Driving around the desert me and a mate happened upon a wooden shack at about midnight. I'd been three hours since a town or lights and was four hours ahead to a town or lights so we stopped at the shack cos it had a West End Draught sign lit up and we thought heaps of booze would help with the nights drive ahead. As we walked up to the shack there were three fellas sitting and they all shut up and stared at us with "You aint from round here" kinda thing (even tho we both had akubras on!) The joint was a gift shop, petrol pump and toasted sandwich kinda joint with a hole cut out of one wall with a fridge for a bar and some old wooden kegs with stools around outside. I swear this is deadly accurate and fully true, despite how terrifyingly grouse it gets - but, as we walked up and went "g'day, s'goen orn?" the biggest and meanest looking of the three fellas, standing behind the hole in the wall reached underneath and then slammed a fuckin huge bowie knife into the bar top where it stuck and he goes (first thing they said - middle of bumfuck nowhere - first thing) he goes "Yous cunts are lucky aren't ya? You just landed in Woolfe fucking Creek!" We just kinda laughed, naturally. But I put my hand on the keys in my pocket and got ready to bolt. He laid the bar with all these weapons, handguns and a dozen knives. they were all under the bar, he had a museum of brutality under there. He pulled out a long thin knife with a muzzled handle and said "we call this a pussy knife. You know why we call it that?" he had a small aluminium baseball bat shaped club that he said they liked to use on backpackers cos it takes longer. A bunch of shotgun sheels and brass knuckles n all. We asked em for a drink and he cracked two jack and cola cans and said "Awright… Wat r yous havin?" so we started drinking with em not wanting to puss and run. You know when a a dogs going at you and you know if you run it'll chase you? well the bar was loaded with hell. He told the youngest one steve to search us and steve got the keys and then steve went and searched the van. They said "wat are yous doing here? Yous sound like victorians. All yous fucken victorians do is eat dim sims and bloody fish cakes." which isn't all wrong but i still don't know what a fish cake is. They said "Yous is on the run. Where's the drugs?" but they couldn't find the drugs cos I'm fucking grouse at hiding important shit. they thought "yous is either on the run or yous is cops come up here to bust us" and they were aggressively nervous thinking we were either odd or jacks. They told us they were gonna murder us like the rest of em and bury us in the back yard and then they got the video camera out and said "say your last goodbyes".

Once we were a bit pissed my mate said "I'ma tell yous guys a poem" and then he got down on one knee and put his akubra over his heart. the old bloke, Ron, had a guitar and a hard case and he said "Hold on buddy". He reached into the case and pulled out this handgun, down in my man's face and said "Right! It better be fucken good!" and my man looked down for a second thinking then lept up and started "it was still down at the station, for word had got around!" and he start ad libbing this half banjo patterson half patronising sort of "come on boys! good on ya lads! It all yours for ya now good man!" sort of poem down the barrel of this colt 45. And then the three bikers were laughing and all. and then we arm wrested em and they won and the big one Mark says to me "I don't trust yous guys. Guys who don't scare easy" and it was all okay. They were only fucking with us, tryna scare us out and once we bit back a bit and told em we could kick the fuck outta them, they were grouse craic.

Then the bikers in Denmark in Western Australia mingling with jacks who were escorting them around the place and they all seemed like the same bag of fish. Jacks, bikers. liberal, labour. Hip Hop, Punk. Skateboard, BMX. Graffitti this, Graffitti that. Same shit, same smell. All clashing heads - and then they're all little kids who've no idea what they're up against.

Still, somewhere in the australian desert right now is a video of me, dead certain I was about to be murdered, saying my last good byes to my family, my friends and my country. just so you'll know, I told you all to pull your heads out your arses and go get fucked. I swear.