Eneabba: My Kind of Town

 

My hands felt sticky, victims of too many sweets and sugary coffee, and I wondered if excessive farting was a symptom of type 2 diabetes. Several stinky pumps later and her indoors had cranked the air con up to “MAX” – in a bid to freeze my ass cheeks like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. Yes folks; us Perth city slickers were driving northwards into the wilderness, in a mid-price compact, to see The Pinnacles.

After devouring a sack of gummi bears, my pituitary gland began to scream “WATER!!!! WATER!!!!”. My partner in crime had only packed girly juice – water flavoured with dandelion and other pressed flowers that Elton John likes. So I was faced with the prospect of having to sell one of my kidneys to afford “man water” from a service station. My other half, meanwhile, was getting hungry; so we agreed to stop at the next garage on route.

By then, the rain was hammering down like Thor playing the Xylophone and the roadside was a slur of red mud, punctuated with the carcasses of Jay walking kangaroos. I peered through the slosh and saw a knife and fork symbol on a road sign up ahead (images of pot-bellied truck drivers, ravishing meat pies and tepid coffee swirled around my cranium) then beside it the town name – Eneabba. I thought that’ll do and squelched off the highway at the next exit, heading for a town I couldn’t pronounce.

Eneabba: Population 250, Signs of Life 0. Imagine a one-horse town, then imagine a Shetland pony, then imagine a colt from Lilliput, then imagine Ronnie Corbett riding a horse embryo. Welcome to Eneabba. The local service station was a testament to financial neglect – a crumbling cacophony of tin and wrought iron. Outside it, the local DNA deprived urchins plopped around in the mud, seeing who could light a cow turd first. This was a redneck Galapagos – I half expected a woman with four tits and a moustache to walk round the corner.

After deciphering the cave drawings on the petrol pump I ventured inside to settle up with my abacus, a hat and a mirror. My other half was already in there, leaning over the Bain-marie, salivating at the local slop. I peered inside the green house of fat and my arteries began to tighten in anticipation. We both plumped for a sweaty sausage roll – a one-finger salute to Medicare.

Following lunch, my stomach was about to erupt like Vesuvius and I could put it off no longer – I splashed through the rain puddles heading for the stink hut pretentiously titled “W.C.”. I tentatively pushed back the wooden saloon door to reveal a chamber of horrors. Imagine you had to use a portaloo at a Slayer concert after John Candy had squeezed out a toffee coloured log. Some nights I still wake up in a cold sweat, pyjamas soiled, quaking at the thought of that little boy’s room.

Later that night and we’re back home; snug in our city centre apartment, sipping Merlot and watching “Farmer wants his nuts”. Ahh…the joys of cosy domesticism. The Pinnacles was memorable, but in a perverse way I will always cherish our brief sojourn to Eneabba. It was an honest little eye sore full of character and decrepit charm. A rural 2 fingers to a world of plastic surgery, global branding, late night shopping, day light savings, evolution and clean toilets.