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DOGS OF AUSTRALIA
The dogs looked out of the window at the landscape of plateaus. We never stopped the car often enough. They went there with their eyes and noses. When they dream now in the inner city terrace house, will they dream of plateaus? Sometimes when we got out of the car, we left the dogs locked behind glass. It was too close to the road to let them out. Their tongues hung so low that they touched the earth. Their eyes were wide and hopeful. Did they think they could run those immense distances? No water for a month. I think that they only wanted to be with me. I was standing beside the mulla mulla. They looked liked green powder puffs but they were prickly - dead in their hearts. 'It's pretty harsh out here,' I told the doggy faces. 'You wouldn't like it.' When I did let them out they pissed on everything, the small kelpie bitch lifting her leg like a dog and growling. She went macho on us. He paraded his dark testicles to the sun, since no other male dog was approaching. He felt good and boss of it all. 'I will take you to Derby in a week,' I said, 'so you can smell a crocodile or a white shark in the surf by the estuary.' The dogs thought that the big landscapes were hospitable to their curiosity and generous to their dreams. What we were to find out was that the dogs loved Australia but it didn't love them.
A big spider scampered over my foot in a Port Augusta caravan park shower. It was 11.00 pm. We'd had trouble finding accommodation with the dogs again. I said, 'we are like Joseph and Mary, the day before Jesus was born and they couldn't find a place to stay except a barn.' So much room in a country covered in salt, gibbers, and sand - so little room for friendliness in the-lucky-friendly-how-ya-going-matey-matey-matey country, where outback petrol stations in the southern Flinders Ranges are monitored by closed circuit TV. They're trying to catch all the thieves from Victoria and New South Wales. Rob said, 'Jesus couldn't have been born in Australia.' I asked, 'why not?' He said, 'because there are no three wise men and no virgins.' We were shit tired and hot. I had sunburnt arms and it was still thirty-three degrees in the shade of the night. The stars were giving us sunburn and the wind, through the leaves of a scented yellow gum that had grown accustomed to the edges of pink salt lakes across South Australia, was course, as though it carried sediment to our red shoulders that rested there like sand flies. The ABC reporter said, 'who owns the rain?,' and 'there is not much time left - for us to understand our own country.'
'Why do Australian men come so fast?' 'I dunno. Why?' 'So they can run down the pub and tell all their mates about it.' At least in New York you can 'do lunch' without them thinking that you want to marry them. All across Australia my dogs searched the window glass for images of a continent they thought they belonged to. They were bred for sheep and cattle. Now they sense those neglected herds melting into the landscape of out there, into the timelessness of the back of beyond. Wagtails swooped at their burnt backs in fire ravaged country along burnt creek beds. My eyes stung and itched just to watch them. I moved on and they just stayed out there in the misery of heat for the rest of their lives, until the heat licked at their bones and they started to pant and drip saliva. Oh what a planet, but the earth is okay. It's just the way these arseholes run the country, sheep, horse and cattle-fuckers matey matey matey behind the wheel in the big road train that tail-gated me all the way up the Stuart Highway, trying to run me off the fucking road, on a San Remo delivery to the Northern Territory. It was all about refrigerated pasta and the product to be delivered in the world to be conquered, along the highways that meet us half way and then escaped our judgment. The straight route inland was refridgerated frieght packaged and all the silent nocturnal kangaroos that remained as product and who appeared on the road's edges could go to Hell, O met my bull bar in the heart of the-lucky-country, no-worries, she's-comin'-up-roses matey-matey.
The friendly outback shook my hand as the till drawer in the cash register jack-knifed. The tourists complained that they only saw four emus and a few dozen kangaroos on a trip right around Australia. 'Oh, that's because they're all nocturnal, just like the aboriginals, they're not around much anymore either.' During the long days, and on even longer roads that pull down a blanket of heat over your eyes and cancer freckle your nose and forearms, we tried to find somewhere to bed down for the night. I said to the caravan park owner, 'but there's nowhere else for us to go. Where do you expect us to go? It's a big lucky country, but I just can't keep driving.' He shrugged. It was his dream that one day all dogs would be banned from all caravan parks across Australia and all stupidity and prejudice from his own heart would go unleashed and undiscovered. What he really wanted to ban was everything outside his own opinion of what the world should be like. Ban the bush fire, the flood and drought and the cats and dogs and the mallee fowl. Fuck knows - those cockatoos are bloody pests, like a thousand senseless middle-aged women talking at once. And all those bloody Asians, but not the Japanese, who had a quid on them. They owned Port Douglas! But worst of all the bloody pooftas! I'm jack of it! More performing dykes and less bludging thieving blacks in the lucky-friendly-bonza-country, she'll be right in the long run but, no worries matey-matey-matey.
Australian outback travel: no worries mate (unless you're a dog). You can forget the good ole 'dog on the tucker box' legend, blue heeler red kelpie outback hospitality - if you have a dog companion and you are travelling around Australia. Unlike North America where dogs are allowed into anything from a National Park to a 4 star motel room (and why wouldn't they be?). As one Canadian exclaimed, 'they're like your children!' Dogs in Australia are a constant issue. If you are heading towards a National Park the borders are where you stop. Dogs caused the extinction of everything on the continent. Translated this basically means that one person can go into the park while the other looks after the dog at the park entrance. Okay, fair enough. No worries, Mate. Meanwhile the tourists in the park would do well to take a dozen large garbage bags (suitably sized for a council clean-up) and a pair of gloves and protective clothing to pick up all the used toilet paper, cigarette butts and other human waste that litters most of the country's parks throughout the year. Dogs are unhygenic because they don't bring their own toliet paper and they aren't allowed into Kakadu because they have no interest in mining uranium.
The caravan park owner at Port Augusta thought he saw ghosts. When I asked if they took dogs, he made WHHOOOO WHHOOOO noises. It was a bigger event than the arrival of the Ghan (a train) in Palmerston (near Darwin). He then went on to tell me that all caravan parks throughout the country would be banning dogs soon. I asked him when he thought that would be happening, like, if he had an exact date, since many caravan parks were actually more open about accepting dogs these days. I brought the 'Life. Be In It' guide with me. I then found out that this particular Caravan Park was part of an unfriendly chain called BIG 4-F-U and banning dogs was the number one thing on their list. At another caravan park in Coober Pedy, the owner ran out the front and looked in my car and was edgy about our two dogs. He said that dog owners were irresponsible, didn't pick up their dogs' mess and generally were the 'types who caused all sorts of trouble.' 'They are worse than the people from Sydney,' he said. The manager hated dogs. 'Those little ones who fit into your handbag, they're just as much trouble!' I assume he meant chow-wows-wows. I agreed. 'They could be trouble for the larger dogs in caravan parks. If swallowed whole without chewing, they might cause the larger dogs to choke.' Meanwhile my two lucky country dogs sat in the car patiently waiting in 45 degree heat with their heads resting on the window rubber for a place to accept them overnight.
Glendambo Roadhouse charged fifteen dollars a night for an onsite caravan. The owner said that no dogs were allowed in the caravan. The van had a fly screen missing off one end, (not a good thing after dark in the outback - a hundred trillion winged visitors on their way to a single light source), no gas, no running water, broken cupboards and floor covering missing. When I sat on a faded orange vinyl benchseat opposite the loose kitchen table, I fell straight through it onto the lino. The mattresses were old, gritty and dirty. Windows didn't open and power points didn't work. It was similar to camping indoors. It was thoughtful for the owner to think about the well being of my dogs. I was concerned that my dogs might catch something from the mattresses if they went inside this caravan, when I started to itch after lying down on one of the beds, so I covered everything over with sheets. The dogs chose to lay on the lino, exhausted for the whole night and in the morning they made big trouble for everyone by chasing a tennis ball.
Naturally having the EH Holden, and two Australian breeds with aboriginal names I drove straight into the friendly G'day Mate Caravan Park in Alice Springs, that should have been G'day Mate (not your dog, just your dollar). There I was to find that not only didn't they take dogs (although they were considering changing that rule, but had to weigh up the 'commercial benefits' but that only one of the other three caravan parks took them. The caravan park that finally did required a bond of three hundred and twenty dollars per dog and thirty dollars a night for a van that slept two people but not the two dogs. Our caravan was parked in between the two toilet blocks where people whom my dogs didn't know from a bar of soap, constantly walked past where they were tied up in order to access amenities and septic tanks and to the drain to empty their porta loos. At night there were at least six hundred large black cockroaches swarming, scuttling and flying around these two areas. As soon as I placed my dog food dish down, a few cockroaches were making their way over. At the same time as I was expected to be separated from my dogs, I was also expected to keep them under control. If they entered the cheap caravan with one bed and no key provided to lock the door to sit on the lino we would be expelled from the caravan park. Yet if they barked once we would lose our bond. The drunken owner and his unhappy wife fought all night in the kitchen and out beneath the stars on the back verandah. We hoped that he didn't mistake his wife's yelling for our dogs barking.
Indeed Alice Springs, with all its caravan parks, ain't what it used to be. The town with its Centre Point, Video Ezy Hire, McDonalds and KFC is all set up for the international tourist industry. Dogs aren't worth anything to proprietors, so why should they remain part of the Australian ethos? Aboriginals (or at least their paintings) and the landscape are still worth something, therefore they stay, are acceptable. In so far as the tourist dollar is concerned dogs and their fellow travellers are not permitted and I would suggest that only a limited amount of land and native culture are also required. We don't want anything too deep or challenging for the soft outback adventures. We don't want any of them getting the wrong idea about who's boss or anything that represents our culture unless it is packaged and saleable - ready for the tourist dollar. Yet despite this authentic brown-nosed smooching and money grabbing, many Australians still enjoy travelling with their dogs. My dogs have provided me and many others with pleasure and visa versa, have swum across rivers and in the oceans, have provided me with love and security at isolated campsites, and their exploratory nature and wagging tails have been there on the longer roads to keep me laughing and awake when I might have fallen asleep. I've watched some brilliant desert sunsets with my hands on their shoulders, the three of us sitting in a row. They have given me a little nudge of reassurance at a dismal and rainy campsite. Dogs are superb travelling companions and to a majority of people are part of the family. So it seems natural that they come along with everybody.
Remote-controlled surveillance cameras at petrol stations and owners that don't want to give your dog a drink of water. I asked at every pub if dogs were allowed. The answer was a definite 'no.' Yet I had seen it in all the photos and heard about it in legend. I hadn't expected it all to be so sanitised, so friendly to the dollar and unfriendly to travellers. The pub owner at Coober Pedy had a small paved courtyard in the shade where the dogs could sit while we drank inside. He was kind enough to bring them a bucket of water. Many of the pubs do not provide beer gardens where people can sit outside to be with their dogs, nor do they provide anywhere inside so that all can sit together. One caravan park charged for the dogs as it would for people, even though the dogs did not use any of the amenities such as the toilet block, showers, air conditioning in cabins and even if they could they would not be allowed to. This was used more as a desuader or a deterant from bringing dogs again. When I thought about it later, I saw through it as a simple money matter. They didn't want dogs in outback Queensland but they wanted the dollar, therefore the cranky attitude that to get the dollar they had to take the dogs. Once a caravan park in south west Western Australia 300kms out of the way, was advertised as taking dogs in the RACV guide and when we arrived he said that he only took them if he felt like it and at the moment he didn't feel like it. This is all very well for him, but not to the traveller who may have come from thousands of kilometres away. No worries matey.
'You can stay here.' I said, 'okay, but I would still like to inquire about the price.' He wouldn't answer me and said, 'it's up on the boards. The other manager came along and he turned to him and said, 'she's got dogs.' It was as though I had committed some crime against humanity, some sin against all the religions of human societies, a personal harm to all the caravan park owners of the continent. The owner said he had many problems with dogs. He said, 'the barking the barking the terrible barking they bark all day and all night.' I said, 'only some dogs bark but there is usually a good reason for it.' He went on and on about all the trouble he had had with dogs. He said, 'they're always up to no good and why would you want to travel with them anyway?' I pointed out that dogs in North America were actually allowed in Motels, National Parks and caravan parks. He said, 'that's America. This is Australia,' I said. 'too-right-you're-not wrong-there-mate-she'll-be-right.' When I asked him when he had decided not to allow dogs into the park after all these horrendous so called 'barking ' experiences, he said that he had never allowed dogs in. 'But you just told me that it was due to all your horrible experiences with dogs that you stopped having them in.' He then said that others had told him and he had gone on their experiences. He walked off rudely and in quite a huff. He had missed out on the dollar from us. His mind was recently listed in a national guide to Australia's most haunted places. I didn't hear any dogs barking, but, then again, I could be mistaken.
Having travelled around Australia with my dogs at least twice, I know that although people give you a friendly nod and wave on the road, it appears that to accept money from you for accommodation for your dogs is pushing the mateship. The desert caravan parks had dreadful menageries containing anything from tropical parrots through to emus and large kangaroos and in one dusty pen at a Port Augusta caravan park, a poor distressed donkey that was snorting and coughing, rolling in dust while trying to get the six thousand or so biting flies off its bloody legs. We had to get an RSPCA inspector out there before leaving town. Dogs were allowed in Northern Territory parks until the whole thing became an amusement park geared towards the almighty tourist dollar. Some caravan parks really do have to make up their minds whether they are having dogs or not. The owner of a caravan park in Katherine said that she, 'only took dogs who weren't really dogs' and that we could 'use the pool', but we weren't allowed to tie the dogs anywhere near it while we swam. It was suggested that we tie up our dogs at least two hundred and fifty metres away. I said that in order to keep our dogs 'under control' which is one of the park rules, we had to be within a reasonable distance to give our dogs commands. Our option was not to swim, so we didn't. The main reason that dogs weren't allowed near the in-ground swimming pool is that the owner thought they would be chained to the pool fence, which might scratch the paint work. In her mind it had little to do with protecting Australia's remaining wildlife or international tourists and everything to do with protecting profit. 'OOOhhhhh they don't have any accommodation for dogs down there - only if you have your own tent and pooper scooper, ohhhhhhh you won't find anyone in Kunanurra who takes dogs or kids anymore for that matter.' After all, animals and children are both part of Australian ethos, not eftpos. |
