(Mail on Sunday. 2002)
A strange monument glistens in the winter sun in the small information bay on the road into the small town of Dampier, Western Australia. It’s a bronze statue of the region’s most infamous resident, who somehow managed to capture the hearts of the locals despite being an ill mannered, stinking vagrant, known primarily for his ability to steal food. Its inscription reads “The Pilbara Wanderer. Erected by the many friends he made during his travels.” Perhaps his saving grace is that our hero is of the canine persuasion; a ragged mongrel coated in the dust from the rust-coloured rocks.
In 1998, one of the people happening to pass by the memorial was Captain Corelli’s Mandolin author, Louis de Bernieres, visiting the area for a literary festival. He was immediately taken with this four-legged vagabond, and began to ask around for stories about his life. Though the hound went under a variety of names – to some, Tally Ho, to others, Bluey - to most, he was simply Red Dog. And it was this name that de Bernieres chose for his new collection of short stories, which celebrate the adventures, and misadventures of this curious character.
Dampier is situated in the Pilbara, a vast area of the outback around 1,600 kilometres north of Perth, the state capital. Home to just 1,500 residents, it takes its name from one of England’s more colourful explorers, William Dampier, a buccaneer and skilful mapmaker who navigated the coast in 1699. With a history of shipwrecks, whaling, pearling and farming, it now trades on its reputation as something of a fishing mecca - a beauty spot that becomes a haven during the winter months. This is unsurprising given that the sun at this time of year in north-western Australia is still enough to put British summers to shame.
It was the early 1970s when Red Dog arrived in Dampier with his owners. A restless pooch, he was quick to sever familial ties, initially finding his food on unguarded plates amongst the many barbecues held along the beach. “He was immediately a real character,” remembers local Jan Parks. “He’d steal snags and burgers from people’s plates. But people would love him. He was a real ‘Dinky Di’ Australian.” She refers, I assume, to his breeding, and not his propensity for theft. “The only trouble was, though, that once you’d fed him, he was quite difficult to shift as a houseguest. And it could get a bit unbearable.” It appears Red Dog’s legendary appetite had unfortunately malodorous side effects. “He was,” confirms Jan, “a complete stinker.”
Luckily for the locals, Red wanted nothing more than to broaden his horizons, living the life of a canine hobo and roaming as far afield as he could. Most of the transport in the area serves the massive Dampier Salt and Hamersley Iron operations, and it was among the single men that worked at these plants that he found most of his friends. They would feed him when passed through and deigned to grace them with his company for a few days, and club together to take him to the vets when he returned from his latest foray a little worse for wear.
He would regularly ride the huge, kilometre-long locomotives that crawl along the vast, open expanses laden with iron ore. Or he would wait at the side of the road and hitch a ride with the company buses, on which he became a welcome passenger as long as he kept his antisocial digestive habits under control. The roads around the Pilbara are long, dusty and straight, punctuated by the unsightly remains of unlucky kangaroos. Perhaps it’s something about the light, but the backdrop of the rocky red landscape makes you feel as though you’re driving along an alien, that is, Martian terrain, but with better roadsigns.
Red Dog would always find his way back to Dampier, though, and he certainly had a breathtaking coastline around which to indulge his nomadic tendencies. The area is home to a number of scenic hideouts, from the secluded natural bay of Hearsons Cove along through the administrative centre of Karratha (the Aboriginal for “Good Country”) to the lookouts of Cossack and Point Samson, good spots for whale watching during the right season.
Out along the Burrup Peninsula towards Hearson’s Cove, lie huge, cluttered piles of red rocks which look like they’ve been dumped with blatant disregard for the landscape by unruly mining companies, but are in fact an entirely natural phenomenon. Driving up the dirt path into the giant red formations sends the surprisingly shy kangaroos bounding in all directions. I thought they’d be friendlier – at least, that’s the mistaken impression I’d got from watching “Skippy” on TV as a child. There’s a small clearing and signs to indicate that you must proceed on foot as this is a protected area. It’s not obvious at first why a ramshackle pile of boulders is particularly worth protecting, but as you inspect the rocks more closely, you begin to see some crude but poignant carvings, evidence, of course, of much older inhabitants than those living in the towns.
The Aboriginal petroglyphs were carved into the rocks over 30,000 years ago and tell of ‘Dreamtime' and how life was for the first primitive inhabitants. At first, you feel like you’ve stumbled across the warnings of some kind of indigenous Blair Witch, but the carvings are not sinister, and simply describe the natural world, and man’s relationship to it. It’s not every day that you get to see art dating back to the Ice Age, and in fact this collection of over 10,000 carvings is the most concentrated collection of rock art in the world. Pulling out of the clearing, a hundred twitching marsupial noses start to peer out again from the iron-encrusted boulders.
For those with Red Dog’s nose for adventure, the area is well positioned for human exploration, too. Treks into the vast Karijini National Park are probably the best way to appreciate the spectacular chasms, waterfalls and gorges. They range from one-day tasters for photo-happy daytrippers to 3 or 4 day ‘walkabouts’ for those wanting to really get into the pioneering spirit. This can even involve instruction on the fine culinary art of Bush Tucker – the invaluable knowledge of where to find the tastiest grubs and recipes involving entrails that would have Jamie Oliver crying into his pasta maker. You can head out by yourself, though in this part of the world, where there are farm ranches the size of England, it’s probably better to book a place with someone who has a better perspective on the distances involved.
Red Dog’s personal distance record was a jaunt to Perth, hitching a ride with a family from Dampier and then beating them back home the following week. His wandering days came to an end when he fell foul of his indiscriminate eating habits, and swallowed a strychnine bait. He was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the bush, the tag on his collar reading ‘Red Dog - Bluey’ on one side and "I've been everywhere, mate" on the other. Many locals see his passing as symbolic of the passing of times where such characters could exist – sentimental feelings for a what was basically a flatulent, flea-bitten pooch, but nonetheless, a one-off all the same.
And de Bernieres’ only reservation? “I hope my cat never finds out that I have written a story to celebrate the life of a dog”.