No Room In the Inn– Almost

Like Mary and Joseph, I pulled up to the Warakurna Roadhouse with my trusty steed, expecting to get a tent spot for the night. A tent spot meant I could get a warm shower, recharge the batteries, fill up with water, and get a good rest. “There’s no room today. All full!” I was told. No room in the inn!

What? Roadhouses always have room. “Not even a little corner for a little tent?” I asked.

“No. No space anywhere!”

Apparently, they were having– in the middle of nowhere– a rally of 300 cars and about 600 people show up in a camp that holds 100 at most. It was “The Shitbox Rally” a drive across Australia on the meanest roads possible on the junkiest cars. Oh, gosh, what Australians do for fun! Of all the things to happen that day! The whole idea turns me off, but, oh well…. They were to stop that day at Warakurna Roadhouse, and the roadhouse was refusing anybody else that may show up. I guess getting $10 from a bike guy for a tent spot versus thousands of dollars for running the Rally, they made the obvious unfriendly choice. They weren’t even kind about refusing me; just a blunt “No, you can’t stay here.” Caravans (Australian for RV) may keep on going, but a guy on a bike has less of an option.

So what to do? If I can’t do the things I planned in preparation for the next leg, well, what to do? So finally I just filled up my water bags from a tap, sat in the roadhouse store for a couple of hours to juice up the batteries from an available plug, and prepared to go on my way– about 10 miles further up to set up camp.

Then the miraculous happened!

The head police officer stopped by the roadhouse just as I was about to pedal off. He was there to check if things were in order for the rally. 300 cars in this small indigenous community is an oddity that needed checking up on. We talked, he learned about my situation, and just said, “Just go around to the police station over there (across the street) and set up your tent behind the tree there. You’re not on roadhouse grounds. That way you can rest for the day instead of having to just take off.”

What good news to my ears.

So I set up my tent behind the police station, and was prepared to settle in for the evening. But that is not the end of the story.

While I was standing at the police station looking at the hundreds of junky cars roll into the roadhouse across the street, another officer, Sebastian– the child protective services officer for the area– came by the station. We talked and, with his invitation, I ended up in his house. Complete with warm showers, all the electricity I needed to juice up the batteries, full laundry, and best of all, a nice complete bed in my own warm room. And not a penny spent on that rude of a roadhouse.

What started as a dismal day turned out to be a very restful day beyond measure. All from the kindness of the first police officer, and then the boundless graciousness of Sebastian.

The time in Warakurna gets even better from here. That’ll be in the next post.