Day one is done and dusted.
We escaped Darwin and made our way south to Adelaide River, stopping at a few waterfalls along the way because when you’re unemployed and living in a van, standing near moving water somehow counts as an activity.
After topping up the fuel, it was time to find somewhere to sleep. We opened WikiCamps, the app that has become our travel bible, and discovered a place called Bridge Creek Rest Area, thirty-three kilometres down the road.
It had one review.
Four stars.
“Just had lunch here, but looks like a good stopover.”
That review was from nine months ago. Naturally, we took this as a glowing endorsement.
We rolled in just after two in the afternoon. There were already a few caravanners parked up, one bloke in a bus who looked less like a traveller and more like he’d accidentally established permanent residency there, and an old man in a van. He was tanned to the colour of saddle leather and reading a book, which somehow made him seem wise, despite the fact he lived in a car park next to a drop toilet.
We squeezed ourselves between an older couple and the old man. It was hot enough to cook an egg on the bonnet, so we immediately put up the awning, unfolded the chairs and cracked open our two remaining beers.
This is the life, I thought.
No internet or emails to respond to, just two blokes sitting under the brutal sun of the Northern Territory with road trains thundering by every few minutes.
Throughout the afternoon, other hopeful travellers arrived and drove around slowly, like sharks circling prey. Some attempted to park, while others gave up and left, perhaps in search of somewhere with fewer weirdos. Or maybe they caught a glimpse of Will, wearning nothing but his underwear.
By six o’clock the campground was full.
Then the man in the bus fired up his generator. It sounded like somebody trying to start a chainsaw inside a steel drum.
The older couple looked horrified. This always amuses me, Caravan owners will happily spend two hundred thousand dollars on a four-wheel drive and caravan combination that resembles a luxury apartment on wheels, yet draw the line at paying forty dollars for a powered site and the peace and quiet they desire.
Old Mate in the van responded by putting on some music. It was a surprisingly excellent playlist and did a decent job of competing with the generator.
Dinner was chicken wraps and red wine. By eight-thirty we’d demolished our first box of goon and decided sleep was probably the responsible thing to do. After all, it’s not like we have to work in the morning.
There’s something about red wine that helps me sleep like a baby. It may be the tannins, but more likely it’s the volume consumed.
I woke up feeling fantastic though.
We had a slow morning, coffee and cornflakes for breakfast and were the last people to leave camp, apart from Old Man Van and Annoying Cunt Bus, who appeared to have nowhere else to be.
I suppose that’s the price of being frugal.
You save forty dollars on a caravan park, but in exchange you spend the night sharing a dusty roadside clearing with a cast of characters who could all plausibly feature in a true-crime documentary.
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