Before all you film and spelling buffs recoil any further, that misspelling in the title is intended. It’s a reference to a man called Wal, who is the second most terrifying human I’ve ever encountered. (The first most terrifying human I’ve ever encountered was a facially tattooed psychopath who informed me with chilling delight the various ways in which he was going to murder me. But as that happened in my home town it can’t really be classed as a travel story, so regrettably I’ll have to abstain from revealing any more.)
Wal is the owner of Wal’s Camp, which can be found in a town called Cloncurry, deep in the Outback of Queensland, Australia.
I should say now that the word ‘town’ is a slightly misleading term for any settlement in the Australian Outback, but with a population of 2,500 and at least three shops, Cloncurry is, relatively speaking, a thriving metropolis.
So it was with calculated optimism that my girlfriend, Gem, and I approached. We were about two weeks into a 13,000 kilometre road trip that would take us and our campervan from Cairns, in the northeast of the country, to Perth, in the southwest. The day had been typical: one shimmering horizon after another and intense heat. The only suggestion of life had been three prehistoric-looking birds idling by the wayside. They were enormous and had long, serrated beaks that stayed a fraction open in a kind of grimace. I never did find out what they were called, but I would later think of them when meeting Wal.
We chose to park up in Wal’s Camp because it was on the outskirts of town and reasoned that because of this it would be a cheap option. We were right, and didn’t get what we didn’t pay for – namely electricity, water and a sense of well-being. Reception (a wooden shed) was closed when we arrived and, judging by the severity of the cobwebs, appeared to have been so since 1973, so we put our fee into the designated metal box and went to find the toilets that didn’t exist.
The evening was uneventful. Nothing but silence and darkness came from the grimy caravans that were parked close-by and that clearly hadn’t moved since their original owners were hacked to death. We read by gloomy candlelight before turning in for the night.
I woke the next morning to the sound of wind and tree branches scraping against the van, and from the window could see small white clouds hurrying across the leaden sky.
Soon after, I met Wal. I presumed when I first saw the name it was short for ‘Wally’, the name of that adorable character in Crocodile Dundee. Actually, as it turns out, it’s short for ‘Wal-k away if you value life and limb’. I was sat outside, cross-legged and scribbling in my journal, when a filthy pickup truck came round a corner and crawled past. I smiled and nodded at the driver, who did not reciprocate, and suddenly became very aware that I was sitting cross-legged and scribbling in a journal. You can get skinned for that out there. The driver stopped, reversed and came to a standstill beside me, then climbed out.
Wal was about 6ft 2in with the kind of frame that would make Mike Tyson hesitate. He was wearing a dusty blue shirt tucked into oily jeans with a belt badge the size of our campervan; big, badass boots and a faded cowboy hat. I’m too polite to describe his face in detail, but I can say it was moulded into a permanent grimace. He stared at me for a couple of eternal seconds before opening his mouth.
“Yoose stayin’ another night?” he growled. His eyes said: ‘You’d better not be.’
“No,” I said emphatically. My eyes said: ‘I’d rather get intimate with a cactus.’
“Then yoose better be outa here by ten!” He almost shouted that last word. His eyes said: ‘O’r I’ll disembowel you.’
“Yep, no worries,” I blurted. My eyes said: ‘Please don’t disembowel me, Wal.’
Satisfied, he climbed back into his truck and sped through the gate, throwing up a cloud of dust in his wake. Soon after, we were throwing up a cloud of dust of our own, delving ever deeper into the Outback.
19 January, 2012 8:25 am
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