My job search soon led me to discover I was living in a parallel universe in which casual farm labourers earned more than journalists. It seemed a career change was in order, so I secured a position working on a vineyard without too much hassle, and once I had bought a car, some camping equipment and enough food to last me two weeks, I set off towards a place called Dandaragan.
Now Dandaragan doesn’t appear on most maps because for the most part it isn’t accessible by proper roads. It isn’t a town – it’s more of a small, ill-defined region. New-fangled inventions such as mobile phones and the internet are nowhere to be found, and if you’re travelling there you’d better have good directions.
I had good directions. They came from Google Earth and were emailed to me by Katy, the woman I would work for. The four-hour journey from Perth to Dandaragan was a complicated one, so the print-off of the directions was four pages long.
I’m not too proud to admit that there were a number of wrong turns made on the way, but with the help of random strangers and petrol station staff I managed to keep going in the right direction. And I was quite pleased, right up until sometime approaching midnight, when I made my scheduled turn off a main road onto a dirt track called ‘Scenic Drive’.
I consulted my directions to see where I should go next and found that there weren’t any more directions. They were cut short, either by Katy’s e-mail or by the printer I used. Whatever the reason, I was stranded. I had Katy’s number but I had lost the signal hours ago. To top things off, I was running low on petrol and had passed the last station around the same time as my phone died.
I knew I had to be close to the farmhouse where I was due a few hours previously, so I continued up the five kilometre length of Scenic Drive looking for a signpost or a vineyard or anything that might get me out my predicament. The only thing that indicated that there might be life along the road was a light in what looked like a barn or large shed.
I may not be from the country, but I’ve seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Wolf Creek and (God help me) Deliverance, so I know that wandering into a random farmyard in the dead of night usually means torture, rape and murder. Besides nurturing a racking fear stemming from horror-film-induced trauma, I was reluctant to saunter onto someone’s property in the middle of the night out of a sense of common decency. Unfortunately, I was out of options.
I pulled up at the edge of the property and, much like someone having a near-death experience, I walked towards the light. As I got closer I could see it was a garage for tractors and other farm-related paraphernalia, but was empty of people – hillbilly serial killers or otherwise. I walked back outside and spotted a fairly swanky-looking farmhouse further into the property, and a light just barely visible through the curtained front window. I felt like an idiot, but just bit the bullet and knocked on the front door.
A farmer answered my knocking and he instantly struck me as a kindly sort. I apologised for disturbing him at such a late hour and explained my predicament. He was unconcerned by my arrival on his doorstep – probably because the lad was quite clearly hammered. Nonetheless, he had a plan to resolve my crisis and the wheels were immediately set in motion.
Only two vineyards in the area employed contractors to prune them and this farmer knew both. He threw on his wellies and with his trusty dog bounding along behind him, we headed towards his ute (that’s Aussie slang for a pickup truck). Soon he was tearing off down the dirt track in the direction I had come, while my 1985 semi-vintage motor struggled to keep pace.
After 10 minutes he pulled up to a gate that opened towards a small, borderline derelict house that looked to be in total darkness. We both jumped out and looked around. There were tents pitched outside the house – it was definitely the place I was after.
I thanked the farmer profusely as he jumped back into his ute smiling. He waved away my appreciation and seemed happy to have done a good deed, though was in a slight rush to get back to the crate of beer he’d been working his way through.
I didn’t feel like ruining anyone else’s peace and tranquillity so I quietly pitched my tent among the others and climbed in. The introductions would wait until morning.
To be continued...
