Day 144 | Kalkarindji Caravan Park: OK, so it's just a grassy area next to the only shop that the horses come to at night
79 km | Heading west total: 6,573 km
The whole town seemed to be heading over to the Warnkurr Club so I traipsed in that direction as well.
Apart from the name it seems a more enlightened approach to alcohol than the blanket ban enacted recently in Halls Creek. Here you can only buy one can at a time and it is opened by the staff. They supposedly don’t serve people who are too drunk. People who cause fights are banned for a while and there’s nowhere else to buy grog in town, well for 200km. Security on the gate to keep the youngsters out. And they serve decent cheap food as well made on site. All run by the community and policed by the community.
For the record I only had one can of Emu. And I got a beef with black bean sauce to takeaway.
At Halls Creek, a town with a real alcohol problem until 3 weeks ago I am told, they stopped selling full strength beer. You can’t even buy a bottle of wine. The bottle shop that used to do a roaring trade was forced to sell only light beer. They responded by closing completely. Fitzroy Crossing stopped selling alcohol about 3 years ago so the closest bottle shop is now at Kununurra which is almost an 800 km round trip. Haven’t they worked out that prohibition doesn’t work yet?
The butcher who recounted all this to me was not happy.