the various oil and gas and mining projects, there is a very high percentage of single men in Karratha. Many are contractors, flying in and out, often on four week shifts. They come here to work and earn better money than they could anywhere else, labouring for long days. As soon as they’re on leave they want to relax, and by relax I mean drink. That may seem like judgemental stereotyping but consider this: six months ago Quantas stopped serving spirits on the flights to and from Karratha as the miners spent the two-hour journey trying to down as many whiskies as they could.

We were picked up in a company pick-up truck, or ‘yute’ as they call them Down Under. There was no boot, just an empty but rather dusty tray so The Husband hauled our (very) heavy cases up into it and helped to fasten the cover over them. We really were in the country now. The short drive from the airport to the town took us through flat scrubland, the iron ore which has brought this part of the world such economic riches giving it the rusty red colour typical of the entire region. I scanned the horizon for kangaroos despite knowing I was unlikely to spot one as, being nocturnal creatures, they rarely venture out in the daytime. As I was soon to discover, I would be far more likely to spot a dead kangaroo at the side of the road. When darkness falls they are fond of bounding out of nowhere, straight into the path on oncoming traffic. I have seen a fair number of dead roos but am still yet to see a live one. In our first week, one dearly departed kangaroo seemed to have been frozen mid-hop and lay with its legs in the air, eyes wide open. In fact, it looked so much like a stuffed kangaroo I was given as a child that it was hard to think of it as real. It lay at the turnoff to a friend’s accommodation and he used it as a handy landmark to finding his camp – if he drove past the kangaroo, he knew he’d gone too far. It mysteriously vanished one night – we’re not sure whether it was taken by a dingo or a hungry miner.

Karratha starts and ends abruptly. You go from nothing at all to the edge of a sprawling town with no warning whatsoever. It seemed bigger than the three or four streets I imagined the town would consist of. The streets are wide and all the houses detached. We passed a large green oval where a couple of kids were throwing a frisbee around. Despite the remote location, as we pulled up in front of our home for the next year I was starting to feel happier about it all. For now at least.