Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
His earlier decision to drive his convertible with the top down had been a bad one.
He was absolutely covered from head to foot with a fine coating of yellow sandstone dust.
It was so bad that the poor chap was almost unrecognisable and, worse still, the sand had
comprehensively destroyed his designer look.
Fortunately, he appeared to be completely unfazed by this. He bravely overcame a par-
oxysm of coughs and continued to beam at us with his twinkly eyes as the dust puffed up
around him.
“I understand that the guardian's house is just over the next rise. We'd better just pop
in to announce ourselves and then we can be on our way to view the main buildings. But, I
say
, it is a little dusty here isn't it?” he said, ending with a spluttered guffaw.
“So much for posing with the car hood down. Poor sod's covered,” Jack said with a
chuckle.
We followed at a respectful dust-free distance behind and, sure enough, over the next
rise, it came into view.
“Good God! Does someone actually
live
in there?” exclaimed Jack.
The dwelling was built (I use the word 'built' loosely) on the side of the track. It was
a tiny tumbledown shack with a dangerously bowed roof and numerous tiles missing. The
rest of it was in a similar state of disrepair. Shutters hung off their hinges, bits of plastic
were stuck on places where window panes should have been and there was a marked ab-
sence of paint on the wooden walls.
But in sharp contrast to this general picture of dilapidation, was the massive satellite
dish. It was so big that it took up over half the entire roof space. The only redeeming feature
about this eyesore was that it provided some shelter from water ingress by blocking a few
of the holes. A blessing in disguise on a rainy day, I supposed.
As ItsWill approached the door, it swung open and out shuffled what we presumed to
be the guardian. His appearance instantly resulted in a cacophony of barks from the dogs
who had been watching with interest and now sounded ready to attack. Poor Biff was really
going to town for some reason and got himself into such a state that he started fizzing. Even
Sam was standing.
While Jack tried to calm them down in that patient way of his, I took the opportunity
to peek beyond the emerging guardian's shoulder and have a quick look inside. It was dif-
ficult to see from where I was sitting but the place looked like an archaic bedsit.
Dominating the room was an enormous dust covered television and very little else.
There wasn't much space left but I could make out a table, a couple of chairs and something
else lurking in the background, which might have been a camping stove type affair. The
lights hung loosely suspended from the ceiling and were linked by some kind of a cable
dangling at head height.
It all looked very dangerous to me. What a terrible
mess
. Apart from being struck by
the utter squalor of this place, I couldn't help wondering how on earth he managed to ac-
