Out... there.... somewhere!
On friday instead of getting out of bed at 5 and heading off to work, I headed out to the airport and caught a plane interstate. Sydney was wet and muddy and yukky, so it was pleasant in itself to not be working. All the excitable and anticipationary vibes were filling up my brainmeats again: the adventure had begun!!
plane took off crrrrrrrsssssssssssssshhhhhhkt on time (yay!)
way up at cruising altitude, i was continually readjusting my posture (never getting comfy- damn postie pains) gazed occasionally out the window i drifted in and out of consciousness not quite ever reaching what id call proper sleep. flights to adelaide always felt special during morning light, you pass over the all the remote desert/plains spanning hundreds of kilometres without breakand those vast lands containing just a few dotted towns and the checker/chessboard style farming allotments multi-pale-coloured.
the plane shifted about the pockets of air above adelaide hills, i spotted the large lake atop elis tomb and felt well in touch with the lovely radelaide tunnels already :) the plane took an uncommon course, usually the plane will curve round to the south and out to the ocean, pull back into the city over glenelg and such to land, but this time it flew directly over the city, above the torrens and the o-bahn!! weather looked so appealing, sun and happies.
india was waiting for me up in the terminal so so sweet i rarely get the pleasure of pickups. he smiled lots and gave me a big awesome hug at the gate :)
cruised on through adelaide town in the ladamobile, weather was so much nicer here than sydney! met up with the melbourne kids and elfen back at the house of india and elfen, i was given tasty chilli vegetable soup that had been prepared the night before for the vegies expo... yum!!
blackducks rad GFPMD reversed tshirt thingy
the convoy of two vehicles migrated up n out of town, via great north road, i spotted a HUGE like errr 15m tall bloody tampon with a pubic hair on top of it (well, maybe u had to be there to understand... or live near elizabeth). quick pit stop for sandwiches and salad and then up the sturt highway, whizzing around road trains and PONIES!! and little towns like Nuriootpa n Yunta and PONIES!!!!
look! another servo! theres a truck in that one! look! PONIES!!
india had been driving laque and i through the rolling plains for a good hour or two, when i turned to the right saw PURPLE! purple EVERYWHERE!!!!! WOW!! so i got india to pull over while laque and i went and frolicked in field of purple and the sun hit that golden stage of setting.
i specifically remember taking a photo of balckduck also, but now i cant find it!
sunset was so peaceful, my surroundings were making me all hush and relax, but still excitable coz the full moon was approaching. and when it did, pwwwoaaaAH!! damn it was gorgeous, all big and cheesy coloured on the horizon!! so bright and full that it was reflecting off the bitumen :)
we pulled out of a town called yunta, and hit a dirt road passing a huge sign "WARNING: REMOTE AREAS" (yay! we're getting there!)this is when i realized i was a long way from my parents place in sydney, and a long way from my postie job and then it all vanished and i just felt the all those dust ridden filthy gawwdamn outback vibes maaa fuckka!! YES!!!
the ladamobile was loving it!! bouncing all over the dirty mounds and over crests n under dips and weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. i was having so much fun! id never been in a bouncy russian car before!! heeeeeee
then all the sudden india stopped, and pointed to a protrusion over the horizon. it was the smelter!!! our home for the night!! off the dirt road and up even bouncier and unpredictable trails the ruins cut into a hillyside of shrubbery. we decided to set up matresses and food eating devices in an old shack thing with a door but no walls, but most importantly, there was a corro sheet cover (woohoo! SHELTER! of sorts...)
the atmosphere of this place was magical, looking out shrubs and dust as far as the eye can see. the ruins of smelter were crumbling little insignificant piles of crud comparatively to the landscape around us.
laque and i sitting side by side a corroded chimney looking out into the endless desert
the smelter had sure seen more productive days, hard to imagine that decades ago people lived here: manly miner men who did manly work throughout the harsh manly summers sweating pools of man sweat (PONIES!!!!)
the main stack, still standing at the top of the hillside
india cooked a tasty yum stir fry for dinner and bongarse and the melbourne kids ate crackers n pasta n stuff. living the high life baby, damn we got it sweet us outta towners, should be out strangling snakes to death with our BARE HANDS and cooking them up on a stone in the sun if we were real ummmmm yeah...
while a few people went and checked out the ruins, i was delving deeper into other attractions over the other side of the hill. i found a big gaping steep mine shaft, seemed at first a bit too risky to enter, but my exploring spirit took over me. and there i was in 2004 saying id never enter a mine again (hah!)
sitting at the top of the shaft painting things blood coloured
what made it most appealing was the way the moon had been aligned up perfectly with this shaft, the light was streaming all the way down to the bottom. timing couldnt have been more perfect! so i took my first cautious steps into the shaft, trying not to put too much of my weight on the loose chunks of rock covering the floor, and damn it was steep. but, slowly i made my way to the bottom, where it grew into a chamber approx 30m wide and 5m tall, two standing-human sizedtunnels dugout from the bottom of the chamber.
dancing cautiously with sparklers, over the chunks of stone and general shit dumped down the shaft
so i took the most stable looking tunnel which curved down and to the left, seemed to open up into another chamber. the floor was fucked and the walls crumbled with a slight touch, so i looked down to the chamber to find that there was a serious drop, and even if i did somehow get down there, theres little chance id get back up (definately not good options)
peering downwards, to the tunnel from the chamber.. sparkling :)
looking back up into the tunnel, just above the second chamber. this is about as far as i pushed
i was quite calm and collected. its always exhilarating to explore something that wouldve taken so much to dig out, so long ago. i started to hum and mumble sugababes lyrics and lay back a bit then all the sudden i heard a small collapse up the tunnel (eeek!!)
okay, ive had enough! i cautiously wriggled my butt on up out. this mine was much easier to ascend than other larger commercial mines which id gotten hundreds of metres underground into, but its dodgy fucked up footing junkpile shit made it particularly difficult. something id gotten into my head from previous experiences went round in my head again and again "mines in operation are dangerous, mines out of operation are fucking dangerous"
back above ground the air was no longer stale and choked with dust, i was breathed heavily from that little experience, lay in the cool night breeze. thought id try find the others. this wasnt too difficult, india/bong/duck were throwing sparklers and glowsticks up in the air under the smelter stack :)
showed them the mine entrance and we stumbled across conveyor shafts/egresses/collapsed bits along the way.
once again i went off by myself, and found a small lonely ruin to sit upon and feel totally awesomely free. i had a bit of a spiritual thing happen there gazing up at the starry sky, a jet streaked high above the clouds, without sound reaching thus far. a thick trail of vapor was left in its path and the moon lit it all up so pretty like. then i heard a roaring sound disturb the moment liking a rocket, which turned out to be a road train at full speed kilometres away following the dirt road towards yunta. those two human driven objects in that five minute period ended up being the only connection id had with human existence the whole night. eeeee :)
out... there... somewhere
india and i headed out to the ghost town around 2am, and the sky turned circular with the moon and clouds forming the most substantial aura id seen in my life! the two of us were standing beside an old rusty tank when we noticed.
india and the tank, last writings scribbled in the 60s-70s
the substantial aura: wow!!
the ladamobile bumped and bounced its way over to the ghost town centre, where a few buildings still remained partially standing. the nowhere else hotel was the most prominent old structures left built from mine spoil it would seem: lotsa stone baby!
the pub, aye!
the pubs floor had rotted away and the roof had long collapsed, trees had established their roots in place and decorated the naked innards nicely. fireplaces still stood proudly, it was a homely feeling place but totally still and ghostly and ruined!!
lunar deity curliette
finally india and i had mutual feeling of...exhaustion! drove back up to the hill where our comfy (hard concrete floor) and homely (freezing cold) shack (without walls) was awaiting us. we slept, but not exactly solid sleep :)
india "goodnight darling" curly "goodnight m'dear"
brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
brrrrr
stupid postie pains!!
aaaarg.
got up around 6am and grabbed a bog roll from laquey baby. went to my lonely ruin, took a shit with the nearby black snakes and kangaroos. the snakes were particularly morbid and motionless at that time of morning, soaking in the early sun rays charging up their energy stores gettin their blood pumpin.
laquey baby and i went for a wander shortly after my return to the shack. followed a trail out in an unknown direction, which led us to many many more shafts and mine entrances. we danced and sung along to curlys lil speakers pumping out random shit.
laquey baby taking purdy pictures of bird nesting in an old vertical shaft
i walked a bit ahead and stumbled across a rad little mine. it had a kindly sloped shaft which met a tall vertical shaft filled with pigeon nests, floor covered in pigeon shit. GORGEOUS!! my speakers were blasting away osymyso's track "cuckoo" oddly enough when the sweet dreadlocked adelaidian appeared above me. we giggled and checked it all out but the tunnel shrunk and looked less than appealing (and was filled with pigeon excrement .
under the vertical shaft: mine love :)
our stroll curved back towards the shack, and halfway back skipping the prickly bushes and shrubs the heat started to hit, and with the heat the flies started to swarm. returning to base the others were already half packed up (good we were all on the same wavelength, fuck off before the heat gets unbearable)
next on our checklist: get back to yunta via the dirt road, get a bit of fuel. that worked out pretty straight forward. it was sure an outta town servo. a very special lady who appeared to be working at the servo was opening up the fridges and turning all the drinks so they would face label forward, at an alarmingly slow rate. she even managed to knock a bottle out of the fridge and smash on the floor, to which she breathed out heavily and sharply blurted "DAMN!"
a socially intact lady at the counter looked over to the special lady standing above a puddle of softdrink and broken glass "joanne laarve, you alright dear?"
we were on the bitumen again, zooming up the highway towards broken hill. the lada was a sweatbox!! every 50km or so wed open up these latches at the front of the car for a huge blast of air which we would all be so so grateful for heheh
reached the inland mining city by noon, and boy was it nice to get outta the sweatbox and into a larger, quieter sweatbox with showers and matresses and creaky floors and a kitchen!! wooo! yup we had a HOOOSE! thanks again laquey baby and laqueys father baby! charged phone, napped, went coles got food, generally just got prepared for the evening. one night out on the mining town ooohyeh!!
we headed out for browns shaft (tourist cuntland) and to that big chair thing (touristified CUNTFACE) hahahahahah
tried to access a minehead/crushing facility/old conveyor and other assorted tanks/buildings that pizzy/eli/laque and i had accessed not too long ago. i had thought sunset would be awesome in there. but it was different this time round. no holes to just jump on in this time and then a whole heap of paranoia, which doesnt mix so well with good times exploring old things.
laque had squeezed under the fence coz wed seen blackduck smiling and waving at us from up in the main structure in the site. i turned around to see bong and india making very expressive arm movements and bodily expressions to not go in and come and talk to them, they were across the road staying well back.
apparently theyd seen a security vehicle do its rounds, turn and park nearby. thats a founded statement to pay attention to before entering the site. they pointed out the vehicle to me and it was one which had driven right past laquey and i scouring the fencing for holes (which were no longer). hmm the whole situation had turned to shit.
so we got going
went to cook dinner. was TASTY!!
news from adelaide on the phone was a hyooooge lightning storm had hit and was heading straight for broken hill. i was picturing a lovely moonlit warm night exploring rad shit but it was far from that once wed driven up to a good vantage point to see the approaching storm.
the "underground" hahaha. see the distant storm behind it? not so well, the image is small and compressed
the winds were picking up, strong enough to make it difficult to walk in a straight line. drove over to another lookout type thing with a couple 'voirs atop. i spotted an awesome old bendy rusting car and headed for that grabbing laquey baby to come with me. standing beside the old car a torch shone upon the two of us. out of the violently swinging tree branches what seemed to me to be a unmistakable sihouette: a full on bogan with a mullet wearing a singlet and shorts. he interrogated us "oi, whatchaz doin?"
i explained in brief i just wanted a photo of (obviously his) car (which was chained to a tree trunk i noticed when lighting struck and lit the scene). he seemed happy and walked back up his driveway, to stand exactly where hed appeared from and the silhouette didnt move (SCARY!)
not a minute later, the storm hit with cyclonic force, laque and i huddled in a concrete booth while it went fuckin nuts outside. lucky timing to find the booth huh!
we ended up back at the house, the others were up the hill when the storm hit and they got completely drenched! so the night started to wind up unpredictably early. it got to midnight and most people were going to bed (we hadnt slept much that morning)
but but but curly couldnt imagine letting the night disappear if this is the one and only night shell be in town!!! so i set an alarm for 4am to at least go for a walk and see what happens. i slept for a few hours, and then got up and got my shit together, sat on the porch to put my shoes on. the gale force winds were still blowing the town about and rain was still falling quite heavily. it was fuckin cold all the sudden (spesh coming from bed, mind u i didnt hvae sheets so it was cold there too).
i sat and contemplated. fuck it. *legs start going one in front of other*
the town was dead, one car passed me blaring subwoofer driven electronic music but that pretty much sums up the activity. found myself standing before a large structure id stood before many times before, dreaming of what its like close up, on top of, inside of. id been told by people un-inspirational things of this site, id been told "yeah, it looks abandoned but its still used"
haha. BULLSHIT!!
this site was a hugely exciting place to end up without any expectations. with the current abandoned climate in australia its really rare to find a 1930's structure standing, let alone in this condition (its original condition, untouched). it had all the elements of a perfect abandonment: large buildings and rusted tangled piping, pigeon shit, doors swinging open and close on their hinges (squeaaaak), broken windows, water towers, and most importantly it was pristine. pristine in the sense that it was untouched since it went out of use (as far as i know 20 years ago). theres no reckless teenage damage, shitty tags/graffiti, no locks or alarms (!) geeez, it had been a while since id come across something like this. all the wear on the building is wear that had occurred through dilapidation.
the sun had fully risen, and i felt a bit exposed:
so i checked a couple last things, and headed back to the house where the others were sleeping. i couldnt go back to sleep tho, my head was in a world of industrial fantasy. and it was when i usually get up for work anyway. oh yeah, work tomorrow. hmmm.
everyone packed up and the day flew past. the melbourne kids drove off in the direction of melbourne and the adelaide kids (and curly) went in the direction of adelaide. we stopped off at a set of silos, and an abandoned train station on the way back, but had to keep the pace coz i had a flight back to sydney leaving at 6pm.
yay :)
what a fuckin awesome getaway. cant wait to go back again soon
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