Enthusiastic as I am over the concept of social drinking, I balked a little when the aboriginal handed me the can of Scotch and Coke. It was after all, only a little after 7am which is early, even by my standards. However, I rationalized that it wasn’t really all that long since I’d had my last drink and even though the sun was high in the sky, I hadn’t been to bed so technically it was still late at night, not early in the morning. Plus, as we stared down at the truck firmly embedded in the sand, it was obvious we weren’t going anywhere for a while. I popped the top and took a swig. It was warm and tasted vile but what the heck.
The evening had started out promisingly enough. A bunch of us from the backpackers’ hostel had set out to the bar to sink a few cold ones with the locals. The company was excellent and even though it was karaoke night, we were having a blast. Because of Broome’s location in Australia’s North West, it tends to attract a fair number of travelers on their way either to Darwin at the top end or down the west coast. Australia doesn’t have too many roads and generally, you’re either traveling this way, or the other way. As there are only a limited number of places to stop, you tend to make friends with the people going in your direction due to the fact that you’re meeting up with them repeatedly. Although I’d already been in Broome a week, I’d decided to it my base for Christmas, now only a few days away. Several others had made the same choice, each as determined as I, to have a good time and the sense of camaraderie was strong.
The night before had been something of a session and several of us had resolved to take it easy this evening. It never turns out like that of course and when somebody suggested we move on to the local night club, the agreement was unanimous. Back to the hostel to change flip flips for trainers, shorts for jeans, T-shirts for collars. Being backpackers, we didn’t all possess such elegant attire or if we did, being backpackers, it was currently somewhat pungent. So the more fastidious among us found themselves in the positions of being able to trade clean clothes for goods or services. I myself obtained the loan of a very smart white shirt in exchange for the promise of a meat pie, to be delivered at a later date.
Once in the night club, the evening merely picked up speed. Brimming with beer induced self-confidence I was trying to make headway with a drop-dead gorgeous Swedish girl called Kattus, “as in catastrophic”. I never really got anywhere but at this stage in the evening she was hanging on my arm in a manner that suggested all kinds of delights to come. It was probably due to her looks rather than mine that a bunch of Australian lads invited us all to a party on the beach. We had no real idea where the beach was, but not to worry – we piled into the enclosed back of a pick up and off we went, singing and joking as we bounced through the bush. You can’t have a beach party without a fire but rather than follow the time honored tradition of collecting driftwood, our driver simply drove over the wooden safety marker posts at the side of the road and once they’d snapped off their bases, threw them into the back with us.
The fire was soon ablaze and the remainder of the night was spent joking, gossiping, skinny-dipping, drinking and somewhat predictably, losing Kattus to a muscular Australian surfer dude named Shane. By the time the velvety night turned gray with the first suggestion of dawn, most people had crashed, either by the fire or off in the dunes somewhere. I was still awake, but tired, stiff and somewhat cranky. So when Shane announced he was giving someone a lift to the nearby resort, I invited myself along, thinking he could drop me back at the hostel. I’d have a shower, catch a few hours in my nice comfy bunk and be awake and refreshed by the time the others straggled home from the beach.
Congratulating myself on my forward planning, I hopped in the back and in a few minutes was on my way back to bed. Or rather I wasn’t. Shane wasn’t a local and it turned out that he’d assumed I would be able to give him directions. Not only did he not know how to get to town; he had no idea how to get back to the beach where we’d left everyone else. Neither of us was familiar with the area, we had no map and within a few minutes were unable to determine where even the resort was. We weren’t helped by the fact that the highway system around Broome is a network of dirt roads surrounded by scrubby bush without a landmark in sight. Quite simply, we were lost.
I’ve no idea how many miles we covered cruising up and down but we seemed to be driving for hours. Occasionally we would pop out and find ourselves beside the ocean but never anywhere we’d been before. Eventually we came across the family of aborigines who were at the far end of several cases of beer. They were more than happy to take us to our beach, if we would only help them get their truck started. Thirty minutes later we were on our way and the only problem now was that they didn’t know where our beach was either. We’d simply exchanged cruising up and down the dirt roads, for crawling on and off an endless collection of identical beaches. It was only a matter of time before we got stuck and it was then the drinks came out.
I got back to my bed eventually, although not until nearly lunchtime. I got a kiss from the adorable Kattus, but not until three days later when she and Shane were an established couple. And I got grease on the borrowed white shirt so it ultimately cost me more than a meat pie. But I also got the chance to drink Scotch and Coke from a can at seven in the morning, with a party of Australian aborigines, while watching the sun come up over the Indian Ocean.
So all in all, it wasn’t a bad night.
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