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After almost a thousand kilometres of driving
through practically nothing and craving a hot
shower and a nice warm bed, we arrive at the
campsite where I was presented with my tent.
A simple, basic tent. Not the glamping type,
but the type you see on sale at your friendly
neighbourhood hypermarket.
Ironically, as basic as it was, it was the most
amazing accommodation we had. At the end of the
day, anyone can stay in a five-star hotel; but this
here was a bajillion-star one as the lack of any light
pollution cleared the canvas for the most amazing
stargazing you’ll see outside of the Oscars.
Two days and many hard-to-pronounce towns
later, we reached City Beach in Perth, which is
where the first leg officially culminated. I had spent
my teen years and early adult life here, so I was met
by my in-laws who, of course, were eager to hear all
the stories about what I had seen in the Outback.
Which got me thinking. While I was wearing a grin
wider than the front grille of the Cayenne I was driving,if I were completely honest about it, looking back there
really was nothing much to see. There was of course
Uluru Rock at the start, as well as the exhilarating sight
of a pack of V6 Cayennes tearing through the landscape,
but the rest was seemingly an endless supply of desert
and sky that tended to meet halfway on the horizon.
So, I paused for a bit while I tried to attach the
feeling I had to something tangible, like a view
or something I could offer as a receipt. Until I
realised that I couldn’t quantify the experience by
what I saw. On the contrary, it was that vastness of
nothing that made it really something.
Because it provides perspective. It reminds you
of your place in the universe. It’s God’s way of
hitting the mute button, which forces you to listen
inward and allows that inner voice that has slowly
been drowned out by all that adulting, to start
speaking to you like an inquisitive child again. And
if you listen close enough, it will eventually ask
you: when was the last time you did something for
the first time?philippine tatler. august 2018 67