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We had an old VW station wagon (I believe they don’t need water in the radiator or something like that) which was to take us all the way to Alice Springs.
You will need to look at a map of the Northern Territory of Australia to appreciate the distance we actually had to travel. We drove all the way to the very centre of Australia where Ayers Rock is, have you heard of it? It is one huge giant red rock right in the middle of a very flat, very arid desert and it is one of the most awesome geographical features in Australia.
I can’t remember how long it took us to get there but I remember having to make a few overnight stops along the way. If I remember correctly we stopped at Daly Waters, Pine Creek, Katherine (this place has some of the most beautiful gorges you will ever see on this planet), Tennant Creek and then Alice Springs.
It was an uneventful journey except for one incident happening on our way to Pine Creek. We blew a tyre when we were still a few hundred kilometers from Pine Creek and our spare tyre had already been used.
There we were right in the middle of nowhere, it was almost midday and the heat was unbearable but we couldn’t stay inside the car, it was like an oven even with the windows open. So we had to sit on the side of the road under what very little shade we could find while Papa hitched a ride from a passing motorist (very few and far between) to Pine Creek.
There he had to buy a spare tyre, hitch a ride back to where we were, replace the tyre and start again. The worst thing about that experience was the bush flies. They were the biggest, most aggressive, sticky, irritating things which made the heat even more unbearable and we were stuck there for quite a few hours.
It was not a very pleasant experience and at times I remember feeling afraid that Papa was not going to come back for us. The rest of the way to Alice Springs was uneventful and boring as hell but we made it.
We stayed in Alice Springs for a couple of days because Papa had to organize for the car to be loaded onto a train bound for the end of the next leg of our journey to South Australia.
I remember it being very cold at night and very hot during the day. The trip on the train was a little bit better as we all had a chance to rest in reasonable comfort. The carriages were air-conditioned but we did not have sleeping berths. The trip I think took two nights and three days through the most barren terrain you can ever imagine.
We went through the middle of the Simpson Desert and there was not a leaf or a plant or scrub anywhere in sight. The ground was so flat you could see miles of emptiness into the horizon and nothing but gravel and loose stones on the ground. There were stops along the way, but tiny little train platforms servicing outback stations and nothing more.
Finally we got to the end of the line, a place called Oodnadatta where we unloaded the car and headed for the Eyre highway which was to take us across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth in Western Australia. It is called the Nullarbor because it is just a vast and very long journey through land which did not have a single tree (null-arbor) and the most boring trip imaginable.
Back then the saying "are we there yet?" never came to our heads but it was horrendous for my parents trying to keep us amused.
This journey I guess was roughly the same distance or maybe even further than from Darwin to Alice Springs and back in those days there was a few hundred kilometers of unsealed roads (dirt tracks) which made the journey even more difficult.
We made stops along the way too, Ceduna (South Australia), Eucla which is right on the border of South Australia and Western Australia, Northam and then Perth. The only incident I can remember from that trip was at Eucla, we stopped off at this roadside motel and Mama decided she wanted to wash her hair. Unfortunately we didn’t realize that the town water supply came straight from the sea and the water was hard and salty. Mama washed her hair alright, and it came out looking like a gollywog, you know those dolls with very frizzy hair? She was really upset but we all thought it was hilarious.
We arrived in Perth late in the afternoon with Papa having only about $60.00 in his wallet, which was all the money we had in the world and nowhere to stay.
Somehow he managed to get us a rental house that evening and we moved in then and there. Fortunately it was fully furnished so we had all the essentials, stove, fridge, furniture and beds. After such a long, hard journey we were all quite miserable so Papa (bless his heart) decided the only thing that would cheer us up is getting us our very first television set. (Rental of course).
It was black and white but I remember it being almost a life-saver for us back then. I remember the house, and the street and that we had grape vines in the back yard, but I don’t remember anything else about the place. Very shortly after, we moved again to an adjoining suburb, I think the first house was too expensive and Papa and Mama had not yet secured jobs so we had no income. We were literally very, very poor at this stage and we couldn’t get any assistance from the government as we had not yet qualified (paid enough taxes) to receive any welfare aid, and we were not yet naturalized at that stage.
But somehow we managed and both Papa and Mama found jobs with the same company (G and R Wills – I think they were a cigarette company or something like that). Papa worked as a storeman (a far cry from his Philippine Airlines Manager days) and Mama got a job at the company cafeteria working in the kitchen. A far cry from her high society life-style in the Philippines.
At first it was okay, we went to school, we had friends, we loved Perth and for a couple of years things were normal enough. But at home things were not quite normal, Papa’s emphysema was giving him grief and Mama made the “ghastly” announcement that she was pregnant. To this day I don’t know why I was so upset by her news.
I remember she told me when we were both in the kitchen, she was washing the dishes and I was drying them and she just very casually told me she was pregnant.
I was so stunned and I got very upset and ran to my room and cried. Ordinarily this should have been a happy event but I was 14 and “the baby” was due just after my 15th birthday. I don’t know if it’s because I had learned by this stage what people do to get pregnant, and couldn’t possibly conceive or imagine the idea that my parents were having sex or what, but I remember looking at my dad and feeling grossed out!!
It could also be that I realized back then we were not in any position financially to have an addition to the family, things were not going well in the finances at that stage. Papa and Mama had applied for a State Housing Commission house because we couldn’t afford to rent a normal house.
State housing back then is like the housing “projects” in the USA, they were in very poor suburbs and the houses were very small and dingy and initially you had to move into a “block” of units or town-houses as they were called, before you could qualify for a free-standing home with a backyard and a reasonable front garden.
After living in a reasonable fully furnished house, we ended up in this “block” with no furniture and very little kitchen equipment. There was no money to buy the essentials like a fridge, lounge and dining furniture and beds so we had to rely on St Vincent de Paul (a charity organization) to supply us with the very basics. I try to imagine just how much “pride” both my parents had to swallow back then and I remember feeling very miserable for them.
This is where my writing ended. I think I got depressed thinking about what it was like and I never went back to it again....so for now...
The End