Karratha

Wednesday 11th October – 1st November 2006

Daybreak always puts a new perspective onto things and so with a new resolve, we headed into town with Viv, to look for work and digs – although Bill and Viv had explained that Karratha was pretty much a full town, with all the digs full and what not. It was a facking scorcher though and I was told ‘Strewth mate, that’s nothing!!’.

Since leaving the place, I’ve been sent a pdf copy of a cracking read called ‘Diary of a Pom’, which is written in the first person as if a lad had moved to Karratha and had kept a diary. It’s a cracking read, extremely funny and actually to the point, which makes me think it wasn’t written by an Australian ;-0) One of the extracts sums up how hot and how strange this place can be!!

“Ive lived in karratha, when i first stepped off the bus in May it was 35 degrees and as i drove to where i was staying i passed the local pool where there was a sign saying "pool closed for winter"”

The rest of it is good, but read as a whole, I’ll have to find it and e-mail it to y’all, but until then, thanks to Viv and Adrian!

As luck would have it though, I found the local Backpackers with not only room, but a shared double. Ange, a cracking Kiwi lass, was sorting the digs out for us and the Backpacker phone rang – it was a local Agency wondering if she had any guys who were available for a Monday start to do furniture removals! She took 2 minutes to ask me and there I was, digs and a job within 15 minutes of looking – someone was smiling on me! A trip into town also secured a job as waiter and bar person and at least the money angle was sorted. I ended up doing nearly two 60-hour weeks, but all a means to an end! It’s amazing when you read that unemployment in Oz is at 4% - until I realised that they’ll have the same lazy, white trash skivers that we have in blighty – but at least there’s always work out there – the trouble is that it’s just that – work. Stil, ya can’t have everything!

Getting back that night, Bill had done a star turn and squeezed Harriet into his garage, so everything was cool as – 2-3 weeks to sort out. Bill and the family looked a bit disappointed we were moving on Friday, especially as they’d offered up their spare room for us to stay while Harriet was getting fixed. For me though, despite the real generosity of their offer, they’d only just moved into their house, not spending even a weekend their on their own yet and whilst I was comfortable with a few days, I felt a few weeks was a big ask. It goes to show though how beautiful and generous the Aussies are and in fact, my experience since then with our brethren here has convinced me that Bill and Viv would have been more than happy to put Babett and I up for the time needed. How can I explain that I’m from a city where people don’t care? Where people would rather a guy get stabbed to death on a bus and not interfere, or even help the guy after his assailant had gone? Where I had not gone to the aid of a young child in distress who’d lost his parents for fear of being labelled a predator because I’m a bloke and had to hang around neither leaving nor acting positively until a woman came over and took charge?! That said, it’s why I’m travelling I guess and meeting people like that really warms the cockles of your heart as Mam likes to say!

Ross - one half of a couple of cool doods from the UK

The backpackers was a weird and wonderful place, our first night there being Friday night and we got stuck in straight away to a few beers and a game or two of something that involved lots of drinking. That night we met some cool people, our two roomies, Kev and Jess and also a lad, Damo, from London who’d been travelling a while – he and I clicked pretty much straight off, which was cool and it was class connecting with a lad from ‘back home’.



The next night was our first working at the Karratha International – the local hotel where most people seemed to rock up for beers – the bar being called Ghecko’s. After being started on the bottling up, I just took it on myself to collect glasses and clean the tables etc. The duty manager that night was a young lass of 18 – how weird to have her telling me what to do, especially as she and the other female staff members would stand around and point and tell me what needed doing!! That first night, met another lad working behind the bar, Nick and we clicked pretty much straight away. Nick is yr archetypal ‘Sandgroper’ – friendly, chatty and everyone was ‘a good Oke’, which always got me thinking ‘From small acorns…’. It was very weird being in a bar and seeing how people are when they’re smashed – I remember thinking quite clearly

‘Shit, am I that much of a wanker when I’m drunk’,

But I guess so! It turned out that this weekend, the mines had their shift change so a lot of lads where rotating out on their leave, via the boozer of course!! It’s amazing how money can change people – one of the girls behind the bar, Ann, was either day dreaming or remembering something and so had a glazed and I guess somewhat wistful expression on her face. A guy got her attention and said she should cheer up, it’s not that bad and if she was sad about working in the bar, she should do what he does as he earns x amount of whatever – I couldn’t quite believe it, but strangely enough, Ann just couldn’t seem to hear or see him again that night to serve him a drink! It took that twat about an hour to realise the game, as he was getting more and more irate, shouting and leaning over the bar trying to grab her arm at one point until the bouncers had to have a quiet word, using the door post to ram home the point as they helped the guy outside. So, a strange place indeed! After closing, it got even better, as an aboriginal lad had fallen asleep out the bar back door, which is the route we needed to take to get to the bins with the empty bottle bags. Nick and I had been gingerly stepping over the guy, after making sure he was still breathing, but the bar manageress just grabbed a bag and carried it over the guy so that he was soaked in the leaking booze from the bag – poor lad, what a waste of booze no doubt. The Police were called and I thought were very understanding and professional, gently waking the guy up and asking him where he lived to go home. The guy was disoriented though, or shitfaced or just plain dumb because he started to get lairy, with the inevitable arrest. I thought the coppers were very efficient too, one helping the guy up while the other demonstrated some pretty nifty moves with his night stick. They finished up but spraying his face with a can – I guess like the fresh water spray for refreshing yourself on a flight, but some must have gone up his nose because the poor lad was coughing a bit. The poor guy was in a bit of a state because as they were putting him in the car, he somehow slipped and caught his head quite nastily on the door jamb - despite the copper holding his head, but these things happen when you’re drunk I guess. At least the lad gets a free breakfast and nights sleep anyway.

A few beers had by all!

So endeth the first weekend in Karratha – what a place! Monday I start my furniture removals job and sadly, on Sunday, the Hostel owner invited me on a fishing trip he was running, but I had to work – sniff!