Paradise Found

The rain is constant and cold and the wind is its wingman, yet here in the bus, with the diesel heater on low, it’s like living in a snail shell with windows.

There are two caravan parks in Lancelin, but now the school holidays are over, it’s quiet and this one is the cheapest.

Steve has lived here for seven years.

He lives in a caravan now, but next to his van is a bus, very much like ours, only it’s rusting its way back into the earth.

“My wife and I travelled Australia for six years in that, until she got sick and died.”

What did she die of?

“Cancer.”

He’s so matter of fact you could believe he’s well over it, but here is their bus, waiting for him every day, and the whole time he talked to us, he just studied our bus.

There are other long-term residents here too. They live in old vans that would no longer survive on the road, or in these chalets that look like tiny one-room sheds.

When thunder cracked, a young woman popped her head out of one and asked us if we heard that.

It’s the army, Steve said. They’ve got a bombing range near here so they must be practising. A short time later we heard another explosion that brought other hermits out to timidly stare around and wonder. And considering the tenuous nature of their place in this country, they should be timid.

The park has only one washing machine and no dryer, but there is no way they can complain. To live here permanently means you have to get on with the owner who, for some reason other than greed, has gifted them an affordable rent.

Steve told us he pays $180 a week, plus he helps the owners out here and there. But outside of here, in the besieging world, everyone knows there is not a rent they could afford other than this.

Deepening poverty is like an approaching war, an analogy the army solidifies with another distant, yet uncomfortably close, explosion.

The van park borders a sand dune, over which Kel and I found a deserted beach with crystal clear water.

Yesterday we went for a swim.

Without bathers, Kel stripped down to her G-string and I watched her little pale bum walk into the gentle swell were, unafraid, she dove into and bathed in the sea.

After she broke the surface, laughing and freezing, I understood that it is not a case anymore that we no longer know where we are going. It is just a realisation that after a lifetime of searching for our individual paths, perhaps we never knew where we were going, and the final acceptance of this might explain this deep sense of freedom we both own.

Tomorrow we will hit the road again, and despite the staggering cost of fuel, and despite the fact we have no destination, and no timetable, we are heading north.