So I was asked last night if I’d ever written a book, ’cause apparently MY VOICE SHOULD BE HEARD. I was like, nah, lazy, blah blah, but I do have a blog. Wait, shit, I haven’t blogged in a year… So here we go!
9 months ago, Christmas arrived, and the Adorable Husband and I decided to drive to Melbourne. From our house. In Perth. For the non-Aussies amongst us, that’s like, approximately 3 billion miles away, across an entire continent of deserty death. Including the Nullarbor Plain, aka the the longest, straightest, flattest stretch of paved road in the entire fucking world (that part’s literally true). Well, by which I mean, actually, 2125 miles away. And, as this was clearly not psychotic enough, we decided to golf it. Yeah that’s right, the longest, straightest, flattest stretch of paved road in the entire fucking world also hosts the longest golf course in the entire fucking world. It’s the Nullarbor Links, and it’s 848.17 bloody miles long. It stretches across desert; scrub; more desert; a shit-ton of prickly shit the Aussie’s call double-gees, which I still can’t really bring myself to speak about; road houses with populations of, on average, 4 people and 34 dogs; and some truly horrifying wildlife I’ll get to in a sec. Oh, and also I’d never golfed in my life. What could go wrong??
As seen at left, our ridonculous plan actually succeeded. And I golfed as well! I’m not gonna get into how I came up with that AMAZEBALLS outfit, except to say it’s all I could do to combine: “it’s summer in the Aussie outback and nearly fuckin’ 100 degrees out” + “Jesus H, the Kalgoorlie Country Club has a dress code involving closed-toe-shoes and collared shirts??” + “I’ve been on a white miniskirt kick for a couple years now and will not cave to the silly whims of fashion” + “The only baseball cap I own is one I acquired free from Varnish on King in exchange for a pocket vagina (don’t ask)”. In any case…
So we left at the ass-crack of dawn, we drove and drove and, despite Kalgoorlie’s reputation as one of the bogan-y-est, messiest, scariest, stripper-filled-est towns in Oz, had a lovely day golfing and wining and dining. This was to be the last of that shit. The next day we drove to Norsman, which I can honestly say is the most miserable-ass town I’ve seen on this whole continent. The highlight of Norsman is a really nice art installation of scrap-metal camels sat in the only roundabout in town. Yeah that’s right, they’ve no traffic lights or sights, but they do have the one roundabout. So there’s that.
And then to the Nullarbor! This is the bit where shit got sketchy. Grass? Not so much. Whatever you golf-people call those green things you putt on? Not so much. Fairways, shade, cover from every spiny spiky death-dealing plant in this god-forsaken land, shit, even paths to find one’s ball? Not so much. And, how shall we put this, let’s just say, umm, I’m defo never gonna be hired as a golf pro.
By Hole 3 we had basically given up on life, purchased fly hats (clearly the fashion statement of the year) to ward off the circling cloud of aerial horror, ditched all but the driver and the putter in the car, and resigned ourselves to another week of tramping through Fuck You Bushes I Hate Every Plant in This Fucking Country. Turns out you totally can golf with just a driver and a putter. Turns out you totally can’t “golf” on the Nullarbor. Yet we pressed on…
And then, after trekking halfway across the Plain, we arrived at SkyLab. Apparently, way back in 1973, NASA caused a bit of a kerfuffle when their then state-of-the-art space station kinda, uhh, you know, fell to Earth and shattered debris across a large-ish chunk of Australia. My all-time fav part of this story being when the town (hahahahahaha “town”) of SkyLab billed NASA $400 for littering. The fine remains outstanding.
In the spirit of the inimitable Bill Bryson, we also managed to visit a number of Bigs: the Big Camera, the Big Gallah, the Big Kangaroo, the Big Whale, the Big Rocking Horse and so forth. Don’t get it? Look it up.
By far the most excellent end to a trip though, resulted in the acquisition of two of my all-time favorite things, Dr. Pepper and A Fuck Ton of Wine. ‘Cause like, we’re driving yo, why shouldn’t I purchase literally an entire Honda’s volume worth of liquids? Seriously, Dr. Pepper is like $4 a can in Perth, which just ain’t right, and the closest USA Foods Store is in Melbourne… There also may be a picture of me literally losing my shit in Jacob’s Creek, which really isn’t my fault, I mean, who knew Jacob’s Creek is an actual thing / place? And that you drive right over it? I totally had to jump in to determine whether or not it flows Sauv Blanc. Spoiler Alert: sadly, it does not. But the winery sure does, and they’ve even got a breathalizer in-house in case you don’t have an Adorable Husband to drive you around! But y’all don’t get to see this stunning photo, ’cause… no.
Anywho, all in all I’d say it was quite a successful roadtrip. No one died, I got like 15 cases of wine, the only dead animals encountered were not (probably) killed by my golf balls, the pricky spiky death plant scars have totally all healed, and also this happened:
P.S.- As promised, this is what happens when you try to golf on a dead goose:
offatthewrongstop 